How Alchemised went from Harry Potter fanfic to a $3 million movie deal

SenLinYu’s dark fantasy novel Alchemiseddebuted on the New York Times bestseller list in September, selling 300,000 copies in North America in its first week and 1 million in the U.S. by the beginning of October. Even before it was published, Legendary bought the film rights, reportedly for more than $3 million. That’s a staggering level of success for a debut novel. But SenLinYu had already built a large audience for their book on the Archive of Our Own, where it originated as Harry Potter fanfiction.