That’ll buy a lot of whips.
Employees at Random House — from top editors to mailroom clerks — are getting a $5,000 Christmas bonus thanks to the runaway success of its racy best seller “Fifty Shades of Grey.”
The E.L. James novel — an erotic tale of an inexperienced college student who falls in love with an older man with a penchant for bondage — has topped The New York Times paperback best-seller list for 37 weeks and counting.
The novel, sequels and e-books have sold 35 million copies in the United States.
For employees, that means a nice fat check in the fishnet Christmas stockings.
A Random House spokesman, Stuart Applebaum, said several thousand American employees would be covered.
The handsome bonuses will go out in the next paycheck, in time for holiday shopping.
To be eligible for the full bonus, employees must have worked a full year at the company, the spokesman said. Everyone else will receive a prorated gift.
When the gift was announced, by Random House CEO Markus Dohle, at a holiday party Wednesday night, the applause went on for minutes.
“The cheering was enormous,” said Applebaum, himself a happy recipient. “People were stunned. People were grateful. They can’t wait to next week.”
Several other titles contributed to the publisher’s holly jolly Christmas. “Gone Girl,” a mystery by Gillian Flynn, sold more than a million copies. “Wild” by Cheryl Strayed and John Grisham’s latest “The Racketeer” each spent time on best-seller lists.
But nothing burned up bookstore shelves like “Fifty Shades of Grey.”
Not bad for a book that was originally published by a small house in Australia.
Random House acquired the title at the beginning of the year and it took off.
Publishers say the e-book formula has also fueled sales of the genre because it allows for privacy, even on a crowded subway train.
Bottom line: Sex sells.
Rights to the books, which include “Fifty Shades Darker” and “Fifty Shades Freed” have been sold in 37 countries, and the film rights were purchased in March.
Employees who want to take their bonus money and let it ride could always invest it in the who-plays-Christian Grey-in-the-movie-version sweepstakes.
Protagonist Christian Grey is a young, kinky business magnate, and among the actors named in association with the role are Robert Pattinson, Ryan Gosling, Christian Bale and Michael Fassbender.