An independent bookshop in Texas that opened its doors for the first time earlier this month and donates all its profits to charity has scored one of the literary events of the year: a rare signing event with EL James, the erotica author who releases her fourth novel, Grey: Fifty Shades of Grey As Told By Christian, on 18 June.
The novel, which gives Christian Grey’s perspective on the events in Fifty Shades of Grey, an erotic trilogy narrated by student Anastasia Steele, was announced two weeks ago after what James has said were the “thousands” of requests she received from fans asking for Christian’s point of view. Out today, the novel is Amazon.co.uk’s most pre-ordered book of the year in ebook and print, and Amy Worth, director of Kindle content at the online retailer, expects it “to be one of the biggest releases of 2015”.
Waterstones fiction buyer Chris White said that shops across the UK had boxes of copies of Grey waiting to be opened this morning. “It’s our fastest growing-pre-order of the year,” White said. “Fifty Shades was an e-phenomenon first, but it still sold 12m copies in physical, so even if it’s only crumbs the shops will pick up, we’re quite happy with that ... And from pre-orders, there are a lot of people out there who are very keen to get their hands on it.”
James, who worked in television before writing the story of Christian and Ana, initially as fan fiction set in the world of Twilight, is currently in the US and is doing only three events to mark publication: a signing at a Long Island hotel, one at Barnes & Noble in New York, and one on 20 June at the Bookworm Box store, which opened on 6 June in the small town of Sulphur Springs, Texas.
“She’s very involved in the writing community and is extremely supportive of other authors,” said the shop’s owner, the bestselling writer Colleen Hoover, of the Fifty Shades of Grey author. “I got to know her about three years ago and we’ve kept in touch. When she called and said she wanted to do a signing here, we were extremely grateful.”
The 500 tickets Hoover was offering for the event “sold out in one day, which was a shock considering we’re a small town in north-east Texas”, said Hoover, who launched online subscription service The Bookworm Box in March. With a team of volunteers, she sends subscribers a box of books, including two signed novels, each month, with all profit – $100,000 (£64,000) so far – going to charity.
“My husband and I were running the charity out of our home, storing over 4,000 books each month. We decided to rent a warehouse and in our search we came across what is now the physical Bookworm Box store. All profit from the bookstore goes to charity. Our store is operated by volunteers. EL James was one of the first authors to donate signed novels for the boxes and she’s been a big supporter since our launch. We couldn’t be more excited to have her as our first author.”
In the US, publisher Vintage has announced an initial print run of 1.25m copies; UK publisher Arrow hasn’t released figures, but said: “Pre-orders are very strong and we have great support from retailers in all our markets around the world.”
