filing off the seriAl nuMbers
59
from the republication of fanfiction, “filing off the serial numbers.” The site
twifanfictionrecs.com provides a list of hundreds of books that are adapted
Twilight fanfictions. While some writers try their luck with self-publishing,
often via Amazon, the Australian publishing house The Writer’s Coffee Shop
(TWCS) and the US-based Omnific are publishers who specialize in the
adaptation of fanfiction for commercial purposes and are responsible for a
majority of the titles on these lists, many of which appear as e-books only.
Works that have been successful in fan communities and are as issued by
these smaller publishers have been purchased and then republished with
little risk by larger players like Vintage.
Both Erika Leonard and Judith Rumelt and their respective fanfiction
adaptations of popular series were famous in the Twilight and Harry Potter
fandoms respectively before the material, or parts of it, were transposed
to the book market. Like them, many fan authors start publishing their
fanfictions on Fanfiction.net, one of the largest and oldest online fanfiction
archives. The site holds fanf ictions from many fandoms, among them
about 773,000 Harry Potter and 219,000 Twilight fanf ictions, making
them two of the most proliferating fandoms on the site for years. 5 Erika
Leonard began to publish the Twilight fanfictions Master of the Universe
I and II under the pseudonym Snowqueens Icedragon, which appeared in
serialized form in over 110 chapters between 2009 and 2010 until it was
deleted from the archive because of its explicit content. Leonard moved
the text to her webpage 50shades.com where she continued writing. After
scoring a publishing deal with TWCS, she removed all free online content.
In May 2011, TWCS published an e-book version and a print-on-demand
paperback book based on the fanf iction with the title Fifty Shades of
Grey under the pen name E.L. James. The sequels Darker and Freed were
published in September 2011 and January 2012 respectively. The e-book
was reissued in print after Vintage Books had auctioned the rights for
5 Both franchises began as narratives that developed across multiple novels and have spurred
serializations and medial appearances as adaptations into f ilms, graphic novels and games
as well as merchandise. That both of these texts have garnered such a huge amount of fan
productivity, part of which is fanfiction, is no coincidence, as audience’s desire for communal
and productive engagement with popular serialized texts is a prevalent practice since at least
the turn of the last century, specif ically for science f iction and fantasy series. See Jennifer
Hayward, Consuming Pleasures. Active Audiences and Serial Fictions from Dickens to Soap Opera,
(Lexington: UP of Kentucky, 2009); Nancy Baym, Tune in, Log on: Soaps, Fandom, and Online
Community, (Thousand Oaks, London and New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2000) and Michael
Saler, As If. Modern Enchantment and the Literary Prehistory of Virtual Reality. (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2012).
59
from the republication of fanfiction, “filing off the serial numbers.” The site
twifanfictionrecs.com provides a list of hundreds of books that are adapted
Twilight fanfictions. While some writers try their luck with self-publishing,
often via Amazon, the Australian publishing house The Writer’s Coffee Shop
(TWCS) and the US-based Omnific are publishers who specialize in the
adaptation of fanfiction for commercial purposes and are responsible for a
majority of the titles on these lists, many of which appear as e-books only.
Works that have been successful in fan communities and are as issued by
these smaller publishers have been purchased and then republished with
little risk by larger players like Vintage.
Both Erika Leonard and Judith Rumelt and their respective fanfiction
adaptations of popular series were famous in the Twilight and Harry Potter
fandoms respectively before the material, or parts of it, were transposed
to the book market. Like them, many fan authors start publishing their
fanfictions on Fanfiction.net, one of the largest and oldest online fanfiction
archives. The site holds fanf ictions from many fandoms, among them
about 773,000 Harry Potter and 219,000 Twilight fanf ictions, making
them two of the most proliferating fandoms on the site for years. 5 Erika
Leonard began to publish the Twilight fanfictions Master of the Universe
I and II under the pseudonym Snowqueens Icedragon, which appeared in
serialized form in over 110 chapters between 2009 and 2010 until it was
deleted from the archive because of its explicit content. Leonard moved
the text to her webpage 50shades.com where she continued writing. After
scoring a publishing deal with TWCS, she removed all free online content.
In May 2011, TWCS published an e-book version and a print-on-demand
paperback book based on the fanf iction with the title Fifty Shades of
Grey under the pen name E.L. James. The sequels Darker and Freed were
published in September 2011 and January 2012 respectively. The e-book
was reissued in print after Vintage Books had auctioned the rights for
5 Both franchises began as narratives that developed across multiple novels and have spurred
serializations and medial appearances as adaptations into f ilms, graphic novels and games
as well as merchandise. That both of these texts have garnered such a huge amount of fan
productivity, part of which is fanfiction, is no coincidence, as audience’s desire for communal
and productive engagement with popular serialized texts is a prevalent practice since at least
the turn of the last century, specif ically for science f iction and fantasy series. See Jennifer
Hayward, Consuming Pleasures. Active Audiences and Serial Fictions from Dickens to Soap Opera,
(Lexington: UP of Kentucky, 2009); Nancy Baym, Tune in, Log on: Soaps, Fandom, and Online
Community, (Thousand Oaks, London and New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2000) and Michael
Saler, As If. Modern Enchantment and the Literary Prehistory of Virtual Reality. (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2012).