I didn’t realize that people would want more. I just thought, I need to get back in touch with these characters, and that’s what I did. Then, of course, they made the movies and as everyone knows, the first movie was a very trying time for me, so I came back, and I just wrote the book, and I didn’t tell anyone. So, you know, then people said, Oh, we want some more of this. It was an interesting thing because, when it was fan fiction, I did write a couple of chapters from his point of view. “Fifty Shades” itself grew out of fan fiction, and your readers were already writing their own versions of “Fifty Shades” from Christian’s point of view. James followed “Grey” with “Darker,” a second book from Christian’s perspective, then took a detour with a stand-alone romance novel titled “The Mister.” Dissatisfied readers begged her to finish the Christian-centric trilogy, sometimes posting photos of their bookshelves with an empty spot to fill.

James, who first wrote “Fifty Shades” as “Twilight” fan fiction, rehashed the same plot but narrated it this time from Christian’s point of view instead of Anastasia’s. In 2015, she published “Grey,” which retells the steamy saga of the billionaire Christian Grey and his “submissive,” the demure Anastasia Steele. “Just don’t put it in a Happy Meal.”)įans still wanted more.

(“I set about trademarking everything because I didn’t want things on lunchboxes,” she joked. James trademarked and licensed “Fifty Shades”-branded wine, lingerie, floggers, vibrators and handcuffs, designing many of the products herself. It helped popularize niche sexual fetishes involving bondage, blindfolds and nipple clamps, bringing them into the commercial and cultural mainstream. Since “Fifty Shades of Grey” was released in 2011, her “Fifty Shades” trilogy has sold 165 million copies worldwide and was adapted into a feature film series that James co-produced. It is hard to reconcile the notion of James as a quiet, reserved homebody with the billion-dollar fetish franchise she created. “I’m incredibly shy under all of it,” she said. For a novelist who became famous writing hard-core erotica, E L James is surprisingly introverted.

Fifty shades of grey agreement