Fifty Shades of Grey

The Writer's Coffee Shop, 2011. 1st Edition 2nd Printing. Soft cover. Near Fine. 8vo - over 7¾ - 9¾" tall. Dreamstime and Jennifer McGuire. The Writer's Coffee Shop, 2011. First Edition, the Lulu / LightningSource print run, with the spine roman numeral - the rough analog of "second printing" of the first edition. Octavo (9" x 6"), photo-pictorial wraps designed by Jennifer McGuire and executed by Dreamstime, 372 pp. Better than Very Good plus; about Near Fine; corners just touched, small folding to the corners of several consecutive pages, and the glossy cover, held at an angle, shows several faint impressed lines, presumably when original owner had written made lines on a piece of paper using the book as a hard surface. Sharp and clean, showing no smudging, soiling or other signs of prior use except as noted. See scans. The memorable Fifty Shades of Grey started as an author-promoted submission to The Writer's Coffee Shop in 2011, who then contracted with Lulu Self-Publishing (printing) and Lightning Source (distribution) to fulfill a growing international wait list of hardcopy requests, then in January of 2012 with Hill Print Solutions to handle USA print-after-order requests; from January to May of 2012 (Random House acquired the rights in May), Hill printed 3,500 copies of Fifty Shades of Grey, 2,000 copies of Fifty Shades Darker, and 3,000 copies of Fifty Shades Freed. Some Hill copies of the first two titles are nevertheless dated 2011; the rest are dated 2012. The very first Lulu copies (of this title only - not the latter two in the trilogy) lacked a roman numeral at the top of the spine, apparently because it had not yet been decided that there would be a trilogy. All later copies of Fifty Shades of Grey, by Lulu OR Hill, as well as all copies of the 2nd & 3rd titles, have the respective roman numerals I, II, and II at the top of the spine. The number of copies of Fifty Shades of Grey lacking the roman numeral is unavailable information, but it is a very small number. All Lulu copies have the number 90000 above the bar code area on the back cover; all Hill copies have the number 51999 in that location. Hence, with regard to the Fifty Shades of Grey title, the Lulu copies with no roman numeral on the spine are the first printing of the first edition; the Lulu copies WITH a roman numeral can be thought of as the second printing (though, to add to the collectible varieties, there are apparently a long-text rear cover and a short-text rear cover of these 2nd state Lulus; priority unknown, but short-text would most nearly - not exactly - match the true first state rear cover); the 2011 Hill copies dated 2011 can be termed the third printing, and the Hill copies dated 2012, the fourth printing. Because printing was print-after-order, and done in response to wait lists of unknown size and growth rate, there may have been some Hill copies physically printed before some later Lulu copies; we'll almost certainly never know. This is the paperback, print-after-order world, and it's just different. It's certainly very rare for such a title to become the phenomenon this one has for collectors and the general public. Nevertheless, the above chronology is reasonable and based on statements from the principals - and it gives collectors four different forms of the first edition to collect. The Random House edition, then, is the second edition (Hill Print Solutions was just a subcontracted American printer for TWCS' first edition). This copy is a Lulu / Lightning Source copy, dated 2011, hence a "second printing" of the first edition of this title. Yes, some early Lulu copies of all three titles were accompanied by black TWCS bookmarks bearing the respective titles, the number of these being apparently unknown. Also, some copies do refer to having been printed in Lexington, KY - number also unknown. Note: while there are now hardcover editions available, some showing the original 2011 copyright year, these are all later versions. All first edition copies of any of the three titles were softcover (paperback), and were published by The WCS. L47n