EL James on the rise of lit-porn and Fifty Shades Of Grey

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By Stuart McGurk 01 August 12

The book to the left is a crudely written work of cliched erotica, based on a piece of Twilight fan fiction, by a 48-year-old mother of two from west London. And it's turning on your girlfriend - and your girlfriend's girlfriends - more than you do... Gentlemen, meet the competition.

The publisher says it's never seen anything like it. Stieg Larsson's thrillers were a phenomenon, but they never occupied slots one, two and three on the bestseller chart simultaneously, on both sides of the Atlantic. The Hunger Games trilogy managed that feat, but only briefly, and only after a box-office behemoth film adaptation had flung it into the pop culture sweet spot. Jonathan Franzen's work of serious literatureFreedom, Dan Brown's relic romp The Da Vinci Code, the final book in the Harry Potter series - all made sizeable marks. But none have had the meteor-impact thump of Fifty Shades - an awkwardly written trilogy of erotica by a 48-year-old British mother of two (EL James), which started out as an online piece of Twilight  fan fiction.

It's been banned from libraries in America, caused a spike in demand for bondage equipment and has sex classes based on it

So just how did that happen? And just why is your girlfriend reading it? (In case you were wondering, yes, chances are, she is. Don't think so? Oh sure, she's just clutching that Kindle on her own in bed, reading Little Women. You tell yourself that.)
At the time of writing - just a month and a half after it was published in earnest, after initially being self-published last year - more than ten million copies have been sold worldwide. By the time this magazine hits the shelves, that figure could have easily doubled.
"They're already the biggest-selling books of the year," says Neill Denny, editor-in-chief of the Bookseller. "And we're only a few weeks into [publication]." It's been banned and un-banned from libraries in America, has caused a spike in the demand for the bondage equipment it mentions, has seen sex classes spring up based on it, fan-fiction spiralling off it, and parodying it has become its own cottage industry - take your pick from Selena Gomez starring in Funny Or Die's Fifty Shades Of Blue to Saturday Night Live sticking the satirical boot in.
The trilogy, Fifty Shades Of Grey and the sequels Fifty Shades Darker andFifty Shades Freed, chronicles the adventures of a naïve graduate (Anastasia Steele), who falls for a handsome young billionaire (Christian Grey), who happens to be into S&M and bondage. It is, in short, The Da Vinci Code of erotica. This is not necessarily a compliment.
To understand its success, you first have to look to its origins. James' original story - an erotic spin-off featuring the characters Bella Swan (innocent, naive girl) and Edward Cullen (handsome, troubled-soul vampire) from tween supernatural romance Twilight - gained a cult web following. That, in turn, spurred James to give the characters two less libellous identities, and approach publishers. But no one was interested, so she self-published as an e-book last year. It was only when it went viral that traditional publishers picked it up. "It is actually the first genuinely crowd-sourced book," says Susan Sandon, the managing director of Cornerstone, who bought the UK rights to the Fifty Shades trilogy for a six-figure sum.
Yet, she doesn't mean crowd-sourced in the standard sense - not a Wikipedia-esque group creation, but, rather, crowd-published. The readers made the call. The publishers - Vintage in America, Cornerstone here - just took their lead. And it has led others to follow. HarperCollins has launched a new subdivison solely for erotic fiction called Mischief, Ebury is re-launching its erotic division Black Lace this September, repackaging old titles while hunting out new ones; and everyone is now on the hunt for the next Fifty Shades. Sales of erotic fiction, overall, are up by a third.
"It's like with Dan Brown," says Sandon. "You will have copycats."
Yet if Fifty Shades is the success the publishers didn't see coming, there is a good reason for that. It's pretty bad.
For the sake of research, I conducted a straw poll to see who I knew was reading it. In my circle of friends, a female journalist is reading it in her book group ("Best. Book group. Discussion. Ever"). A comedian is speed-reading it between gigs. In the GQ office, the junior fashion editor has just started it, and is disappointed about the lack of sex so far (she is, it must be pointed out, currently only on page ten). The editor's PA is reading it at the same time as her mother. If they wish, they can compare notes. A high-powered publicist I met in New York while writing this piece had read all three books back-to-back and was eagerly awaiting the film ("I'm literally counting the days"). www.vydox.com

Stuart McGurk