Longtime friends and writing partners Christina Hobbs and Lauren Billings, who write under the pen name Christina Lauren, are well known and much beloved for their contemporary romance novels. Their debut, Beautiful Bastard, began as a Twilight fanfic called “The Office” written by Hobbs. It racked up over two million views online before it was taken down. The duo collaborated and revised the concept until it was published by a mainstream press. Smart and driven Chloe Mills, an intern at a huge media company, only has one problem in life: her infuriatingly irresistible boss Bennet. Narrator Grace Grant gives a brilliant performance of this sexy drama; she's joined by Sebastian York and Jonathon Cole for other books in the series.

Before Ali Hazelwood was a bestselling romance author, she was an avid fanfic writer. She's spoken extensively about how much the fanfic community has meant to her, and how much she still loves and values fandom, even if she spends most of her time writing traditionally published fiction now. Her debut, The Love Hypothesis, is based on her fanfic “Head Over Feet,” a Star Wars “Reylo” fic focused on the chemistry between characters Rey and Kylo Ren. The novel follows PhD student Olive and the professor she sort of accidentally starts fake dating. Like much of Hazelwood's work, this one is a standout for centering the narrative on a smart, driven woman in STEM.

E.L. James's bestselling erotic romance may be one of the most successful fanfics-turned-novels of all time. It began as a Twilight fic. James then self-published the complete novel in 2011. A year later, it was picked up by Penguin and promptly became a sensation, and it was eventually adapted into a movie trilogy. The steamy story of recent college grad Anastasia Steele and businessman Christian Grey comes to life thanks to the talents of narrator Becca Battoe, who delivers each spicy scene with incredible tension and sensuality. At almost 20 hours, this audiobook will keep you hooked on every word.

Rainbow Rowell's YA fantasy Carry On is full of many different (and delightful) layers of fanfic. The series follows two boys—Simon Snow, the "chosen one," and Baz, a vampire and his nemesis/love interest—as they begin their studies at a magical academy. It's a spinoff of her YA novel Fangirl, in which the main character writes her own fanfic of the extremely popular Simon Snow series, written by a fictional author Rowell made up. But Rowell's novel Carry On isn't fanfic written by one of her characters: It's Rowell herself imagining the lives of the Simon Snow characters. If you're confused, don't worry. All you need to know is that this listen is utterly charming, beautifully narrated by Euan Morton, and a love letter to fandoms everywhere.

When it was originally released as a fanfic on Wattpad, After garnered close to a billion reads—so it's no wonder that it was turned into a novel! Todd's original fic was inspired by the fandom around boy band One Direction and singer-songwriter Harry Styles. The YA romance follows Tessa, a college student who's always played by the rules. She has a sweet boyfriend at home and no plans to break up with him. But then she meets rude, impossible Hardin, who keeps pushing her away even as she finds herself irresistibly pulled back to him. He's exactly the kind of boy she shouldn't like...but she's finding that harder and harder to remember.

While The Martian itself did not originate as fanfic, Andy Weir has spoken about how much he enjoys fanfic, and has also written some himself. He wrote a fic of Ernest Cline's novel Ready Player One that Cline liked so much he declared it canon. And though The Martian does not take its inspiration from anyone else's fictional universe, it does share one important distinction with a lot of fanfic in that Weir first published it as a serial on his website. It's the story of Mark Watney, an astronaut accidentally left behind on Mars, and the incredible feats of science he uses to survive. Wil Wheaton's narration is incomparable; it's basically impossible to stop listening once you start.

Fantasy and sci-fi author Seanan McGuire is outspoken about her involvement in the fanfic community, how much it has meant to her, the impact it has had on her career, and how much she values fandom in general. She's been writing fanfic since she was a teenager, although now she also writes bestselling fantasy novels. Every Heart a Doorway, the first in her Wayward Children series, is about a girl who tumbled through a portal into another world, and then tumbled back. Now, Nancy and her classmates at Miss West's Home for Wayward Children are just trying to figure out how to live between multiple worlds. Cynthia Hopkins's enchanting narration makes a wonderful introduction to this eerie, magical series.

Naomi Novik is known for her speculative fiction and fantasy, including the Temeraire series, as well as several standalone novels. She's also a longtime fanfic writer and proud member of multiple fandoms. Novik is one of the founders of Archive of Our Own (AO3), the largest fanfiction repository in the world. A Deadly Education—the first in her Scholomance trilogy—is set at a school for the magically gifted students, where failure literally means death. Survival is everything, because students only leave in one of two ways: you graduate or you die. El arrives prepared for anything. She has a unique power that makes her almost invincible, and she's not afraid of monsters. But when she starts uncovering the school's dark secrets, she realizes that monsters aren't the only danger she faces.

Before she broke onto the scene with The Atlas Six, Olivie Blake self-published multiple novels and wrote plenty of fanfic. She's spoken about how important writing fanfic was to her, as it allowed her to make stories and to be part of a community of writers and readers without any imposed barriers. Like many of the other writers on this list, she credits writing fanfic with being instrumental to her career. Andy Ingalls leads a fantastic cast in this immersive production of Blake's ensemble fantasy novel. The story follows the complicated, intertwined lives of six characters who are invited to join a secret society of magicians—if they can survive a year of challenges presented to them by the society's mysterious leader.