JK Rowling earns a spell-binding €114 per minute

HARRY POTTER author JK Rowling has been named the celebrity world’s ninth highest earner, raking in £77 (€114) a minute.

Her tales of the boy wizard and accompanying endorsement deals made the writer £41 million (€60.9m) last year, according to US business magazine Forbes.

Rowling is the only non-American on the list, topped by Hollywood director Steven Spielberg.

The magazine’s Hannah Clark said: “With the £77 she earns every minute, Harry Potter author JK Rowling could buy more than a few boxes of Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans, one of the young wizard’s favourite sweets.”

Forbes estimates Spielberg, whose projects include War of the Worlds and ET, made €267m in 2005, or €507 every minute.

Microsoft founder Bill Gates remained the overall richest man in the world, worth €40 billion.

If he makes a 7% return on investment — the average amount the stock market appreciates each year — he earns €5,345 a minute, according to Forbes.

Rowling, who created Harry Potter while living in Edinburgh, is working on the seventh and last instalment of adventures at Hogwarts School.

Worldwide sales of the Potter books are reported to have topped 300 million, while the first four film adaptations have helped make Rowling one of Britain’s richest people.