A market research has collected data pertaining to the most popular and therefore most purchased book of the decade. Starting the timeline at 2011 to 2019 research shows E.L James Fifty Shades of Grey taking the top number of sales contrary to poor reviews.
The erotic romance novel introduced dark shades of a sadomasochist relationship between a 21 year old college graduate, a wealthy entrepreneur and everyone reading between the pages. Originally taking shelves in the UK June 2011, the book ventured worldwide selling 126 million copies by June 2015 and translated into 52 different languages. Fifty Shades of Grey set a record for the U.K as the best-selling paperback of all time.
“Have you read the book?”
The question everyone was asking after seeing the Universal Pictures and Focus Feature adaption bringing the romance story to theater screens with perfect timing- a day before Valentine’s Day in 2015. The movie performed exceptionally well reaching box office success even though poor reviews suggested the book was far better.
According to the NPD Group (via NBC News), further looks into best-selling books of the decade show the two books following Fifty Shades Grey in the collection take 2nd and 3rd place. Giving even more success to author E.L James who suffered major backlash for her dark sex inspired pen.
Fifty Shades of Grey is the first of a trilogy, Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades of Freed being the 2nd and 3rd additions plus the story being told from the P.O.V of Christian being a fourth book and then Fifty Shades Darker as Told by Cristian, the fifth book of the series – all written by E.L James. The entire franchise totaled over 1.3 million collectively, books and movie tickets. All three books topping the list of best-selling books of the decade!
How’s that for dominance?
If you haven’t seen the trilogy yet, it’s available on YouTube, iTunes, Amazon Prime Video, Google Play and a few other streaming sites.
The original film is directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson, starring Dakota Johnson as 21 year old Anastasia and Jamie Dornan as the young business magnate Christian Grey.
