Fan Fiction Becomes Much More

by Enid Wilson
(Sydney, Australia)

Genre: Romantic fantasy

A goat goes slowly on its way

I'm a Capricorn, a goat that will reach the mountain -- one day, if the astrologer is to be believed. It describes my life quite well: I'm very slow in getting where I want to be.

I never thought I got a creative bone in my body. Therefore I had not written anything creative outside of my work life.

But about three years ago when I turned 40, I started reading Pride and Prejudice fan fiction. After burying myself in those stories for one and a half year, I responded to a drabble competition (drabble = 200 words short story).

Many of the Jane Austen fan fiction I read were set in Regency or modern eras and PG rated. I confess I like reading hot and sexy stories (Harlequin level of hotness, not erotica) and that competition got me thinking. I'd love to read steamy stories with my favourite characters Mr. and Mrs. Darcy, in other genres.

200 words turned into 3500 and into longer stories, from modern, Regency and then to science fiction and fantasy. The JAFF world is very nice. Fellow writers and readers are generous in their encouragement. They even help me with grammar. They make me want to write more. Now I have written over 40 stories, 200,000 words.

I never thought about publishing my writing until some of the authors started self publishing their fan fiction stories through lulu.com. Some of their books were picked up by traditional publishers afterwards.

I started thinking again. It will be great to see my own writing in print. As my stories did not follow Pride and Prejudice to the T, I decided to revise them into normal fiction. Knowing that it is more difficult to sell as a new self-published fiction writer, I started off the traditional way.


I had several rejections with traditional publishers and agents. But the length of time to hear from them got me thinking yet again. For example Harlequin would only let me know if my proposal is successful within six months. And a lot of them do not welcome multiple submissions. If I need to receive 10 rejections before I get a publisher to publish my book, it will mean a five years wait. It's too long!

So my brain started thinking again. While I wait, why not put out at least one of the stories through self-publishing? As long as I do not have high expectation on sales, I won't be disappointed.

Life started to get busy afterwards. I needed to revise the book one more time, develop a website (steamydarcy.com), set up "company", buy ISBN, design book cover, organise competition for readers to select the cover, test lulu, createspace and lightning source.

When I finished uploading the book to lulu, a teaser in my website and in the fan fiction site (meryton.com) three days ago, it was late at night. I went to sleep exhausted.

The next morning when I logged onto lulu before I went to work, my eyes went wide. I sold two books already! And at meryton.com, a reader has posted a thread about my book already! I'm so very happy about the result.

When I told my sister about this, she said if I could sell 30,000 books, I could quit the day job and "research" for book ideas in Europe.

I smiled.

It's never my aim to be a full time writer.

I feel great to have readers read and re-read my stories, to have them told me I gave them laughs and fantasies.

I won't go to book signing or tour as I'm shy about telling people I write sexy stories. So I may never sell 30,000 books. But if I can touch 30,000 hearts, I will be very happy. The visitor counters on my website is around 10,000 now (after deducting my own silly clicks).

That's the place where the slow moving goat will be going: To touch readers' hearts.

Visit Enid Wilson's "Hot and Steamy."