Amazon Studios, the original content arm of Amazon.com, Inc., has optioned the rights to author Ania Ahlborn’s popular horror novel “Seed” – a top seller of 47North – the science fiction, fantasy, and horror imprint of Amazon Publishing.

Amazon Studios has added the project to its development slate and will begin testing various big screen adaptations of the spine-tingling Southern gothic suspense tale of an ordinary man with a demon on his back. The move to option a novel in circulation is a first for Amazon Studios, which up to this point has optioned only movie scripts and episodic series projects submitted to Amazon Studios.

“With nothing but the clothes on his back—and something horrific snapping at his heels—Jack Winter fled his rural Georgia home when he was still just a boy. Watching the world he knew vanish in a trucker’s rearview mirror, he thought he was leaving an unspeakable nightmare behind forever. But years later, the bright new future he’s built suddenly turns pitch black, as something fiendishly familiar looms dead ahead.

When Jack, his wife Aimee, and their two small children survive a violent car crash, it seems like a miracle. But Jack knows what he saw on the road that night, and it wasn’t divine intervention. The profound evil from his past won’t let them die…at least not quickly. It’s back, and it’s hungry; ready to make Jack pay for running, to work its malignant magic on his angelic youngest daughter, and to whisper a chilling promise: I’ve always been here, and I’ll never leave.“

“Our primary objective at Amazon Studios is to develop great, commercial projects that our customers love,” said Roy Price, Director, Amazon Studios. “Ania Ahlborn’s SEED has been a top seller for Amazon Publishing’s 47North so we already have a sense of the mainstream attraction of the story and are excited to keep the project in-house for movie development.”

Released in mid-2011 as a self-published title, “Seed” was quick to gain recognition and praise among lovers of horror. Called ‘bold,’ ‘daring,’ and ‘unflinching,’ “Seed” reached the #1 spot on Amazon’s bestselling horror list by nothing more than word-of-mouth. SEED was re-released in 2012 after Ahlborn restructured certain plot points and added over six thousand words to the manuscript.

Amazon Studios recently hosted a trailer contest allowing fans the opportunity to create the official “Seed” book trailer and awarded $3,000 to the winning trailer “Grinning Demons,” as selected by the author Ania Ahlborn. Ahlborn’s second book, The Neighbors, comes out November 27.