LOS ANGELES — The Twilight story originally came to writer Stephenie Meyer in a dream. Bella, a human teenager, moves to the Pacific Northwest, and there, amid the rain, the ferns and the redwoods, she falls in with rival gangs of vampires and werewolves. Chaos (and romance), of course, ensues.
But Meyer, an aspiring writer and mother of three, could never have dreamed of the success she would experience thanks to her books. Fans have snatched up 100 million copies of the four novels (Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse and Breaking Dawn), which have been translated into 39 different languages.
That success helped Meyer earn $40 million this year, ranking her 59th on the Forbes Celebrity 100 list. Last year, thanks in part to her non-Twilight book The Host, Meyer ranked 16th with $50 million. Her newest book, a spinoff of the Twilight series titled The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner, should bump her up the list again next year, especially since the story’s released is timed to coincide with the third Twilight film, Eclipse, which hits theaters June 30.
Full story: Inside The ‘Twilight’ Empire – Forbes.com