How Erotic Romance Saved the World

                           

Yep, I totally stole that title. What can I say? I watch a lot of the History Channel. Now, did erotic romance really save the world? Probably not, but it has brought lots of secret lives out of the closet. I mean BDSM was on the Today show for the love of all that is Holy.
I will attempt to tell you my story. Okay not really because I am not one to share a lot of my life with complete strangers. Now moving on.
I have been a reader my entire life, but I didn't start hardcore till I read my first romance. Now my Grandmother was a huge, and I mean huge, Barbara Cartland fan. She had every one of those books and read them often. So I always knew romance books were out there. I read my first romance at maybe 9 or so, when I snagged on of my sister’s books. I was hooked just that fast. All through high school, I would stay up all night to read and then shower and head off to school. I came home from school and napped, and the cycle started all over again. I was reading Diana Palmer and Linda Howard when most girls were reading the Judy Blume books. Although, I did read Forever. This didn't really become an addiction till I found erotic romance.
Now I was minding my own business, just being hooked on a few authors, when my friend Bonnie decided to send me a book for my birthday. What was the book that introduced me to erotic romance? Shayla Black’s Decadent.  I wasn't sure about this book, and I had never read Shayla before. So I just put it under my pile of other books and figured that I would read it when I was out of books. Wow, was that a mistake. I should have read it first thing. That book started my addiction to erotic romance that is still raging out of control. Now you know part of my story, but let me tell you what I have learned about what I call the 50 Shades phenomenon.
I work in retail and have always wanted to work in the movies, music and book section of the store. It finally happened when one of my friends moved away. I took over the departments. The sales in these areas are going down because everyone buys ebooks and downloads the movies and music.
A friend of mine had recommended the 50 Shades books to me, but I just wasn't that interested in them because I had heard good and bad about them. To this day, I still have not read them, but I digress. I was shocked one week when I was reading the new release list. I saw that within the month, I would be receiving paperback copies of a book that had been out a while in ebook form. I saw that it was 50 Shades and started laughing. One of the guys I work with asked me what was so funny, and I told him I wondered if the people at corporate knew what this book was about. Let me tell you, Zack was shocked when I told him. He is a young pup. What can I say? He had never heard of this book or read anything about BDSM. On a side note as I explained it to him, he was getting red in the face and I was having a good time. He now calls BDSM, Sex with Helmets.
Sorry, now back to my story. For those of you that don’t know new release come out on Tuesdays, I was curious to see how this book sold because I live in a small Midwestern city and people here have sticks up their butts. I put the books out and by noon, we were sold out. I was shocked, to say the least. I put a rush order in and found out that the company was sold out as well. For months, every time we received copies, they were gone on the same day. I started hanging out more in the book area just so I could watch the people try and covertly put what they called smut in their carts. It made me laugh so hard because I have read way more explicit books.  My favorite thing is to watch guys work up the balls to pick it up. I have helped several people who had seen something on it but were confused about what it was about. Let me tell you, they are shocked that I know about BDSM and am willing to talk to them about it.
Since the release of 50 Shades, I have seen the sales in the book department triple what it was last year. To those of you who don’t care, that means that stores are going to keep books when most of them were debating on phasing out all physical copies of books. I have seen not just the sales of adult books soar but also, when we started carrying more erotic books, all book sales across the board, including kids’ books went up as well. When people come in and ask about any book and people are willing to help them choose books, then they buy more books and not just for themselves. I think that erotic romance has helped people remember the joy of reading and in turn, they have passed that on to their children. Instead of hearing kids say can we go to the toy section, I sometimes hear can we go and get a book.  This makes me smile every time because I know when I see some of these people, I remember that I helped them pick out books to read after they discovered the joys of erotic books. So to me, that means Erotic Romance has helped save the world by reminding them that there is another world just waiting between the covers of a book.

Sinfully Sarcastic,
Shmuttmeister