The drum beat of the news in regard to publishers is that the traditional publishers are dying. Some reporters try to assert that reading is dying (which it isn’t according to several different studies) or that paper books are dying (paperbacks are slowly waning, but hardcovers are holding steady or slightly growing).
So I found it interesting that RandomHouse is giving every employee (5343 according to Wikipedia) a $5000 end of year bonus. If the employee count is right, that is about $26.7 million dollars in employee bonuses against a 2011 of $1.83 billion Euros (it is a European company). According to a Washington Press article, the main driver of the bonus is the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy which has sold more than 35 million copies this year (another article put the total sales of Fifty Shades trilogy at around 60 million worldwide as of Nov). There have been other Random House books that have sold well, but it is 50 Shades that has been the surprise hit.