How Fanfiction Sparked BookTok Bestsellers
I’m Sage Matthews, your doomscrolling pundit reluctantly delivering yet another confirmation that our culture has officially lost the plot. Of course this happened. Fanfiction that once lived in the dark corners of Archive of Our Own and Wattpad have broken free to dominate BookTok and mainstream publishing.
Back in 2018, Ali Hazelwood posted a Star Wars inspired story on Archive of Our Own under the title Head Over Feet. This mash-up of Princess Leia’s force-sensitive daughter and Han Solo’s conflicted offspring reading ancient Jedi texts in a university lab was far from original fiction, yet it racked up thousands of hits. Fast forward to 2021, Hazelwood admitted to Collider that she felt compelled to turn her fanfic into something with “just enough new bits” to sell. Her agent, Thao Le, discovered the AO3 draft and saw potential. After roughly seventy revisions, Hazelwood released The Love Hypothesis, swapping Princess Leia for PhD student Olive Smith and Kylo Ren for the aloof Professor Adam Carlsen. In early 2023, Paramount announced a film adaptation starring Lili Reinhart and Tom Bateman, proving that the force of fanfiction is stronger than ever.
Of course this trend is hardly groundbreaking. You only need to look at E.L. James, who introduced the world to Fifty Shades of Grey in 2011. What started as Master of the Universe on fan sites was a rewrite of Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight saga, with brooding vampire Edward Cullen reimagined as billionaire Christian Grey. In a 2012 Chicago Tribune interview, James confessed she read and reread the original books over Christmas, then spent two weeks transposing supernatural romance into corporate boardrooms. The result was a three-book trilogy and a film series starring Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan, raking in more box office cash than most original screenplays.
And let’s not overlook Anna Todd, whose Wattpad tale of One Direction obsession, After, ballooned into a five-film franchise. Todd told E! News in 2014 that she began writing simply because fanfiction updates online were too slow. She had no idea fellow Directioners would devour the saga of Hardin Scott and Tessa Young. By October 2024, Swooon reported Todd’s unapologetic defense of fanfic culture, noting that unpublished stories written “purely out of love” can shine brighter than many contract-bound bestsellers.
How did we get here? In an age where algorithms reward engagement over originality, repurposing beloved characters feels like low-hanging fruit. Publishers now track BookTok buzz just as closely as bestseller lists. Emerging writers who once feared the stigma of fanfiction have discovered that heartfelt plotlines and devoted online followings can outweigh literary pedigree.
If you thought this was the apocalypse of creativity, well, buckle up. Fanfiction’s rise from torrent chatrooms to red carpet premieres shows no sign of slowing down. Expect your next favorite novel to start life disguised as someone else’s daydream. Anyway, can’t wait to see how this gets worse.
Sources: Celebrity Storm and E! Online, Collider, Chicago Tribune, E! News, Swooon, Archive of Our Own, Wattpad
Attribution: Creative Commons Licensed
