Links! From Various Corners of the Tubes!

50 Shades The internet is a series of tubes you know.

That book with the shades of grey? It's everywhere-  including this column from contracts blogger Ken Adams on his impressions of the contract written into the story: “Grey is a telecommunications mogul, and he has evidently absorbed the semi-literate contract verbiage regurgitated by his high-priced lawyers.”

50 Shades of Grey [Goodreads | Amazon | BN | Sony | Kobo] released in paperback to massive bookstore orders  – over 400,000 copies according to this article from Rachael Deahl at PW. Deahl and I were guests on WPIX's morning news show to talk about the success of the book, immediately before a segment featuring two husbands whose wives had read the book, discussing how the book had changed their sex lives.

When I read Deahl's article last night, my jaw dropped a bit at the idea that there would be lines at a bookstore to get a copy, but given that the book was on the cover of half the Entertainment Weeklys sent out this past Friday (I got that cover, and the rest of the EW-verse got a cover with Katniss, over which I am very jealous), there's going to be a lot of curious people wanting to read the new hot thing.

Whether or not people line up at the bookstore, I learn on Twitter last night that the holds for this book at different libraries are amazing: over 275 in Brooklyn, over 500 at the LA Public Library, and over 1000 holds in one county on Long Island. Stacey Agdern said last night that she believes a lot of people asking for the book are “trend readers,” who read Hunger Games, the Larsson books, and now want to read the next big thing.”

She's likely right about that.

From Vulture's snarky take on it to PW's list of alternates to 50 Shades for those curious (I would recommend Cerise Sinclair or Lorelei James' books first and foremost for those craving erotica that explores power balance), there is no shortage of press coverage. 

(Thank you to Rakisha and many others for the links).


From librarian of awesome, Jennifer Lohmann comes her library branch's entry in their Peeps diorama contest: Peepton Abbey. Among the other awesome: Diary of a Wimpy Peep. It makes me want to go hang out at the Durham library all the time. Seriously.


red strapless dress with very vag-looking ovals down the front below the waist. Gry forwarded me this link to a New Statesman article by Helen Lewis about book covers – specifically book covers for works about female sexuality:

Naomi Wolf has written a book about vaginas (or should that be vaginae, Latin nerds?) which comes out this autumn. It's sure to be much talked about, particularly as it promises to “radically reframe how we understand the vagina”.


There's only one problem, and if your eye has already started to stray down this page, you'll know what it is. Books about female sexuality obviously can't put a picture of what they're about on the cover; there would be carnage at WH Smith's. So instead they rely on pictures of buds, flowers or figs, or suggestive ovals filled with stuff.

Clearly we need more than flowers, figs, and candy bows. This dress, sent to me as “the perfect dress for confereces” by Zoe Archer (the picture, not the actual dress) would make a GREAT book cover for a tome about vaginas, right?


Speaking of things perfect for conferences, I've said many times that the most funnest sessions at Romantic Times are the games (which is why I'm hosting Boner Donor Bingo).


Tessa Dare, Zoe Archer, Nico Rosso, Vivian Arend, and Louisa Edwards are putting together Romance Family Feud, and they need… survey respondents!

The survey is online here, and it takes about 8 minutes, 10 if you think really hard. This is one session I will totally try to attend because I bet it will be hilarious.


From o'Reilly comes this interesting story about attempting to recreate psychometry, a talent that appears in many a romance novel: The Reading Glove engages senses and objects to tell a story:

We also wanted to explore wearable technology with the glove; the goal there was to invoke the idea of “psychometry,” or the psychic power of object reading. When you pick up the objects, you hear the echoes of the past, what these objects experienced, and then you use this power to piece the story back together. I developed a guidance system that helped to navigate the non-linear narrative, adding an adaptive or intelligent component to the experience. We've gotten some really interesting results out of it, such as how people talk about a system that has intelligent components, how much they anthropomorphize it and how accurate their estimates of its “intelligence” are.


From Kimberley N. comes this research article from the Center for Media Research on a recent Harris poll report that says the more people that own digital reading devices, including tablets, the more likely those people are to buy digital books:

The rise of eReaders may actually be a positive for publishing companies who are embracing electronic books. Among those who are currently using an eReader, three in ten (29%) say they typically read more than 20 books in an average year, while one in five (21%) say they read between 11 and 20 books and one-quarter (24%) read between 6 and 10 books. So, almost three-quarters of eReader users are reading 6 or more books in an average year.


So, what articles have you read recently that were interesting? Share share!

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General Bitching...

