Bowker has released a new survey focused on the demographics of readers who purchased a copy of Fifty Shades of Grey by E L James. According to the research, 20 percent of these book buyers were male in the United States and 30 percent were male in the UK.

All the data was drawn from Bowker Market Research’s Books & Consumer US monthly tracker survey, analyzing a representative sample of 6,000 U.S. book buyers every month. Here’s more about the U.S. survey:

buyers of the Fifty Shades books are more likely to be women, live in the Northeast, and have a significantly higher household income. They read fewer paperbacks and more digital books versus last year and are especially likely to use a hand-held device such as a Kindle. Their purchase of a 50 Shades book was more likely to planned — just 11 percent were whims – and oh yeah, nine out of ten times the purchase was for “pleasure/relaxation,” but it’s worth noting that an intriguing one percent were purchased for “work/career” reasons.

The French publisher Lattes has sent “warning letters” to publishers it feels are infringing on the copyright of Fifty Shades of Grey.

The Telegraph had this quote from editorial director Laurent Laffont: ”Some of these titles, which pick up on elements of the book, are clearly parasitical … We would like those planning new releases next year to know that we are watching very closely to ensure they are not parasitical.”

Online authors should never forget that readers can travel backwards in Internet time and explore their earlier work. Author E L James scored a seven-figure book deal to publish the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy and a movie deal quickly followed.

This erotica bestseller began as a work of Twilight fan fiction called Master of the Universe, earning a massive fan fiction following years before the book deal. Most traces of this fan fiction history have been removed from the Internet. Using the Wayback Machine, we were able to take snapshots from James’ old work–getting a peek into the book’s previous incarnation as an X-rated version of the Twilight story.

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Amazon Kindle has released a list of Kindle bestsellers to celebrate the fifth birthday of the reading device.

Interestingly enough, Fifty Shades of Grey by E. L. James was the top selling book of all time on the Kindle.

We’ve collected the two lists below, a walk down memory lane for eBook fans. How many of these bestsellers have you read? Over at AppNewser, you can download the top free apps of all time.

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Christina Hobbs and Lauren Billings have landed a “substantial” book deal with Simon & Schuster’s Gallery imprint for Beautiful Bastard–a repurposed version of the fan fiction hit, The Office.

The book will be released in February, published under the pen name, Christina Lauren. Hobbs and Billings (pictured) share a blog called Swoontini. The pair are represented by Holly Root from the Waxman Leavell Literary Agency.

The Hollywood Reporter had the scoop: “The Office, which reimagined the Edward Cullen-Bella Swan relationship as a steamy love/hate romance between a boss and his assistant, was one of the pioneers of the Twilight fanfic genre, generating more than two million downloads, before being taken offline by the author in 2009.”

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The Piccadilly branch of the UK bookseller Waterstones spoofed E. L. James and Fifty Shades of Grey, creating an eye-catching display of titles from Persephone Books–the sleek covers all decorated with the same “One Shade of Grey.”

We’ve embedded a photograph of the display above, it reads: “Oh the bliss of Persephone Books! Beautiful editions of titles by neglected female writers.” Persephone Books is a UK publisher that releases both fiction and nonfiction. You can explore their catalog at this link.

Here’s more from the publisher: “Waterstones in Piccadilly has become our new favourite shop ever – totally without telling us they have done this fantastic display – very many thanks to cathyreadsbooks for taking the photograph. For weeks we have resisted making comments about really good grey books as opposed to really not good – ‘One Shade of Grey’ is a far wittier way of doing it.” (Via.)

On November 5th, UK-based anti-domestic violence group Wearside Women in Need plans to burn copies of E.L. James‘ Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy.

According to Mail Online, director Clare Phillipson championed the bonfire after reading two-thirds of the novel. She explained: “we have libraries wasting and grossly misusing public money to buy a book which says: ‘domestic violence is sexy.’”

The New York Daily News reported that Ohio-based DJs Chad Zumock and Alan Cox also hosted a Fifty Shades burning back in July 2012. Cox argued that their event did not advocate censorship because all the participants joined in voluntarily.

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The designers at Neo Mammalian Studios have created “50/50 Shades of Grey,” an infographic looking at the sales figures, genre stats and literary merits of E. L. James‘ mega-bestselling erotica novel.

We’ve embedded the complete chart below, click to enlarge. What do you think?

The infographic includes a dramatic breakdown of the romance genre’s domination of the publishing scene. Here’s an excerpt: “Romance fiction was the largest share of the U.S. consumer market in 2010 at 13.4 percent. Romance Market Share Compared to Other Genres: Romance [was] 35.6 percent, Religion/Inspirational: 19.9 percent, Mystery: 17.9 percent, Science Fiction: 14.7 percent and Classic Literary Fiction: 11.9 percent.”

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Random House posted a 64 percent increase in operating profit for the first half of 2012. According to Variety, the publisher also boasted a 20 percent increase in revenue–rising to $1.2 billion.

Here’s more from the article: “The titillating [50 Shades of Grey] trilogy sold more than 30 million copies between March and June, with sales evenly divided between the trade paperback and e-book editions. The Social Network producers Michael De Luca and Dana Brunetti are producing the big-screen adaptation of Fifty Shades of Grey the first book in the trilogy, for Universal Pictures and Focus Features.”

Random House also credited the growth in eBook sales and the popularity of some of their biggest bestselling authors including George R.R. Martin  (A Song of Ice and Fire series), John Grisham (Calico Joe), Gillian Flynn (Gone Girl) and Dr. Seuss (The Lorax).

Forbes has just released its annual list of the World’s Top-Earning Authors. We’ve listed the top five writers below, along with their income–follow this link to see the whole list.

In his feature about the list, journalist Jeff Bercovici singled out Suzanne Collins, E.L. James and J.K. Rowling as rising stars on the list.  Here’s an excerpt from the article:

At the height of “Fifty Shades” mania, the erotic novels were estimated to be generating as much as $1.3 million per week for their author, E.L. James. And that’s not counting the $5 million she received from Universal Pictures and Focus Films for the theatrical rights. Add it all up and James is assured of a place near the top of next year’s top authors list. (Perhaps “Twilight” author Stephenie Meyer deserves a cut of that? James’s books originated as works of “Twilight” fan fiction.)

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Record label EMI is capitalizing on the Fifty Shades of Grey erotica sensation by releasing a new soundtrack to go along with the book.

Fifty Shades of Grey – The Classical Album is meant to be listened to while reading the three book series. It has 15 tracks on the album, including music that is mentioned in the book such as The Tallis Scholars’ performance of Spem in Alium, Flower Duet from Lakmé, Pachelbel’s Canon in D, and the aria from Bach’s Goldberg Variations.

If you want to sample ALL the music in the book, try Meg Latimore‘s massive Fifty Shades soundtrack mix (Spotify link). It includes 212 songs and 15 hours of music…

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