One-hundred-million copies of EL James's erotic trilogy, Fifty Shades of Grey, have now been sold around the world, her US publisher announced today.

More than 27m of the books, which tell of a billionaire's seduction of a college student, were sold in the UK and Commonwealth countries, Vintage Books said, with more than 45m copies sold in the US, and one million or more sold in Germany, France, Spain, Brazil, and Holland.

James's novels have now been translated into 51 different languages in total, including Thai, Hebrew, Icelandic, Latvian, Korean and Mongolian, said Vintage.

"Guys ... thank you for this," tweeted James, as the news was announced. "Thank you, thank you, thank you."

Starting life as fan fiction set in the world of Twilight, Fifty Shades was first released as an ebook by tiny Australian press Writer's Coffee Shop in May 2011. James's books were soon signed up by Vintage, which released them in the spring of 2012. They began to climb the bestseller lists, and at the peak of sales, two copies of the trilogy were selling every second, according to the publisher. The first novel in the trilogy, Fifty Shades of Grey, has now spent 100 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list.

The novels, Fifty Shades of Grey, Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed, trace the dark erotic relationship of the 27-year-old billionaire Christian Grey, who is "tormented by inner demons, and consumed by the need to control", and student Anastasia Steele. They include the memorable lines "He's my very own Christian Grey-flavoured popsicle", " My inner goddess is doing the merengue with some salsa moves", and "I steal into the bathroom, bewildered by my lack of underwear", and have inspired countless imitators, parodies and spin-offs.

A film, starring Jamie Dornan as Christian Grey and Dakota Johnson as Anastasia Steele, is due for an initial release in France on Valentine's Day 2015.

[SOURCE: UK GUARDIAN]