Aimee Goldblum
After the 2026 London Book Fair, there was one name on the public’s lips, and it wasn’t a traditional novel. Written throughout 2017 and 2018, All the Young Dudes is a fanfiction detailing the lives and loves of the ‘Marauders’, characters from the Harry Potter franchise.
The story has since gained almost 20 million hits on the fanfiction site Archive of Our Own (AO3) and is now subject to whisperings about its possible publication. Reports stated that the work’s author, writing under the pseudonym MsKingBean89, had signed a seven-figure book deal. While releasing fanfiction as original fiction has become common practice in the publishing industry, this move marks a complex turning point in what kinds of writing can enter the commercial field.
All the Young Dudes tells the story of Harry Potter’s dad, James, and his friends as they go to Hogwarts, eventually become soldiers, and, for the most part, meet tragic ends. It’s written from the perspective of Remus Lupin, Harry’s Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher from the third instalment of the series Prisoner of Azkaban. Reaching 188 chapters and over 526,000 words, it begs the question: how on earth will it ever be published?
In part due to the COVID pandemic, reading has almost become ‘cool’ again. A new wave of romance novels took the publishing world by storm, headed by names like Colleen Hoover (who outsold the actual Bible in 2022). These aren’t your ‘trashy’ erotica, either. They pride themselves on their elevated themes of mental health and domestic abuse – how well these themes are handled is up for debate. In a similar fashion, the 2020s brought about an explosion in the popularity of fanfiction: roughly 11 million works have been posted on AO3 in the past 6 years, with only 5 million between the site’s conception in 2009 and the start of the Covid pandemic.
It seems simple, then, that publishing houses would want to capitalise on the insane popularity fanfiction has amassed. There’s one small problem: fanfiction is barely legal. It survives on dodgy fair use laws, and many authors have taken issue with its existence in the past. Anne Rice, author of Interview with the Vampire (1976), is notably very against transformative works inspired by her writing. And if there is one rule about fanfiction, it’s that you are under no circumstances allowed to make money from it.
‘Despite approximately 70% of stories on AO3 focusing on queer relationships… most post-COVID published fanfiction we see is heterosexual.’
So how can publishers capitalise on transformative works’ success? This is where the practice of ‘filing off the serial numbers’ comes in. That is, a publishing house will take a work of fanfiction, change the names and any identifying information linked to the existing IP, and distribute the work as an original novel. It’s an efficient method: there’s limited editing to be done, marketing is easier due to an existing fanbase, and you can generally guarantee public enthusiasm based on the popularity of the original fanfiction. It’s legally dubious, but the work becomes, for all intents and purposes, entirely unlinked to its original inspirations.
Common examples of this include The Love Hypothesis (2021) by Ali Hazelwood, which began as a ‘Reylo’ fanfiction (Rey and Kylo Ren from Star Wars) or Alchemised (2025) by SenLinYu, which originated as a Handmaid’s Tale-inspired story about Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger from Harry Potter. Published fanfiction is everywhere. Next time you read a romance book, make note of common tropes like ‘Height Difference’, ‘Enemies to Lovers’, or ‘Coffee Shop AU’ – it’s probably fanfiction in disguise.
Something that’s always interested me about published fanfiction is the types of works scouted by publishing houses. Despite approximately 70% of stories on AO3 focusing on queer relationships, with gay male fanfiction making up almost 10 million works of AO3’s library, most post-COVID published fanfiction we see is heterosexual. ‘Reylo’ and ‘Dramione’ are the most prominent ‘ships’ to be published, but there is a growing market for fiction based on real relationships like that of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce.
‘Fanfiction shouldn’t be work experience’
Queer fanfiction, though, is much less likely to be published, with most examples published before the genre’s explosion. Heated Rivalry (2019), which gained huge popularity through its TV adaptation of the same name, has a side plot based on Steve and Bucky (Marvel) fanfiction. Similarly, Red White & Royal Blue (2019) by Casey McQuiston had dubious beginnings as a possible fanfiction shipping Mark Zuckerberg and Eduardo Saverin as depicted in The Social Network; this was also adapted for the screen. The popularity of queer fanfiction far exceeds that of heterosexual work, and this brings us, finally, to All the Young Dudes.
While the plot of All the Young Dudes is about all four of the ‘Marauders’, the core of the story lies in the romance between Remus Lupin and Sirius Black (Harry Potter’s godfather, for those who are unacquainted). The relationship, with its high highs and very low lows, spans the entire 500,000-word volume and has been praised by fans for its authentic representation of queerness in 70s and 80s England. The fanfiction explores real queer history like Section 28, which forbade the ‘promotion’ of homosexuality in educational settings, in tandem with more fantastical elements, like Lupin’s lycanthropy. Its apparent imminent publication seems, superficially, like a step in the right direction. Perhaps in response to the runaway success of Heated Rivalry, companies are finally taking notice of the queer stories that have ruled fan spaces for decades.
I can’t help but, as someone sceptical of the whole ‘filing off the serial numbers’ thing, see the sinister side. While All the Young Dudes’ rumoured book deal may seem like queer fan writing is finally being acknowledged, it’s interesting that publishers still won’t take the same risks they do for heterosexual fanfiction. Aside from Alchemised’s source material, Manacled, much of the published straight fanfiction was never that popular; this makes it easier to transfer to the traditionally published world, of course, but also represents a faith in the book-buying market to consume heterosexual stories. All the Young Dudes is the most popular fanfiction ever, and I’m not exaggerating. The story is the most liked and read fanfiction in the entirety of AO3’s history, and has gained its own fanbase on TikTok. If we’re looking at the most capitalistic point of view, it’s disheartening that it takes a restructuring of the world of fanfiction as we know it to be recognised as a queer work, as opposed to a regular old straight story that can be published despite little to no impact on the AO3-reading community.
‘Even queer fanfiction, which handles these difficult themes with respect, cannot be entirely ethical.’
Then we come on to the question of whether it’s right to publish fanfiction at all. What was once a way to exercise fan creativity, practice craft, and demonstrate your love for a show, movie, book, etc., is now a route into a commercial powerhouse. Fanfiction shouldn’t be work experience. If All the Young Dudes is published, it will be taken off AO3, where it can be read for free, and then sold in bookshops for ten quid, or perhaps as three separate ten quid tomes due to its massive length. The real work, which had years of effort and love put into it, will be lost forever.
And then there’s the issue of All the Young Dudes itself: it’s almost impossible to ‘file off the serial numbers’ of. Its world is entirely within the Harry Potter IP, with Hogwarts, Diagon Alley, and even the mythology of lycanthropy matching up exactly with Rowling’s writing. By trying to fashion it into something original, it’ll be left feeling like a cheap copy. Even then, the similarity towards Rowling’s work will be undeniable (see: Rainbow Rowell’s Carry On, which is so obviously Drarry fanfiction despite its attempt not to be). And that’s not to mention its excessive length, which is only slightly shorter than the Bible. Who, who hasn’t already read the fanfiction, is going to read a knock-off gay Harry Potter that can rival Abraham’s beefiest religious texts?
Should we even be publishing fanfiction? Even queer fanfiction, which handles these difficult themes with respect, cannot be entirely ethical. Instead of publishing fanworks based on virulent transphobes’ writing, perhaps publishing houses can put this energy into pioneering new, original LGBTQ+ works by authors who may or may not have grown up writing fanfiction, that are now exercising their creativity to breathe new life into a clearly lucrative genre.
Aimee Goldblum
Featured image courtesy of Mikhail Nilov via Pexels. Image use license found here . No changes were made to this image.
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