The author of the romantic/erotic novel 'Fifty Shades of Grey' has earned an impressive £20m fortune in the last 18 months. The author who began on Amazon's self-publishing scheme has now sold an estimated 40 million copies of the book, which is part of a trilogy. E.L. James, who's real name is Erika, began writing Twlight fanfiction in 2009 under the username "Snowqueens Icedragon" on the website fanfiction.net . She said that her love for writing FanFic developed into a trilogy of books, to which the success of gave her a shock; "the explosion of interest has taken me completely by surprise" she said in an interview. Time Magazine included E.L. James as one of the "100 most influential people in the world" as of 2012. And Celebrity Net Worth (CNW) estimated that James makes around £850,000 from royalties and confirmed that she has been offered $5m (£3.2m) from Universal Productions to film a trilogy movie. |