Fifty Shades of Grey and Fandom; a study of popularity

[starlite_gone]

Fifty Shades of Grey author EL James is planning to publish a writing guide

A person at litreactor wrote an article lamenting this fact but also questioned whether it should be more telling that a book that's largely thought to have be poor quality nonetheless sold 70 million copies worldwide. The question was whether the world is changing and

Comments

[epithalamium]

I think the site's back up again (although since I haven't attempted to post a comment, I wouldn't really know). But I did manage to look at the entry and some of the comments.

And I've never thought about it in that way, but I can definitely get behind your insight as to why the 50 Shades series is so damned popular. It's a way for 'normal', non-fandom people to feel naughty, but at the same time not delve too deep into the whole BDSM scene. It's safe, it's basically as readable as some of the Mills & Boon romances except it's longer and the covers look more 'professional' than your run-of-the-mill romance novel. It's 'new' to the people who have no idea what fandom is, the very idea of it having been based on Twilight seems to blow the minds of so many people... Idk. I guess there's are reasons why it's popular that hasn't anything to do with the style of writing, like you said

[starlite_gone]

Thanks for the heads up! I posted the comment over there just now, because it seemed a waste to have written that whole damn thing and not to post it there. Also, because my fan friends over here didn't say, "What! You're wrong! Stop misrepresenting us!" haha

I guess I could only every really judge people who were satisfied with reading EL James and didn't bother looking for something else/something better.

lol I know, right? That's what happened with me in fandom-- I found something I liked and looked for more and then discovered better things. I think, though, it's more likely these people in the "real world" will just stop at EL James or continue on a similar path of books like that. Maybe they'll make their way into romance novels but not far beyond. Maybe I'm wrong. I hope a lot of people who liked 50 Shades will take from this that 1) fandom isn't bad, if they loved 50 Shades so much, and 2) there's more out there to be found if they only look for it.

Which doesn't mean I still don't think EL James can't write for shit, but

[akayukihime]

I agree on most ideas about why 50 Shades is so popular - I'm not gonna argue there

[starlite_gone]

You make an interesting point-- since it WAS fanfiction, if she was a good fanfic writer she might have been trying to emulate the style. And I think even then that would also play into its popularity because, again, middle aged women or moms want to think sexy thoughts about Twilight but feel like they can't because of ages, but they totally CAN about 50 Shades

[fishydotlove]

It's really scary how your comment mirrors my thoughts o-o

I totally agree that that's how non-fandom people get their excitement. EL James practically just spoonfed people that don't usually read with their kind of ideal book. A little naughty but not exactly BDSM, the cliche daydreaming fantasy plot and also easy to read writing. I read the first two books and the unedited version of the third waaay before it was trending and while I admit that they are readable, it still annoys me when people gush about how amazing the series is. I was so very tempted to shove them some really good erotica or romance books. orz

But yeah, the excitement over the books really reminds me when I first got into BL fanfics and how I devoured every single fanfic entry on a community everyday. I still cringe when I see my old fanfics I faved.

[starlite_gone]

lol you SHOULD show them good erotica or romance books-- they'd realize what they were missing out on!

But yeah, the excitement over the books really reminds me when I first got into BL fanfics and how I devoured every single fanfic entry on a community everyday. I still cringe when I see my old fanfics I faved.

lol Jesus, me too. I can still remember some of the really awful things I read because I thought it was OMG SO GOOD and SO TRUE when it really wasn't at all. Actually, I cringe thinking about shit I WROTE. -_-

[lisa_thecat]

I haven't read the 50 Shades book and I don't intend to waste my time with such a thing. So I can't comment on the quality level of that particular book. The few published books of the genre that I got were pretty low quality, certainly lower than some of the books I could find on line for free. I don't understand how publishers make the choices. I tend to believe they are just as intelligent as the fans of books like 50 Shades and they clearly know what the market can digest.

I don't think fanfiction is something to look down on. It can lead to great writing sometimes. Often some popular pairings are just a pretext for great stories that are completely original. As for the on line success of the stories, it seems the more unoriginal the story is, the more fans it has. Popularity doesn't have much in common with quality.

[starlite_gone]

I'm trying to remember if this information I heard was related to 50 Shades (I think it was) or a different series-- but in an ebook class I took a few months ago, the teacher said that back in the day, self-publishing or publishing outside of the big traditional publishing companies was basically bound for failure or low visibility. Then self-publishing became popular online and it still wasn't super visible or accepted. This was because, especially with self-publishing, there is NO control over quality. But in the last few years, things have been changing a lot. Even though there's still no quality control for self-publishing, it's becoming more widely accepted, and the world is slowly on the way to accepting ebooks equally as print