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Messitte believes that the extraordinary speed with which Fifty Shades of Grey has reached its audience is directly attributable to the Internet. Shifting reading habits in the digital age played a role, too. Messitte scored one of the true publishing coups of this era and deserves accolades galore. So she initiated negotiations with James and a representative that culminated with a deal in March valued somewhere near a million dollars, according to news stories at the time. From what could hardly be a more obscure launch, the books began to gather momentum on the Internet through blogs and social media so that, by January 2012, chatter among its readers reached places like suburban Connecticut, and a group called on Manhattan's Upper East Side invited James to make a visit.Īnne Messitte, publisher of the venerable Vintage division of Random House, realized the appeal Fifty Shades of Grey clearly was having on a highly desirable audience, including among some women she knew.
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The first volume was released as an e-book and print-on-demand paperback in May 2011 by Writers' Coffee Shop, based in Australia, with the other two books following over the next six months. In time, James refined her principal characters and developed the racy themes of their relationship.
#HOW MANY BOOKS ARE IN 50 SHADES OF GREY SERIES#
James, a London wife and mother of two working in television, started writing on fan sites a series of episodes inspired by Stephenie Meyer's Twilight (yet another of the mega-million publishing spectacular trilogies of the past few years). The story of how Fifty Shades of Grey came to the mass market is itself a wonderful tale. (I'm told that number is more indicative than precise, but in any event, the revenue volume is vast and growing.) Fifty Shades of Grey is still atop every paperback and e-book bestseller list and has, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal several weeks ago, roared past the revenue mark of $145 million. By contrast, Stieg Larsson's bestselling trilogy of suspense novels featuring journalist Mikael Blomkvist and his dragon-tattooed partner Lisbeth Salander, widely regarded as a sensation in its own right, took four years to sell 20 million copies in various formats. (This includes the second and third volumes, Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed.) It took about four months to reach that number, with sales about equally divided between print and e-books.
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The book initially was thought to strike a chord mainly among married thirty-somethings, but now enjoys a readership ranging from teenagers on up, reportedly selling more than 25 million copies in paperback (at $15.95) and e-book ($9.99) formats in the United States market.
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What's remarkable about Fifty Shades of Grey, though, is the breadth of its appeal to women and the speed with which it became a household name. print copies sold of the seven books in the Harry Potter series and the more-than 50 million copies in print of the three Hunger Gamesbooks are examples of how young readers can be the catalysts for these kinds of cultural crazes. Technology is, of course, changing the industry drastically, but Fifty Shades of Grey is the latest example of another profound reality about books: Periodically, they can ignite a cultural fervor so intense that tens of millions of people respond to join in a common experience in a relatively short time, as they do with movies or television. But the saga behind Fifty Shades of Grey's impact - not the content of the books themselves, which is a whole different subject - is fascinating in its own way.