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  1. KatiD says:

    If readers are looking for a book that is better written, but similar thematically to 50 Shades, but better written with *scorching* love scenes. I strongly recommend Bared to You by Sylvia Day. It released today and it is quite erotic.

     

  2. Lobo Tómia says:

    Around the 20th of March a Hungarian publisher sent out a newsletter, that the book everyone is talking about will be translated and can be pre-ordered (will be available in print in the beginning of June). So I guess World Domintation is on its way for E.L. James.

  3. LongStrider says:

    We’ve got over 200 holds on the first book alone in my library system.

  4. Gemma says:

    After you play the Family Feud game, I hope you publish some/all of the responses. I had particular fun coming up with an animal shifter I’d like to see. 😀

  5. I would also like to see some of the results because I had fun answering it. I had to think kind of hard for some of them. lol.

  6. Pear says:

    Latin nerd speaking: Because “vaginas” is the object of “about” which is a prepositional phrase, and the Latin preposition for “about” as used here is “de” which takes an ablative so it should really be “vaginis.” There are Latin prepositions that take the accusative which could use “vaginas” though.

  7. Lori says:

    I used to live in LA county and was a regular patron of the LA library. FWIW, a 500 person hold list is unusual, but not unheard of. (I was once number 370-something for a Brockmann and I put my name on the list before the book was even released.)

    Also, if the general pattern for erotica in the library’s collection holds true I expect all copies of 50 Shades will be “lost” by the end of May.

  8. CarrieS says:

    A non-fiction book about vaginas..I feel a geek review coming on (dons spectacles of nerdness).

  9. Julia says:

    Aww man, I am stumped on the very first question of the survey. Hottest profession? I mean, I primarily read historicals… people don’t really have professions. Can I put “being a gentleman” as a profession?

  10. HollyY says:

    I’d love to see the responses for Family Feud posted somewhere too. It was fun completing the survey. LOL

  11. ChaoticChris says:

    So, out of curiosity, I just checked the 50 Shades holds at the Hennepin County Library (includes Minneapolis MN and the western Twin Cities metro area) – 908 holds as of now.

  12. LisaCharlotte says:

    Im so contrary. 50 Shades is so popular that I CAN’T read it now.

    Had fun with the survey. Tropes abound!

  13. Heather says:

    Yeesh. That’s a lot of holds! I’m going to read 50 Shades on my Kindle and see what’s up. I’m not really a trend reader—I felt absolutely no urge to read the Millennium trilogy, and don’t care much about reading Hunger Games.

  14. Susan says:

    The ABC news site had a 50 Shades/Mommy Porn (their term) article today.  I didn’t read it.  I guess it’s too late to wish this would all go away, right?

  15. BellaBetty says:

    That must be my e library system, too. I actually first heard of the books here, and when doing a routine scan of new e-books was surprised to find the Fifty books. So when the list was a managable 35-40 I put myself down for one and two. Got them pretty quickly, and jumped on to wait list for the third at around 85. Noticed as the wait list grew the system added copies- over 100 of the first book last peek. The longest list is for the first one (over 900 a few days ago). Glad I did it a few weeks ago, yeah, wouldn’t do it now. Haven’t even thought about the reg library. ( Do we call that the brick and mortar library?)

    Oh and Sarah- all home delivery of E got 50. Newstand got Katniss- I think it said it inside the magazine. My tablet copy had Katniss, too.

  16. Zoe Archer says:

    I definitely will!

  17. Zoe Archer says:

    I’m definitely posting the results after RT!

  18. DreadPirateRachel says:

    Yay! It was a fun survey. I have to admit I was stumped a few times. I’m so not good at those open-ended questions; I tend to go on and on about the relative benefits of chocolate vs. cabernet when reading a romance.

  19. Wait, wait—there was an EW cover with Katniss on it this week as well? Now I’m even more annoyed that I had 50 Shades in my mailbox! 

  20. Heather says:

    It’s not even listed in the library catalog here—and I live in a big city! However, I did find this article with a name drop of SB Sarah! http://jezebel.com/5892524/is-

  21. Leah says:

    I finally decided to cave and see what all the fuss is about with 50 Shades.  I tried to reserve it for pickup at my local B&N yesterday, and found out that it had been sold out at all the B&Ns in the Rockville/Gaithersburg/Silver Spring Maryland area!  Sigh.  I bought off of Amazon.

  22. Kim says:

    Yeah, in my county (Nassau County on Long Island) there are:

    1692 holds on first copy returned of 245 copies

  23. Duffydea says:

    279 people currently on hold for Fifty Shades of Grey, covering most of the Las Vegas valley.  It looks like they’re planning to get 43 copies.

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