If Marketing and Promotion can be unpredictable, viral marketing is a total crap shoot. You can have the world’s greatest idea and watch it fizzle and die on the vine, and you can have a goofy notion that takes off and becomes a household word – worldwide.

50 Shades of Gray (or Grey – I’ve seen it both ways) appears to be a great example of viral marketing on steroids. Everyone is talking about it, buying it and reading it. Except me. I am merely gathering feedback and wondering how this happened.

I have heard from a large and vast range of people on the topic. Not one has said it’s a good book. I have heard from people who are offended by any number of things from the graphic sexual content to the abusive way in which the demented main character treats women.

I have heard, from professionals in the field of writing, that the book is terribly written.
I have not heard one positive thing about the book other than the fact that everyone is talking about it. So what’s going on here, is this the Blair Witch Project of literature (and I use the term literature oh so loosely in relation to the printed piece in question)?

Perhaps it’s just sour grapes because my own recently published book is not jumping off of shelves at anywhere near the breakneck speed of this weird piece of work seems to be doing!

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