Fifty Shades of Grey: Secrets to Success

Love it, or hate it

 Fifty Shades of Grey is a story you can’t ignore. 

A book that seemingly came out of nowhere to roar up the books sales chart to become one of the fastest selling books in the 21^st century, is a sensational ‘Rags to Riches’ word of mouth tale.

E.L. James's Fifty Shades erotic trilogy sold more than 70 million copies in ten months between March to December 2012. This made it the fastest selling series for any publisher. (Bertelsmann, 2012 Annual Report). By contrast, Stieg Larsson’s, best selling Millennium trilogy and Lizbeth Salander’s highly popular Dragon Tattoo took four years to sell 20 million copies.

So why all the hype…. there's a lot of speculation as to why this book ripped up the charts and stole all the publishing coveted prizes. Before we answer that question I'd like to talk you through how Fifty Shades of Grey reached such a big audience so quickly.

E.L James, or Erica as she was known then, was a London wife and working mother who worked in television.  She started writing on fan sites a series of related stories inspired by Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight books. During this time she got feedback from loyal followers, which allowed her to develop her characters and experiment with the themes of their relationship. The first volume of the Fifty Shades story was released in May 2011 as an e-book and pay on demand paperback by Writers’ Coffee Shop, based in Australia. The next two books followed six months later.

This is where the story gets interesting.  Over the next few months the books gather momentum. Loyal readers discussed the book via their blogs and social media. This reached other influencers like suburban Connecticut, and a group called DivaMoms.com, who invited Erica James to come and visit them in New York. Viral chat escalated and it spread like wildfire.

Anne Messitte, publisher of Vintage division of Random House, realized the appeal of Fifty Shades of Grey. Random House struck a deal in March 2012, valued around million dollars, according to news stories at the time. Messitte put down the extraordinary success of Fifty Shades of Grey to the Internet and word of mouth exposure.  Social media amplified the ‘noise’ and built a sub culture of people like it had never done before, says Messitte. The media heard the noise and then amplified it even more causing a frenzy of discussion and more book sales.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMQmfI0-2F4

So why did this book reach such a critical mass so quickly, when other books had taken five to ten times as long. Some put it down to the classic romantic story line. Some say success is due to the sexual themes and non-typical relationships portrayed in the story.  Some say it was due to well developed characters and their backgrounds.  Maybe because people could read it in 'private' even though they were in public, by downloading it onto their kindle or iPad.  

I believe Fifty Shades of Grey success grew from a word of mouth epidemic created by Gladwell's identified characteristics aligning at the right time.  

Lets run through Gladwell's 'tipping point' characteristics and see how they fit with the 50 Shades case at point.

• Point 1 - the law of the few – E.L James (Erica) built early momentum with a loyal audience through developing her story on the fan site.  These loyal followers then spread the word, which then influenced other and so on.

• Point 2 -  the stickiness factor – the content of the book was extremely memorable.  This was the first time woman truly started talking about this taboo topic. Never before had we openly discussed  bondage, domination, sadism and masochism (BDSM) with our friends, let alone our daughters and mothers.  It pushed women beyond their comfort zone – which made it unforgettable.  

•  Point 3 - the power of context – the environment was right for this type of topic to be debated, and debated it has been.   Views were polarised, which meant reactions were emotional and the debate was extreme.  It became powerful and explosive.  The use of Kindle and iPad technology enabled people to read naughty literature in public without having to be judged or feeling that they were on display.  This provided women with a sense of liberation and freedom.

Social media just amplified the epidemic to world-wide proportions because the topic was of global interest and enjoyed by so many.