"Fifty Shades of Grey" has started a worldwide phenomenon.
It has started frenzy among readers and women that screams sex and eroticism and everything in between. It has opened the doors for people to talk about sex, what they like or don't like, and what they are willing or not willing to do. Most important of all, many people want to buy books that somehow fullfill their fantasies, which creates big book sales.
Proof of this is found with Barnes & Nobles.
According to the Associated Press, the steamy novel "Fifty Shades of Grey," written by bestselling author E.L. James, helped the book company narrow its loss while its revenue rose.
"Tech-savvy readers snapped up its e-books and other digital content during the period, while traditionalists headed to its bookstores for the popular 'Fifty Shades of Grey' series and other items," AP said, referring to Barnes & Noble's fiscal first quarter.
Barnes & Noble Inc., the largest traditional U.S. bookseller, having 689 bookstores in 50 states, has success based on its digital content with the Nook e-reader and e-books.
"Revenue for the retail division - which includes bookstores and its website businesses - rose 2 percent," AP wrote. "Revenue from bookstores open at least a year, a key gauge of the chain's health, increased 4.6 percent. This performance was buoyed by the 'Fifty Shades' sales as well as the Borders liquidation."
Sex has helped Barnes & Nobles, you could say.
This summer has been filled with erotic books.
Not only did "Fifty Shades of Grey" start a phenomenon, it also gave way to books like it.
"Bared to You" by Sylvia Day is another increasingly popular book.
A self-published book (like "Fifty Shades") became a New York Times bestseller. It has been on the list for 10 weeks, and also landed on several other bestseller lists. Similar to James' erotic novel, it is filled with S&M and sex, and centers around a relationship between an innocent girl with "no power" and a sexy man that totally intoxicates her.
A new "Twilight" fan-fiction has also added to a sex-filled summer.
"Gabriel's Inferno" by Sylvian Reynard is in line to be the next "Fifty Shades of Grey."
Penguin Books' Berkley imprint has signed a 7-figure book deal with the Reynard unknown author of two "Twilight" fan-fictions. The sequel is "Gabriel's Rapture."
"Gabriel's Inferno" and the sequel "Gabriel's Rapture" tells the story of Professor Gabriel Emerson, a Dante scholar who "uses his notorious good looks and sophisticated charm to gratify his every whim, but is secretly tortured by his dark past" and becomes romantically involved with his "sweet and innocent" graduate student. The romance "sends him on a journey in which his past and his present collide." Sounds like Anastasia Steele and Christian Grey.
Either way, sex sells. It is a fact, not opinion.
Have you read any of these erotic novels? Comment below!