That best-selling romance book? It might be based on fan fiction

Romance novels do big business for the publishing industry, and there’s a new source for those books going mainstream. As Elizabeth Held wrote in Vulture, publishing houses are looking to the world of fan fiction for new writers, converting their already-popular fanfic into books.

“Marketplace” host Kai Ryssdal spoke with Held, a self-proclaimed “avid reader” and writer of the book recommendation newsletter “What to Read If.” The following is an edited transcript of their conversation.

Kai Ryssdal: So for those who aren’t familiar with the world of fanfic, which includes me, by the way. What kind of stories do you find out there on, for instance, the site you talk about in this piece called Archive of Our Own?

Elizabeth Held: So fan fiction is kind of a giant, underground community that’s starting to pop up anywhere. So a lot of the stories you find on Archive of Our Own, which is also referred to as AO3, are love stories featuring characters from all sorts of different books and movies. A lot of “Harry Potter,” Marvel and “Star Wars.”

Ryssdal: So, let’s talk about a couple of things here. First of all, the business case for this, the “Marketplace” reason we have you on this podcast, is that literary agents are now finding their way to fan fiction authors. As opposed to the other way around, which is usually authors have to go screaming and hurting and crying to find a literary agent. What’s up with that?

To read the full article on marketplace.org, click here