books like twilight and 50 shades of grey

“It’s almost like having thousands of editors at one time,” said first-time novelist Anna Todd who credits fan fiction and its open-forum style with helping develop her writing chops. “Readers of fan fiction are much more sophisticated than most people give them credit for-they’re quite discerning.” Accordingly, they’re not shy in expressing their opinions about stories. But her current crop of writers from the fan-fiction pool solicited her, she noted, adding that the submissions she receives from fan-fiction authors are often higher in quality than the average submission.

Three years later, with Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan bringing the guilty pleasure to life on the big screen this weekend, the fan-fiction world where the movie originated seems more relevant than ever for literary agents hoping to bank on the coveted “ Fifty Shades effect.”īelli and her colleagues have gotten into the practice of scouring popular fan-fiction sites, as well as Amazon’s comparatively new fanfic portal Kindle Worlds, for potential talent. “There was already a buzz about the trilogy in early 2012, appreciation for the books had gone viral,” she said adding, “all of the Big Six (five now) publishers in New York City were very keen to offer for it.” The trilogy started out as posts on the seminal site as an amateur writer’s erotic take on Twilight after its popularity online, the first title was released by a small publisher as an e-book and a print-on-demand title-not exactly an origin story fit for the notoriously elitist literary world.ĭespite its populist backstory, Fifty Shades was an easy sell for James’s literary agent Valerie Hoskins, thanks in part to the online accolades and word of mouth fueling its demand. James first signed a seven-figure contract with Random House’s Vintage Books imprint in 2012, some literary agents dismissed the deal as a fluke.

Books like twilight and 50 shades of grey