Photo

Reuters Photojournalism

Our day's top images, in-depth photo essays and offbeat slices of life. See the best of Reuters photography.  See more | Photo caption 

Photo

Weird homes

Home is where the heart is, no matter what unusual form that home may take.  Slideshow 

Photo

The drone wars

The frontlines of America's covert drone program.  Slideshow 

Sponsored Links

"Fifty Shades..." outsells Potter on Amazon UK

Related Topics

Photo

Billboard Music Awards

All the highlights from the show.  Slideshow 

LONDON | Wed Aug 1, 2012 1:22pm EDT

LONDON (Reuters) - The magic of J.K. Rowling seems to have worn off for British readers as erotic novel "Fifty Shades of Grey" outsold all seven Harry Potter books on Amazon.co.uk on Wednesday, making author E.L. James the website's best-selling writer ever.

The novel also became the website's biggest-selling book of all time, eclipsing the sales of the previous record holder, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows", by more than two books to one.

"If J.K. Rowling was the literary phenomenon of the last decade then E.L. James looks certain to take that mantle in the current decade," Gordon Willoughby, EU Director of Kindle, said in a statement.

"In just four months, E.L. James has become Amazon.co.uk's biggest-selling author of all time which is truly remarkable when you consider that we've been selling books for almost 14 years," he said.

Fifty Shades of Grey, James' first book, tells of the sadomasochistic affair between wealthy entrepreneur Christian Grey and naïve literature student Anastasia Steele.

Widely dubbed "mummy porn", the steamy novel topped book charts all over the world following its release in 2011, selling more than 4 million copies in print and on Kindle at Amazon's UK website alone since March 2012.

The x-rated book broke a separate British record in June when it became the fastest paperback to hit one million sales, taking 11 weeks to reach the mark.

Movie rights to the trilogy were bought up by Universal and Focus Features, U.S. media reported in March.

(Reporting by Alice Baghdjian; editing by Steve Addison)

We welcome comments that advance the story through relevant opinion, anecdotes, links and data. If you see a comment that you believe is irrelevant or inappropriate, you can flag it to our editors by using the report abuse links. Views expressed in the comments do not represent those of Reuters. For more information on our comment policy, see http://blogs.reuters.com/fulldisclosure/2010/09/27/toward-a-more-thoughtful-conversation-on-stories/
Comments (1)
bmcph wrote:
I read Fifty Shades….story was there but badly written. JKR is classic lit!

Aug 01, 2012 4:11pm EDT  --  Report as abuse
This discussion is now closed. We welcome comments on our articles for a limited period after their publication.