Though the concept of vampires is nothing new — Bram Stoker’s "Dracula" was published in 1897 — the most recent vampire phenomenon has taken the teen world by storm.

A quick scan through Amazon.com’s top sellers in the teen section reveals 17 out of the top 25 are vampire-related.

The total worldwide gross of hit movie “Twilight,” based on the series of novels by Stephenie Meyer, is now approaching $400 million, and the sequel entitled “New Moon,” is set to open in November to much the same reception.

But companies behind today’s vampire craze are after a different audience than ever before, according to Karen Elise Sternheimer, a sociologist at the University of Southern California, and the author of “Connecting Social Problems and Popular Culture: Why Media is not the Answer.”

Because series like Twilight are set in high school and the vampires are facing many of the same coming-of-age issues teens are facing, it’s a scenario that young viewers understand.

“It’s all about teen drama issues, with a twist” Sternheimer said. “I see vampires as sort of bizzaro cousins to ‘Gossip Girl.’ Most of us aren’t fabulously rich and part of the upperclasses, and most of us don’t have a 500-year-old vampire for a boyfriend, but we can fantasize.”

The core audience for the current vampire hysteria is somewhere in the 12 to 29 age group, and is approximately 80% female, Sternheimer said. This age range is a unique one for marketers because there are so many mediums through which this group absorbs information.

“They’re getting it through books, movies, music, clothing, blogs, YouTube videos, and the list goes on,” said Sternheimer.

Yet the craze has begun to reach beyond just the teen audience. According to HBO, their vampire-based hit series “True Blood” raked in 3.7 million viewers in its second season. Proof Sternheimer says that success breeds “a lot of imitators.”

“It’s amazing how much of Hollywood plays follow-the-leader,” she said, adding that media and entertainment companies are always eager to capitalize on any type of monster that’s going to sell lunchboxes or DVDs.

“It’s interesting because you frequently do have situations where studios put out very similar products,” said Matthew Harrigan, an analyst and senior vice president at Wunderlich Securities in Memphis, Tennessee. “But genres get hot and cold, and studios are pretty risk averse. So if you get a bomb or two, then they stay away.”

The main thing helping propel vampires to the top of the charts today is what Harrigan referred to as a “built-in audience.” Once an audience is developed with the first movie or book, it perpetuates.

“Look at the Bond movies,” said Harrigan. “The last ones have been just abysmal, but the audience is there, and so are the profits. But you have to be careful. Can you have six vampire movies a year make it at the box office?

Probably not. But one big one every two years is not all that hard.”

Harrigan said that the horror genre saturates relatively slowly compared to others, and that most times studios won’t know until something loses money that they’ve come to the other side of the trend. Yet even with market research, even the most experienced of trend-followers can’t be positive when a market is tapped out.

L.A. Banks, author of the hit vampire novel series “The Vampires Hunter’s Legend,” said that today’s vampire craze boosted her book sales ten-fold, and that sales from her work on the undead have single-handedly allowed her to retire. Banks credits her agent with being a “market watcher” and knowing in 2001 that the vampire category would be big in the coming years. She said there’s no shame in being a writer who knows how to spot marketing trends.

“When I first started writing in 2001, sales were at a crawl. It was going to be a four-book series, but by the time the fourth book came out, things were picking up and before I knew it, we had a 12-book series on our hands, and web hits were off the charts,” said Banks.

Banks said that for writers who roll out with something in the middle of a craze, there is no reason they shouldn’t be successful.

Cynthia Freeland, author of the book, “The Naked and the Undead,” an analysis of human nature in horror films, said there’s no way to predict when the “next big thing” will introduce itself, but said that before vampires vanish from the scene, something—or someone – else will be there to take their place.

Though it’s unclear when the teen audience fueling today’s bloodlust will get their fill, they will know when the quality of what they are reading and viewing slacks off, according to Diane Robina, president of FEARnet. In other words, even though the vampire bandwagon might be filled with teenagers, they are keenly aware of what is a studio copycat trying to make a dime and what is the “real thing.”

“The teens out there today are very, very savvy consumers, and they will know when they are being faked,” said Robina.