The first novel alone spent 100 weeks at the top of the New York Times Best Sellers list, being translated into 51 languages, including Korean, (Flood, 2014). Like many modern works of literary fiction, James’ work began as an e-book, before being rebranded to include print. Despite its humble beginnings with Australian Writer’s Coffee Shop in 2011, the series has rocketed James to fame, with global acknowledgement of her sales achievement. Had the book been published originally in print it is unlikely to have thrived, its success as an e-book opened the market to be released in print.
James’ success opened the floodgates for budding writers to self-publish erotic fiction in abundance. To prove my point, I typed ‘Erotic' into the Kindle Store, leading to 71,215 results from Amazon alone, (Amazon, 2014). There are endless erotica titles now being digitally self-published by writers desperate to follow James’ success. Some have achieved this, such as Sylvia Day’s Crossfire series, of which the first two novels, Bared to You and Reflected in You sold over one million copies. Reflected in You sold 82,000 copies within six days of its release, (Thomas, 2012). Much of this is the ‘Fifty Shades Effect’, with fans of the trilogy scouting for new works to read. However, only a very select few of the thousands who are creating erotica are seeing any real success, and yet, the waves of new erotic content continue to flood the digital publishing market.
Despite the confusion I have over the hype surrounding the Fifty Shades series, and the media attention created, I am not so short sighted that I cannot see the benefits the trilogy has created for the publishing industry.
In 2012, ‘a record amount was spent on books’, with sales of fictional e-books rising by 149%, (Flood, 2013). The number of digital sales of the trilogy helped to soften the blow of a fall in print sales for publishers, and therefore act as a blessing for the publishing industry, in terms of financial statistics at least. However, my message to the world is this, I think we have had enough of erotic fiction now. Lets allow another genre of literary fiction to have its time in the spotlight and give erotica some time to recover and evolve, shall we? Please?
491 Words.
Photo of Book Cover Accessed via:
<http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/5e/50ShadesofGreyCoverArt.jpg> [Accessed 11/11/14]
Bibliography.
Amazon website, Kindle Store, Erotic Fiction, (Online), Accessed from:
< http://www.amazon.co.uk/erotica-fiction-ebooks-kindle/b?node=362277031> [Accessed 25/10/2014]
Flood, Alison, (2013), The Guardian, (Online), Fifty Shades of Grey Has Boosted the Book Trade, Accessed from:
< http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/may/01/fifty-shades-of-grey-boosts-book-trade > [Accessed 25/10/2014]
Flood, Alison, (2014), The Guardian, (Online), 50 Shades of Grey Trilogy Has Sold 100m Copies World Wide, Accessed from:
< http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/feb/27/fifty-shades-of-grey-book-100m-sales > [Accessed 25/10/2014]
Russon, Mary-Ann, (2014), International Business Times, (Online), Fifty Shades of Grey Joins the Top Ten Best Selling Books: How Many Have You Read?, Accessed from:
<http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/50-shades-grey-joins-top-10-bestselling-books-how-many-have-you-read-1438234> [Accessed 25/10/2014]
Thomas, Liz, (2012), The Daily Mail, (Online), The new Fifty Shades: Latest mummy porn trilogy by American author Sylvia Day is even more sexually explicit than 50 shades selling 1m copies in UK in 3 months, , Accessed from:
< http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2226840/Sylvia-Days-Crossfire-trilogy-set-new-50-Shades-Grey.html > [Accessed 25/10/2014]