Publishers are scouring the world of fan fiction to find the next hit author

Fan-fiction writers have for decades parlayed their passion for writing stories based on movies, TV shows, and books into careers as best-selling genre authors. But they haven’t often advertised to readers their pseudonymous identities as fan-fiction writers when they were published under their real names: Naomi Novik’s fan persona as author and cofounder of the fan-fiction platform Archive of Our Own wasn’t part of the marketing of her best-selling “Temeraire” series, for example. 

Yet there’s been an uptick in authors whose origin stories as fan-fiction writers are publicized as part of their appeal. Ali Hazelwood, the best-selling author of romance novels “The Love Hypothesis” and “Bride” (the No. 4 best-selling book in the US in February) and a former writer of “Star Wars” fan fiction is the most visible of this new crop of fic writers gone pro. Thea Guanzon, another author of “Star Wars” fan fiction turned her story “The Hurricane Wars” into a published book thanks to an editor who discovered it in its original form on Archive of Our Own.

As book sales skyrocketed during the pandemic, online fan communities emerged more starkly as proving grounds for potential best-selling writers, a place for agents and editors to identify new talent to meet demand for recreational book spending. As a result, the science fiction, fantasy, and romance markets are increasingly relying on the successes of fan fiction authors, which speaks to the growing power of fans in determining who makes it big outside the fan-fiction sphere. 

“Publishers are mining self-publishing for new voices,” Kristen McLean, a publishing analyst, told me. She pointed to self-published authors who’ve gotten major deals, like Freida McFadden, as well as to other publishing trends that center the power of fans. Popular fantasy author Brandon Sanderson’s record-breaking $16M crowdfunding campaign, for instance, allowed him to self-release new works directly to fans. 

Within the larger landscape of self-publishing, fan fiction has been a fruitful proving ground for authors in genre spaces. “There has always been a segment of writers who got their start in fan fiction who move into professional writing, especially in science fiction and fantasy,” said Diana Pho, an editor at science-fiction imprint Erewhon Books. Built-in audiences for particular fictional relationships, like Reylo (Rey/Kylo Ren) in “Star Wars,” can help writers get their work in front of huge numbers of readers — an act of brand-building that can greatly improve their professional prospects. 

Consumer spending on books boomed in 2020 during pandemic lockdowns. Sales of romance and fantasy books have continued to surge — romance saw a 52% boost from 2022 to 2023 — and have stayed popular as the rest of the industry returns to the post-Covid mean, with both genres leading fiction growth in 2023. Romance and fantasy are favorites of BookTok, the digital juggernaut made up of thousands of book fans on TikTok that has sent authors like Sarah J. Maas and Colleen Hoover to the top of the charts. 

Kurestin Armada, an agent who represents science-fiction and fantasy authors, said she’s acquired new clients from fan-fiction websites. These authors already demonstrate a particular writing style agents are looking for, one that has a clear appeal to a large audience of hyper-engaged readers online. 

“There is just a really bright voice that comes from fan fiction,” Armada said. “It's just fun. It's very contemporary leaning, even if it's genre fiction, which is a really fun mashup. They tend to be really voicey authors. They tend to have a really good grasp of character.”

The visibility of the fan-fiction-to-published fiction pipeline began in 2011 with the publication of E. L. James’s explosive “Fifty Shades of Grey,” known to have begun life as a “Twilight” fan fiction called “Master of the Universe.” “Fifty Shades” has sold 165M+ copies and been turned into two feature films. Wattpad, a popular self-publishing platform with nearly 100M readers, is known for hosting fan fiction in the “self-insert” genre, which sees an original character the reader is meant to identify with paired up with a celebrity or fictional character. It has spawned several successful adaptations of its IP in the past decade, including the “After” series by Anna Todd, originally fan fiction about Harry Styles.

Increased recognition of the power of self-publishing, especially by fan authors, has led to author revelations that would’ve been unthinkable even a decade ago. SenLinYu is the pen name of the author behind the hugely popular “Harry Potter” fan fiction “Manacled,” with nearly 8M hits on Archive of Our Own. She announced she would be repackaging and republishing it as an original work with Penguin Random House, while keeping her fan author name on the cover.

Brigitte Knightley’s popular Draco/Hermione fan-fiction story “Draco Malfoy and the Mortifying Ordeal of Being In Love” led to a fanbase of her own and an agent. Her new book deal announcement in Publisher’s Marketplace even introduced her up front and openly as “Fanfiction writer isthisselfcare.” 

An author connecting their fan-fiction identity to their professional one can have pros and cons. From a marketing standpoint, it can help find an audience immediately: the fans of Knightley’s “Harry Potter” stories celebrated her book deal, anticipating new original work. “I love today's transparency in talking about fan fiction,” Diana Pho told me. “Writing fan fiction has become more understandable as part of pop culture… it's seen as a valued artistic hobby, where one can learn to craft skills and find a like-minded group of other creatives who can support writers as they develop their work.”

It’s no longer mandatory for fan-fiction authors to shed their fan identities to go pro. But as Armada said, “There is a dark side tying an author's identity so closely to the fan-fiction identity.” It can leave authors, especially debuting authors, open to harassment and criticism of their new professional work on the basis of their past work in fandom. “It may not be in line with an author's long-term, traditional publishing career goals,” Armada said, warning that the short-term publicity benefits may not outweigh the difficulty an author might find if they ever wanted to leave their fandom past behind. 

But in an industry that continues to face challenges, especially from new technologies and digital trends, the runaway success of so many fan-fiction authors in the mainstream is showing that even more obscure corners of the internet are fertile ground for publishing talent.

Allegra Rosenberg is a journalist in New York.