I
have some vague notion of what E.L. James novel “Fifty Shades of Grey” is about
although I did not know until today that this was actually a trilogy (you know,
like “Lord of the Rings”). I was not surprised to learn that the books have
sold 19.4 million copies in the U.S. and
31 million worldwide. What does surprise me is that in the U.S., the sales are evenly
divided between traditional books and e-books.
As
the child of book store owners, this distressed me. As a lawyer trying to watch
the trends, I find this fascinating. The book industry has apparently now
caught up with the music industry in its transformation into the digital realm.
We many not like it but its happening.
The
Wall Street Journal offered some anecdotal evidence as to why the digital sales
of the so- called “mommy porn” might be so high but the fact that nearly ten million
people willingly downloaded an ephemeral copy of this classic cannot be
ignored. This has got to make retailers nervous. However at the same time these
facts offer significant encouragement to both book publishers and those
exploring self-publishing.
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