Random House had its corporate Christmas party last night in New York and word is that Santa likes bondage. A lot.
Markus Dohle, the chief executive of Random House, promised employees - from top editors to warehouse workers - a $5,000 annual bonus to celebrate a profitable year. The cheering went on for minutes, according to people in attendance.
Call it 5,000 shades of green.
This year, Random House has had the good fortune to publish E.L. James's “Fifty Shades of Grey,†about an inexperienced college student who falls in love with an older man with a taste for trying her up and whipping her among other delights. The book has topped The New York Times paperback best-seller list for 37 weeks and counting. The sequels “Fifty Shades Darker†and “Fifty Shades Freed†have been in the top five for a similar amount of time.
The e-books have been bestsellers even longer.
Also, Random House has also had other monster bestsellers including “Gone Girl,†a mystery by Gillian Flynn that has sold over one million copies; “Wild†by Cheryl Strayed; and John Grisham's latest “The Racketeer.â€
The bonuses will go out in the next paycheck. To be eligible for the full bonus employees must have worked a full year at the company; everyone else will receive a pro-rated gift.
Stuart Applebaum, a spokesman for Random House, a division of the German conglomerate Bertelsmann, confirmed that several thousand American employees would be covered.
The first book in the “Grey†series was originally published by a small house in Australia, but was acquired by Vintage, a Random House division, in the beginning of the year and has been a publishing phenomenon almost ever since. According to Random House, the book has sold more than 35 million copies in the United States alone.
Leslie Kaufman writes about the publishing industry. Follow @leslieNYT on Twitter.
