Taylor Swift & Sarah J. Maas's Market-Breaking Intersection

Want to upturn your industry and tap into a renewable resource of loyal, life-long fangirls? Tap into your inner sap.

Disclaimer: I’m not a Swiftie.

Having to disclose that ethos at the top says plenty about the tricky lines of Taylor Swift’s fans and their reputation. They are willing to go to the ends of the earth, online and in person, no matter the social or financial cost.

My history with Taylor, for context, is this: I listen to the albums on their release days. I have a couple of Swift-specific text threads for same-day song reactions. In middle school, I played the Fearless CD in my bedroom during playdate makeovers and manicures. I looped Speak Now through my mom’s laptop during my English homework. I lost touch when she released Red and 1989, reconnected with high school friends during college with Lover, and fell in love with the folklore/evermore cottage-quarantine vibe. (As you know, I am, first and foremost, a sad-girl-pop fan.) Whether I sought her music or not, her songs snuck onto my 2010s soundtrack: at proms, on college dance floors, in long car rides, in the check-out line at Nords…