The Market for and Marketing of 50 Shades
Some bits of info on (1) the readers and (2) marketing from ye old Wikipedia. Note the role of "viral marketing," with its own link and discussion on Wiki:
"The novel was released in both e-book and a print-on-demand paperback in June 2011 by The Writers' Coffee Shop, a virtual publisher based in Australia. The second volume, Fifty Shades Darker, was released in September 2011, and the third, Fifty Shades Freed, followed in January 2012. The Writers' Coffee Shop had a restricted marketing budget and relied largely on book blogs for early publicity, with sales of the novel boosted by word of mouth recommendations. The book's erotic nature and perceived demographic of a fanbase that includes women that are either married, over thirty, or both have led to the book being dubbed "Mommy Porn" by some news agencies.
By the release of the final volume in January of 2012, news networks in the United States had begun to report on the Fifty Shades trilogy as an example of viral marketing and of the rise in popularity of female erotica, attributing its success to the discreet nature of e-reading devices. Due to the heightened interest in the series, the license to the Fifty Shades trilogy was picked up by Vintage Books for re-release in a new and revised edition in April 2012."
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifty_Shades_of_Grey
Some bits of info on (1) the readers and (2) marketing from ye old Wikipedia. Note the role of "viral marketing," with its own link and discussion on Wiki:
"The novel was released in both e-book and a print-on-demand paperback in June 2011 by The Writers' Coffee Shop, a virtual publisher based in Australia. The second volume, Fifty Shades Darker, was released in September 2011, and the third, Fifty Shades Freed, followed in January 2012. The Writers' Coffee Shop had a restricted marketing budget and relied largely on book blogs for early publicity, with sales of the novel boosted by word of mouth recommendations. The book's erotic nature and perceived demographic of a fanbase that includes women that are either married, over thirty, or both have led to the book being dubbed "Mommy Porn" by some news agencies.
By the release of the final volume in January of 2012, news networks in the United States had begun to report on the Fifty Shades trilogy as an example of viral marketing and of the rise in popularity of female erotica, attributing its success to the discreet nature of e-reading devices. Due to the heightened interest in the series, the license to the Fifty Shades trilogy was picked up by Vintage Books for re-release in a new and revised edition in April 2012."
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifty_Shades_of_Grey