Penguin has announced that they will publish Loving the Band based on Emily Baker’s One Direction fan fiction.

Emily Baker is a 16-year-old Brit who first published her fan fiction on the popular youth writing site Moveallas. The story is about a girl in a love triangle with two members of a pop group based on the boy band, One Direction. A penguin editor noticed the story and its popularity, and the rest is history. When discussing the novel, editor Lindsay Heaven said “We at Penguin’s Children’s are delighted to be publishing ‘Loving the Band,’ Emily’s novel is fresh, romantic, current and completely taps into today’s pop culture.” After Penguin commissioned Emily Baker, they worked together to change quite a lot of the novel, including names, in order to turn it into a new book.

The story is a typical girl-meets-boy love story, except it’s girl-meets-band. It’s about a girl who lives in Scotland and comes down to London to visit her best friend. When she gets there, she bumps into a boy band and hangs out with them, and eventually she finds out two of them – Shaq and Reily – have fallen for her.

Loving the Band is set for eBook release on November 1, 2012.

 

Fan fiction is not new to the internet but has recently become a feeding ground for publishing houses. Popular fan fiction writers such as E.L James have been receiving big deals from publishing houses looking for a sure thing. Most fan fiction writers come with a built in fan base, especially if they write about popular books, movies, TV shows and even bands.

Movellas.com is a community site where everyone can share their passion for great stories. People can publish their own stories – or movellas as they like to call them – so that everyone can read them and give feedback. There are lots of stories in every genre and on every topic. The site promotes a writing community that is supportive of all kinds of writing.

Will you be checking out Loving the Band? Do you think fan fiction is the new hunting ground for publishers and if so, should potential authors start posting some work on fiction sites?