Fifty shades of marketing
Despite its lack of literary merit, much can be learned from Fifty Shades of Grey, especially from a marketing perspective says Cathie McGinn.
Let me be completely clear: Fifty Shades of Grey is the worst book I have ever read. It is far and away the most poorly written, repetitious, coy, scarcely literate bilge I’ve ever chewed through.
A good part of me wants to make bonfires of its pages and smash every Kindle or tablet carrying it, feeling much as poet and critic Ezra Pound did when he said: “The man of understanding can no more sit quiet and resigned while his country lets literature decay than a good doctor could sit quiet and contented while some ignorant child was infecting itself with tuberculosis under the impression that it was merely eating jam tarts.”
Yes, crappy read!!!
Male, late 40’s and caught up in the hype, I thought it was crap but it finished so badly. Gotta read the next one to find out what happens to the stupid bitch. 🙂
Porn movies are not going to win an Oscar for Best Director or Best Producer either but somehow I don’t think the point of these films is to become critically acclaimed masterpieces.
I haven’t read it all, but let’s not pretend that it ever tried to be anything other than an erotic tale targeted at women.
If you don’t expect that going into the book you have been severely misinformed.
I thought from all of the hype, and from my intelligent, worldly friends saying I had to get it, then it would be a great read. Sure, not a read that would need me looking up words in the dictionary but certainly one that I couldn’t put down. I could put it down, before I had even got through the fourth chapter. The woman’s character annoyed me too much to continue reading, it wasn’t even a ‘good’ version of a Mills and Boons – at least I know what I am going to get if I ever read one of those (which I actually haven’t done, it was an excerpt in a magazine.) BUT everyone was talking about it – this amazing ‘you must read it, I can’t stop thinking about Grey’ book…. was I missing something?? Clearly I got suckered in by the marketing, the hype built had me not wanting to miss out… it worked… pity though it was a negative outcome.
Probably one of few who haven’t read the stupid book. Thanks for this – will give it a miss and not look back!!
I was once desperate enough to read a Jackie Collins bonkbuster in BigPrint . . . is it as bad as that ?
Is it light enough to hold in one hand?
What amazed me is how unexposed the average woman must be to the kind of titillating material that is out there, given the way this work has been received as a “first”.
There have been (mild to explicit) erotica imprints for years but clearly their marketing has been a failure.
The good news is for publishers who have failed to capture this market so far is that consumers of erotica, much like consumers of visual porn, tend to want continuous fresh material. So now 50 Shades of Grey has finally made erotica mainstream and “acceptable”, there’s huge scope for more.
haha haha. That was exactly my response to the book and I am still trying to figure out the whole thing.
It is a terrible, trashy, and underwhelming book.
But it is compelling. I want to understand the psychology of it (although no one believes me and thinks I am just rationalising reading “porn”), because really, the sex scenes are repetitive, boring and unrealistic.
But it appeals to everyone who has ever believed that ‘true love’ conquers all — it’s the Disney Princess story all over again. Just poorly articulated, not spell checked & Prince Charming likes to spank. But the ‘fantasy’ is not in the sex itself… but in the narrative. That’s all I have so far.
Once a product taps into human curiosity (‘why are so many people reading it’, ‘is it as bad as people say’) and the ‘me too’ herd need (‘will I be excluded from my group if I don’t read it’) it is a guaranteed sales success.
The fear of missing out and the titillation of something a little naughty (but still OK to read in public) are powerful motivators of human behaviour.
Using them in pursuit of sales is simply sound science.
Has anyone read the Story of O? I remember reading in my MUCH younger days full of anticipation only to be bored stiff – quite the opposite cause and effect I was looking for!!!
What Cathie really seems to be saying is that it’s a case ‘authenticity stupid!’ The whole pre-print online following thing means people actually read it before it was given the whole marketing makeover.
Hilariously, it’s going to be an increasing phenomenon that anything is actually read by people offline will be seen as credible regardless of it’s merits because reading from paper will be increasingly been seen as eccentric and even subversive!