“On 1 August 2012, amazon.co.uk announced that they had sold more copies of Fifty Shades of Grey than they had the entire Harry Potter series combined, making E.L. James their best-selling author ever, overtaking J.K. Rowling.”
Source: Wikipedia
Well-written, well-paced tales of a school-boy wizard, I think few would claim much real surprise to the ultimate appeal of Master Potter and his chums (even if it was the thirteenth publisher, Bloomsbury, who ultimately said yes to J.K. and her Philosopher’s Stone).
But female erotica, formerly print-on-purchase “fan fiction” (based on Stephenie Meyer's Twilight characters), who figured on the from-underground-to-epic rise of “Mommy Porn”?
In 2012, Fifty Shades of Grey is the publishing phenomenon that has just about everyone talking. Indeed, its success has everything to do with being such a Word-of-Mouth cultural juggernaut.
A heavy-loader that maybe no one saw coming, 50 Shades has caught on, captured the imagination, and became Absolutely Huge.
In hindsight, the Success Formula is wonderfully obvious. E.L. James has written something that titillates, deemed “naughty but nice” by the middle classes, giving them something beyond Wimbledon and the Olympics to whisper about through the Summer months. It’s satisfyingly risqué, while falling just the right side of risqué to have mainstream potential. And many have remarked that the real thrill in reading it is being able to read it without embarrassment, inconspicuously, but in public, on a Kindle.
And by the time enough Kindle-readers had excitedly eulogised and giggled with friends about how clit-lit was really hitting their spot, Fifty Shades had reached a critical enough mass to be mass-market, permissible, and ok to buy in Waitrose without danger of blushing at the check-out. While for those too easily prone to embarrassment, Amazon represents the purchase without stuttering excuse or comeback.
In an analogue world, E.L. James would never have become a multi-millionaire, would very likely have remained a wannabee Black Lace novelist. As it is, Fifty Shades of Grey might just be the first great Digital Novel.
SP.
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