Andrew Shaffer has sold his Fifty Shades of Grey parody, Fifty Shames of Earl Grey, to Da Capo.
Shaffer is the writer behind the Evil Wylie and Emperor Franzen Twitter accounts, and tweeted the news: “BREAKING: Hack writer sells 50 Shades of Grey parody.” Brandi Bowles from Foundry Literary + Media represented the author.
As E L James‘ erotica bestseller (which began as Twilight fan fiction) exploded in popularity, Shaffer began to field offers from publishers for his online parody. He described the process on his blog: “In addition to completing the first draft, I’ve also spent the past two weeks fending off publishers. At first it was easy to tell them to leave me alone. I’m an Artist. My Pure Vision will not be sullied by the dirty hands of commerce. Unfortunately, as the size of the McMansion that publishers dangled in front of me became progressively larger and more ridiculous, my Artistic Integrity slowly evaporated into the California sun…”