Ao3 to NYT: The Fanfiction to Bestseller Pipeline

By: Ily Crawford

E. L. James, Olivie A. Blake, Ali Hazelwood, Anna Todd, Naomi Novik—do any of these names sound familiar? You’ve probably seen them on the New York Times Bestseller List, on the #Booktok table at your local Barnes and Nobles, or in the credits of book to film adaptations. What do all these authors have in common, however? They all started out writing fanfiction.

         The origin of fanfiction is generally credited to a Spock/Kirk story from a Star Trek fanzine in the seventies Since its conception, its only grown in popularity, and now has websites dedicated to it, such as Fanfiction.net, Wattpad, or Archive of Our Own, more commonly referred to as Ao3.

         Let’s go back to the names I mentioned at the beginning. While some of them, such as Naomi Novik and Olivie A. Blake, started out by writing fanfiction, the rest of the names on their list had their fanfiction become their published novels. Fifty Shades of Grey by E. L. James is arguably the first noteable entrance of fanfiction as mainstream media. The popular erotica novel began as a Twilight fanfiction, and paved the way for future fanfictions, whether erotic or not, to see mainstream success. Ali Hazelwood hails from the “Reylo” fandom—the popular pairing of Rey and Kylo Ren from the Star Wars sequels—and many readers have pointed out the obvious similarities between the Star Wars characters and the leads of her debut novel The Love Hypothesis. Anna Todd’s Y/N (short for “your name,” a self-insert for the reader) x Harry Styles fanfiction became the After series, which later became a film series with five installments. Clearly, publishers are finding potential in the fanfiction itself, rather than just the talent of the author.

         But why has fanfiction seen so much mainstream success recently? I have a theory. Currently, tropes are huge. To get a potential reader interested in your book, the only things you really need to throw out are “Enemies to Lovers” and “There was only one bed.” Fanfiction thrives on tropes. On Archive of Our Own, specifically, fanfiction is tagged by the tropes it uses, and one can sort through the works based on which specific tropes one wants to read. Want a friends-to-lover-slow-burn-hockey-romance? No problem, just click on the tags. Even popular romance plots, such as the “mafia boss” or “billionaire boyfriend” were popular tropes in which the boyfriend in question would be a fictional character or celebrity.

         An interesting thing to note about the fanfiction that gets traditionally published is that they are almost always straight romances. Fanfiction has always been an integral part of fandom culture, but even more so to queer fandom culture. In a world where the media is dominated by straight, cis-gendered characters and storylines, queer fans often took to giving representation where there wasn’t any. If one were to look through the top one hundred ships of 2024 on Archive of Our Own, 71% of them are explicitly queer, the majority of those being men-loving-men.

         Fanfiction is often seen as a “lower” form of writing. Because the writer isn’t coming up with their own characters or worlds nor go through the many rounds of editing that professionally published novels do, fanfiction writers are viewed as less talented or less valid than “real” writers. However, I would argue fanfiction is a great place for writers to practice and develop their skills, even if they aren’t writing a piece that’ll catch the attention of a big-name publisher. First of all, these critcisms aren’t necessarily true—many authors creative original characters and universes alongside the pre-existing ones. Secondly readers aren’t expecting the same level of quality from fanfiction as they are in novels. Authors don’t have to perfect their grammar, fill in every plot hole, and follow all the beats of mainstream stories. The author gets the chance to make mistakes and experiment, while still being able to share their work with others (who are usually as passionate about the characters as the author).

         Another fascinating aspect of this trend is the role self-publishing plays in it. Like fanfiction being perceived as a “lower” form of writing, self-publishing is often considered the “lower” form of publishing. Traditional publishing is extremely difficult. One must find an agent, that agent must find an editor, that editor must get the publishers to approve your novel, the novel must go through several rounds of editing, and in the end, your book might be lucky enough to hit the shelves. Self-publishing doesn’t see as much commercial success as traditional publishing; however, it is much more accessible to writers wanting to monetize their work. Especially for fanfiction authors, who already have an established readership, this is often a viable option. This is the route Olivie A. Blake took, which lead to The Atlas Six being picked up by a traditional publishing house due to its popularity.

         Fanfiction has only grown more popular over the decades, and it allows for many beginner writers to experiment and interact with an encouraging community. Thus, it’s no surprise that fanfiction writers are starting to take the publishing industry by storm. It’s reliability on tropes and established fanbase make it easy for fanfiction to become bestsellers. So the next time you scroll through Archive of Our Own or Wattpad, keep in mind that any one of those writers could be on the New York Times Bestseller List in years to come.