On October 15 1992, Madonna threw a pre-release "Sex Book" launch party at New York City's Industria Superstudio, and signed all the invitations under her Sex alter ego "Dita"

On October 15 1992, Madonna threw a pre-release "Sex Book" launch party at New York City's Industria Superstudio, and signed all the invitations under her Sex alter ego "Dita"

During the party, Madonna showed up dressed as Little Bo Peep and even carried with her a stuffed toy lamb. Madonna's publicist Liz Rosenberg showed concern at first due to "what the parents of America's impressionable teens will soon be thinking" but later said that it "all depends on your idea of lovemaking, which in Madonna's case, should give new meaning to the word erotic". Both Waldenbooks and Barnes & Noble prepared corporate statements that the managers could share with customers who are offended by Sex. (Both statements defended the right of bookstores to provide "diversity and choice" to customers and say censorship is not the role of bookstores.) Many book stores, too, stated that the book would not be sold to anyone under 18 and that it would be for display only behind the cash register. Bookstore owner David Epstein stated that "The feeling of most people who have ordered the book is that Madonna is something special, that this is cutting-edge art, […], they're not the kind of people who are buying it because it's smut and dirty pictures. People are interested in it as art."

Sex was finally released on October 21, 1992, by editorials Callaway and Warner Books; it was also the first work released by Madonna's company Maverick.To accompany its release, a comic book as well as a promotional single containing a stripped-down version of "Erotica", titled "Erotic", were made available. The book was released by Madonna as alongside her fifth studio album Erotica, which had been released a day earlier. With an initial print run of one million copies of the first edition in five continents and in five languages, the price of the book was $50 ($84 in 2015 dollars) at retail, making sex an "expensive visual book". Nevertheless, the book managed to break records regarding the number of copies pre-ordered before the release. Nicholas Callaway pointed out that the book was an unprecedented hit, because the print run of an average art book ranges between 5 and 10,000 units. He described it as "the largest initial release of any illustrated book in publishing history".

More: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_(book)#Release_and_promotion