Who Is Sarah J. Maas? The Teenager Who Posted Her Novel For Free
Seventy-five million copies. Three series. The bestselling author in the United States in 2024, by Circana’s count, and the number one fantasy author in the UK in 2025.
Most of the write-ups start there and work backwards.
Here is the truth: the book that built all of it was free on a fan-fiction site for six years, and she took it down herself before anyone in publishing had read a word.
The Reader’s Truth: “Nobody discovered her. She wrote something people loved, gave it away for six years, then pulled it off the internet and started over properly.”
Queen of Glass
Sarah Janet Maas was born in March 1986 and grew up in New York City.
In 2002, at sixteen, she started writing a novel called Queen of Glass and posted it in instalments on FictionPress — an open site where anyone could upload original fiction for free. It became one of the most-read stories there.
She has described the site as “my safe haven and my outlet.”
In 2008 she took it down. Not because anyone asked her to and not because of a deal — there was no deal. She pulled it off to revise it and try the traditional route. One account of the manuscript at that stage puts it past nine hundred pages, cut to roughly a third of that before she was willing to send it anywhere.
She has been clear that she did not do this alone:
“I got where I am today because one of my FictionPress readers emailed me out of the blue in like 2008, right after I pulled Queen of Glass off FictionPress.”
That reader was Mandy Hubbard, another writer on the site, who went on to work in publishing.
Meanwhile Maas finished a creative writing degree at Hamilton College, graduating in 2008 — the same year she took the book down.
The part that took four more years
She signed with the agent Tamar Rydzinski in 2009. The editor Margaret Miller at Bloomsbury became interested in 2010, and the book sold to Bloomsbury in March that year.
It was published in August 2012, retitled Throne of Glass.
Count the gap. She started it at sixteen in 2002. It reached a bookshop when she was twenty-six.
From her own guest post in the week it came out:
“It took me years and years before I wrote and rewrote the story enough to dare querying agents and start down the path to publication.”
Three series, one universe
| Series | First book | Year |
|---|---|---|
| Throne of Glass | Throne of Glass | 2012 |
| A Court of Thorns and Roses | A Court of Thorns and Roses | 2015 |
| Crescent City | House of Earth and Blood | 2020 |
For years readers traded theories that the three were connected. In 2022 the end of House of Sky and Breath made it explicit, and House of Flame and Shadow in 2024 built on it.
Maas told TIME in January 2024:
“For years and years, I had sprinkled little hints throughout all of my books that they were part of a megaverse.”
And on when she decided to pull the trigger:
“Then, when I started writing Crescent City, I had this idea out of the blue that, bam, this is the moment.”
If you want to know what that means for the order you read them in, we have written that out separately — it genuinely matters for one book and genuinely does not for the rest.
The numbers
Seventy-five million copies worldwide, according to Bloomsbury, reported by the Associated Press in March 2026. Her own site gives an older figure — more than seventy million in English, published in thirty-eight languages — and Wikipedia says forty languages, so “around forty” is the honest phrasing.
Watch out for older numbers still circulating as if they were current: thirty-eight million was the figure in January 2024, and fifty-five million was English-language only.
Bloomsbury’s March 2026 trading update describes her as the “highest selling author in the United States in 2024 according to Circana sales data and the No.1 bestselling Fantasy author in the UK in 2025.”
A Court of Silver Flames debuted at number one on the New York Times hardcover fiction list in February 2021. House of Flame and Shadow opened at number one on the Publishers Weekly list in 2024 with more than 361,000 copies sold at Circana BookScan outlets in its first week.
The television saga
This is the question readers ask most, and the answer keeps changing, so here is the sequence.
2021 — Hulu and 20th Television announce an ACOTAR series. Ronald D. Moore attached. Maas said at the time: “I’m currently hard at work writing the pilot with Ron.”
February 2025 — it is scrapped. Hulu and 20th Television declined to comment. It never got past development.
March 2026 — on Call Her Daddy, Maas says: “I have the rights back to everything now.” She also said: “Right now, my focus is on books.”
Now — no studio, no streamer, no cast, no showrunner. She has reportedly been shopping it, but that is a report, not a statement from her.
There was also a Throne of Glass series announced at Hulu back in 2016, under the title Queen of Shadows. It never went forward and those rights came back to her too. Crescent City has never been optioned.
So: nothing is in production. Anyone telling you a release date is making it up.
The bans
In August 2024, Utah removed six of her books from every public school in the state under a law requiring statewide removal once enough districts had objected — ACOTAR books one to five, plus Empire of Storms.
It was reported by Kirkus, NPR and PEN America. Six of the thirteen titles on that first statewide list were hers.
Whatever you think of the books, that is a fact worth knowing about an author whose work is frequently described as young adult. The ACOTAR series is published for adults; the Throne of Glass books began as young adult. The distinction gets lost constantly, and it is part of why these fights keep happening.
Where to start
- If you want the one everyone means: A Court of Thorns and Roses (2015).
- If you want the one she has been writing longest: Throne of Glass (2012). Be warned that the series changes enormously after book two.
- If you want the newest world: House of Earth and Blood (2020).
- If you want what is happening right now: A Court of Splintered Harmony, out on 27 October.
Her own reading guide says to start with the first book of whichever series appeals most. There is no wrong door.
The short version
- Born March 1986, grew up in New York City
- Started Queen of Glass on FictionPress in 2002, aged sixteen; took it down herself in 2008
- Creative writing degree, Hamilton College, 2008
- Agent 2009, sold to Bloomsbury in March 2010, published as Throne of Glass in August 2012
- Three series — Throne of Glass (2012), ACOTAR (2015), Crescent City (2020) — confirmed by Maas as one “megaverse”
- Seventy-five million copies worldwide per Bloomsbury, around forty languages
- Top-selling author in the US in 2024 (Circana); number one fantasy author in the UK in 2025
- ACOTAR series scrapped at Hulu in February 2025; she has the rights back and nothing is in production
- Six of her books removed from Utah public schools in August 2024
Did you find her through ACOTAR, or were you already reading Throne of Glass before anyone else you knew had heard of her? The second group is smaller than it used to be and still quietly smug about it.
Sources: Sarah J. Maas — Wikipedia · Publishers Weekly, Fall 2012 Flying Starts · Daily Trojan interview, 2013 · Hamilton College · Maas on the megaverse — TIME · Bloomsbury trading update, March 2026 · Sales figure — Associated Press, March 2026 · ACOTAR series scrapped at Hulu — TVLine · Maas on having the rights back — Den of Geek · Utah school ban — Kirkus · Sarah J. Maas reading guide
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