The Fifty Shades of ka-ching has struck again! In an early morning CBC radio interview today, a book columnist from Toronto was discussing the erotification (did I make this word up?) of the classics. Imagine! Jane Austen's beloved Pride and Prejudice now presented with eroticism leaping from its pages. I can think of nothing sadder.
Surely there are enough hot historical romances, many x-rated, on the shelves at the moment. Why resort to re-writing the classics? Money, that's why. They're in the public domain; E.L. James of Fifty Shades fame is accumulating royalties as fast as Rowling; and, everyone wants a piece of that pie. In other words, no...nothing is sacred anymore.
One fact that was pointed out, however, was with e-books, trends are exploited much faster. In traditional publishing, anyone writing to take advantage of a trend might find that trend has changed by the time the novel is published.
Not these days. With e-books, riding the trend is just a short formatting away. Is this good or bad? Will we hit the point of over-saturation with each trend? Will we run out of trends at this rate?
Do we care?
I do. If you can't be creative enough to write your own novel then better stick to your day job. Just leave the classics alone!
Linda Wiken/Erika Chase
A KILLER READ
Berkley Prime Crime, now available
READ & BURIED, coming Dec., 2012
www.erikachase.com
