REAL PAGE EARNER
Fan fiction series made millennial a millionaire
Meet one of the youngest, wealthiest and most unlikely literary sensations on the planet.
She’s Anna Todd, 27, who scored a fat six-figure publishing package and a huge Paramount movie deal for her breakout fan fiction blog, “After.”
The steamy bestseller, inspired by Harry Styles of the boy band One Direction, “After” is a gargantuan 100-chapter, 1 million-word online tome Todd started just two years ago which has since generated 1.3 billion online reads and 6 million comments.
“I love writing, and I am one of the people who can do it and make a living,” the newly minted millionaire told The Post last week on a visit to New York.
Todd first published her work on Wattpad, the Toronto-based, 150-person, venture capital-backed free publishing platform with a total monthly audience of 45 million.
In the past 30 days alone, more than 200,000 New Yorkers have visited Wattpad.
“After” was picked up by publishing house Simon & Schuster, then became a traditional sensation as a fivebook series. Todd has also scored with subsequent novels, including her recent book “Nothing Less,” part of a spinoff series featuring the Lan- don character from “After.”
Wattpad does not pay contributors for posting stories. But fame and lucrative side deals have their huge rewards. Todd has made money on these side deals with Wattpad from corporate partnerships and advertising revenue.
Todd is a New York Times bestselling author, and her hard-copy books have sold 5 million copies globally. “She has sold more books than many of the top writers in the world today, and Anna’s audience is huge,” said Wattpad manager Ashleigh Gardner. A former Waffle House worker, Todd has come a long way without a college degree from her native Dayton, Ohio. Last summer, she and her husband, Jordan, an army vet, settled in Hollywood, where she’s writing and planning her next career move.
“It is kind of mind-blowing to my parents. They were already happy when we had made our first move, out of Dayton to Fort Hood, Texas,” Todd said, referring to where Jordan, who served three tours in Iraq, was stationed.
Todd is rare, though not alone in her success. Another blogger who hit the big time is Melissa Anelli. Through her Web site, The Leaky Cauldron, Anelli turned her love of the “Harry Potter” book series into a bestselling book, “Harry, a History,” about the Harry Potter phenomenon, and in 2011 founded her event company, Mischief Management.
“We create fan conventions that we ourselves would want to go to, placing a high value on content and passion. We basically make fan events awesome,” Anelli said.