Thursday, July 26, 2012

50 shades...

I'm a bit lost as to what the answer is for the phenomenal success of 50 Shades. I'm going to stick with my theory of the fan-fic beginning, because my other theory terrifies me!

One of my friends said, "... the first chapter kept me reading - how many award-winning books have I struggled to read through the first chapter? This one was easy to get into..."

And I didn't get it. The first chapter didn't hook me in. It did quite the opposite. It was like reading my first drafts and tearing my hair out because I don't say the same thing once or twice but about fifteen times. And that was the first chapter - everything I've been schooling myself out of.

50 Shades is written in 1st person present tense. The exact thing I have been told so many times won't sell. So that's good. I have a HUGE book to say - well, that did. I haven't had that before. I've questioned my decision to write this way, so many times, but now I have someone else doing this, mega-successfully.

So, I've come up with no reason why this has become so huge. My friend was hoping I would. She was looking forward to me buying a European house and having her there for holidays! LOL.

I look forward to what this book does for the erotic genre, and for authors (and would-be authors) writing in 1st person, present tense!

Friday, July 20, 2012

50 shades

So much has been written about this book and how it's opening up the erotic genre - or not. It's popularity is undeniable... so I decided I had to buy it to dissect it and try to work out why.

Before I start, my thoughts were that the fan-fic beginning was what made this popular - word of mouth sent it sky rocketing before it was published in paper. And we know how popular Twilight is. So I thought it tagged on to that craziness.

But maybe there's more...