Though her books are hard to categorize, most of them have an addictive combination of sex, drama and outrageous plot twists. She’s written romances, a steamy psychological thriller, a ghost story, harrowing novels about domestic violence, drug abuse, homelessness and poverty. Most blockbuster authors break out because of a popular series, like “Twilight” or “Harry Potter,” or build a brand by writing in a recognizable genre. “She’s defying the laws of how the market works,” said the publishing industry analyst Peter Hildick-Smith. So far in 2022, five of the top 10 best-selling print books of any genre are Hoover’s, according to NPD BookScan, and many of her current best-sellers came out years ago, a phenomenon that’s almost unheard-of in publishing. A CoHo fan who made the following plea on TikTok is typical: “I want Colleen Hoover to punch me in the face. Her fans, who are mostly women, call themselves CoHorts and post gushing reactions to her books’ devastating climaxes. Her success has happened largely on her terms, led by readers who act as her evangelists, driving sales through ecstatic online reviews and viral reaction videos.

By the summer, with two books on the best-seller list - “Slammed” and a sequel, “Point of Retreat,” - she quit her job to write full time. By May, Hoover had made $50,000 in royalties, money she used to pay back her stepfather for the trailer. Hoover, 42, didn’t have a publisher, an agent or any of the usual marketing machinery that goes into engineering a best seller: the six-figure marketing campaigns, the talk-show and podcast tours, the speaking gigs and literary awards, the glowing reviews from mainstream book critics.īut seven months later, “Slammed” hit the New York Times best-seller list.

She was elated when she made $30 in royalties. When she self-published her first young adult novel, “Slammed,” in January of 2012, Hoover was making $9 an hour as a social worker, living in a single-wide trailer with her husband, a long-distance truck driver, and their three sons. And her success - a shock that she’s still processing, she said - has upended the publishing industry’s most entrenched assumptions about what sells books.

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