Editor's note: This story was originally published Sept. 8, 2007.

As publishing success stories go, Stephenie Meyer 's is as astonishing as J.K. Rowling's. In between diaper changes and meal-making, this Phoenix mom tapped out a vampire love story and hit it big on her first try: a $750,000, three-book contract, a movie deal and editions sold in 30-plus countries.

Tween and teenage girls have put the three thick volumes in Meyer 's series: Twilight , New Moon and the just-released Eclipse (Little Brown, $18.99, ages 12 and up) on the bestseller list. Meyer will be in Miami next week to host a Vampire Ball, an event staged by Books & Books to satisfy the multitudes who made Eclipse the second biggest book of the summer -- a one million-copy first printing; 150,000 copies sold on its first day of release. Only Rowling's Harry Potter finale had bigger numbers.

"I always thought if I published it, I'd have to pay someone to do it," Meyer said. Self-deprecation is part of her girl-next-door appeal.

Meyer , 33, majored in English at Brigham Young University, but avoided the creative writing classes. She married while in school and worked briefly as an office assistant before giving birth to three boys in five years.

An avid reader, she thought she might use her degree to teach someday. Her story about the impossibly handsome vampire, Edward, and his human girlfriend, Bella, came in a dream so vivid she felt compelled to write it down. Her older sister read her first drafts and encouraged her to seek publication.

Meyer queried 10 agents and got nine rejections. The 10th, Jodi Reamer of Writers House, took on her manuscript and made the three-book deal.

What makes this even more impressive is that all Meyer knew about vampires was what she gleaned from reading a few Anne Rice novels. She set her story in a real town she'd never visited -- Forks, Wash. -- after searching the Internet for rainy towns where sunshine-averse vampires might plausibly take up residence.

"I used Google Images a lot," she admits.

That worked: Meyer can write a paragraph that makes you reach for an umbrella. That realism balances her plots, which tend toward the melodramatic. Bella, an acknowledged klutz, is constantly in need of rescue from injury, would-be rapists, werewolves, wayward automobiles, etc.

And the seams show in Meyer 's details. Bella accidentally cuts herself at a birthday party thrown for her by Edward's vampiric family. The sight and smell of her blood nearly drives them to sink their teeth into the birthday girl, rather than the cake, and Edward initially leaves town, believing Bella is just too hard to resist. But Bella is 18 -- wouldn't he have had this reaction every time she menstruated?

"There are like 70 pages of comments about that on the Twilight Lexicon (www.twilightlexicon.com) but the short answer is, it wasn't something I was going to write about because, ick," Meyer said. "And it's a different kind of blood. It's not the same as the sight of fresh blood bubbling up on her finger."

But Bella's obsessive enthrallment with Edward is enough to make any mother with a daughter cringe (she's willing to die for her man) and her lack of moxie disappoints. She wins admission to Dartmouth, but never considers attending -- too much sunshine in Rhode Island for Edward.

"Dissing the Meyer trilogy for its supposed anti-feminism has become a popular sport," said Patty Campbell, a prominent young adult literature critic. "Personally, I think it's a function of the vampire genre. Women are always the helpless and delighted victims of the throat-biters in these stories."

Whatever misgivings feminist readers might have, Meyer 's books have undeniably struck a chord with teenage girls. More than 900 reader reviewers of Twilight are posted on Amazon.com, the great majority saying something close to "BEST BOOK EVER WRITTEN!!!!"

'As a reader, I always liked to read books about superheroes or books where the characters are the 'chosen one,' " Meyer said, "but I can't shoot fireballs from my eyes, or perform a roundhouse kick if I'm outnumbered in an alleyway. Bella is human and she's limited and, because of that, she's really relatable."

There's another school of thought that says teenage readers aren't interested in Bella at all. They're sucked in by Edward, the amber-eyed, golden boy who personifies the word "gallant."

"I did not set out to create the perfect man, but Edward is cool and beautiful and good, so he definitely has an appeal," Meyer said.

And unlike many vampire stories, Meyer 's are totally G-rated. Edward is adamant that he and Bella be chaste until marriage, making these books an easier sell to parents than a lot of other young adult bestsellers. Meyer plans to write a fourth and, perhaps, concluding installment, and then a companion book outlining Edward's life before he met Bella. Plenty to keep a stay-at-home mom busy.

"How many people get paid to do something," she asks, "that they would do for free anyway?"

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