Author EL James is a mother of two
The main enticement of the book phenomenon they’re calling ‘mummy porn’ is that you can download it in private, writes Alice Wyllie
THEY say you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but perhaps we’re rather quick to judge a reader by the cover of the book in their hands, if the popularity of the smutty Fifty Shades Of Grey trilogy is anything to go by.
It is the biggest e-reader success story yet, and its record-breaking sales have been attributed, in part, to the fact that it is possible to consume erotic fiction on a Kindle without anyone knowing your naughty secret. It’s the 21st-century equivalent of hiding a dirty book inside a respectable newspaper, and what’s more, it can be purchased instantly and anonymously at home.
Fifty Shades Of Grey is the publishing phenomenon of 2012 and last week smashed the weekly paperback sales record, shifting 205,130 copies. EL James has become the first author to have two or more books sell more than 100,000 copies in the same week and the trilogy has sold 2.75 million digital and print copies in the UK and more than 10 million in the US in three months.
It is, for those who have not yet been subjected to its clunky prose and awkward descriptions of BDSM, the saucy tale of 21-year-old virgin Anastasia Steele and her 27-year-old lover, the enigmatic billionaire Christian Grey, who asks her to sign a contract outlining how their kinky sexual encounters will play out.
Starting out life as an online tribute to the teen vampire series Twilight and written by a mother of two from London, initially the novels were published by a small Australian press, meaning there were few hard copies available.
As a result, around 90 per cent of sales were downloads, and the books quickly rose to the top of e-book fiction best-seller lists. Two months since it was first published in the UK, it has become the most talked about book of 2012.
“Fifty Shades Of Grey is everything that is bad about women writing sex,” says Kate Copstick, the owner of the Erotic Review. “For a start, there is no sex until a third of the way into the book. The writer shows absolutely no respect for the world of BDSM and her ghastly, girly, game-playing protagonist would be more at home in a parody of a Jane Austen novel.”
Full piece at The Scotsman.
THEY say you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but perhaps we’re rather quick to judge a reader by the cover of the book in their hands, if the popularity of the smutty Fifty Shades Of Grey trilogy is anything to go by.
It is the biggest e-reader success story yet, and its record-breaking sales have been attributed, in part, to the fact that it is possible to consume erotic fiction on a Kindle without anyone knowing your naughty secret. It’s the 21st-century equivalent of hiding a dirty book inside a respectable newspaper, and what’s more, it can be purchased instantly and anonymously at home.
Fifty Shades Of Grey is the publishing phenomenon of 2012 and last week smashed the weekly paperback sales record, shifting 205,130 copies. EL James has become the first author to have two or more books sell more than 100,000 copies in the same week and the trilogy has sold 2.75 million digital and print copies in the UK and more than 10 million in the US in three months.
It is, for those who have not yet been subjected to its clunky prose and awkward descriptions of BDSM, the saucy tale of 21-year-old virgin Anastasia Steele and her 27-year-old lover, the enigmatic billionaire Christian Grey, who asks her to sign a contract outlining how their kinky sexual encounters will play out.
Starting out life as an online tribute to the teen vampire series Twilight and written by a mother of two from London, initially the novels were published by a small Australian press, meaning there were few hard copies available.
As a result, around 90 per cent of sales were downloads, and the books quickly rose to the top of e-book fiction best-seller lists. Two months since it was first published in the UK, it has become the most talked about book of 2012.
“Fifty Shades Of Grey is everything that is bad about women writing sex,” says Kate Copstick, the owner of the Erotic Review. “For a start, there is no sex until a third of the way into the book. The writer shows absolutely no respect for the world of BDSM and her ghastly, girly, game-playing protagonist would be more at home in a parody of a Jane Austen novel.”
Full piece at The Scotsman.
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