Five Shades of Gray

I’ve decided I’m barking up the wrong tree if I want to be a best-selling author. This morning I read that the novel Fifty Shades of Gray, which was initially independently published as a Print-On-Demand paperback, has sold more copies via Amazon in England than have all of Rowling’s Harry Potter series combined. That’s about 60 million books. That’s amazing.

 

So, I’m considering pulling Tangled Honor from Amazon, renaming it Five Shades of Gray, and spicing up the cover with images of ropes and padded handcuffs.

Here’s my thinking: the five primary characters in my book are all connected in some fashion, and one of them is a real stinker who likes tying women to the bed and having his way. I’ve not actually read Fifty Shades of Gray, or seen the new movie, but from what I read about it, my stinker is right in line with the plot of Fifty Shades.  So why are my Amazon sales some 59.9999 million behind Fifty Shades of Gray’s sales?

 

Maybe the important difference in Fifty Shades and Tangled Honor is that my stinker who likes kinky sex is only featured doing his kinky thing in one single chapter, not the whole book. Even then, I hope I wrote that chapter with appropriate restraint and discretion. I suppose I’ve effectively hidden the main selling point of my novel, instead of broadcasting it on the cover and in the plot from beginning to end.

 

Of course, I wouldn’t really do that, but the incredible financial success of Fifty Shades, book and movie, do give me pause to reflect on why a book by a beginning writer with that plot would strike a chord with so many readers. The book is not even really well written from the reviews I’ve seen, yet who can argue with sixty million sales.

 

I’d love to see Amazon’s records of the accounts that ordered Fifty Shades as an electronic download for a Kindle, IPad, or phone. With that many orders, I guess people in every demographic have bought copies: horny old men, as well as proper young women with a secret passion for a scary brand of sex. What do those record-setting sales say about our taste in books? It probably goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden, and we should ask Eve and the snake. I bet they both know.

 

On to other things: Our house was chaotic all weekend with houseguests and out-of-towners here for the Saturday night wedding shower-party that our next-door neighbors held for our younger son and his fiancée.

 

I suppose that it’s the way of the world. I started dieting two weeks ago, so I won’t have to buy a new, bigger, suit for their April wedding, then we endure a three-day home invasion for a pre-wedding party for the same couple, and feast on pizza, BBQ, and Mexican food. Not to mention the sweets and wine at the party itself.  

I loved every minute and every bite of the whole weekend, but the scales are not my friend this Monday morning. Just what does a new suit cost these days?