Fifty Shades of Silver: appetite for racy novel exhausted Britain's supplies of ink By Abigail Frymann Demand for the racy bestseller Fifty Shades of Grey was so colossal that Britain ran out of the silver ink used on the cover, the book's publisher revealed. Dame Gail Rebuck, who was chief executive and chairman of Random House until it merged with Penguin last week, said they were caught out by Britons' ferocious appetite for E.L. James' novel. The novel, which tells of the sadomasochistic affair between millionaire entrepreneur Christian Grey and naïve student Anastasia Steele, topped book charts all over the world. Sales in Britain took only 11 weeks for to reach the one million mark following the book's release in 2011. Silver shortage: Dame Gail Rebuck (right) revealed that when Random House decided to print another two million copies of Fifty Shades, rocketing sales in Britain had already exhausted Britain's supplies of the silver ink required for the cover so they had to look to Germany to source more In an interview with The Times Dame Gail said: 'I remember the day the publisher came into me and said, "Gail, we are reprinting two million copies of Fifty Shades and the UK has run out of silver ink."' She added: 'We had to go to Germany. I have never seen anything like it. The book, dubbed 'mummy porn', sold 4.46m copies in Britain last year, the second novel in the trilogy, Fifty Shades Darker, sold 3.16m and the third, Fifty Shades Freed, 2.9m. Bestseller: E.L James' first novel sold its first million copies in 11 weeks in the UK and is the fastest-selling paperback of all time Worldwide more than 70 million copies of the trilogy's books have been sold. Its runaway success resulted in a record sales year for Random House. Last December chairman Markus Dohle paid staff, including warehouse workers, a US$5,000 bonus because of Fifty Shades' strong sales.