A little more than two years ago, Amanda Hocking was a struggling, unpublished author juggling a full-time job at a home for special people and her passion for writing fantasy novels.
Then 26 years old, she already had 17 novels under her belt. She was a prolific and passionate writer but completely unknown. After receiving yet another rejection letter from a publisher, Hocking decided to turn to e-book stores as a last-ditch attempt to get her books on the market. "I didn't know what to do with the books I had. They weren't getting published anywhere, so I chose to publish them online," Hocking recalled.
She started in March 2010 by uploading the first book from her Vampire series titled My Blood Approves. A week later she published the second book in the series, Fate, which was then followed by the last of the series, Flutter. As word got around, sales started picking up and she sold a total of 624 books within the first few months. She added to her online portfolio by putting up the first and second books of her Trylle trilogy, a paranormal romance series about trolls.
"My sales took off quickly. They didn't really start to explode until I published the second book in my Trylle trilogy in mid-November [2010], and my sales really began to take off after that," Hocking said. She was able to harness the power of word of mouth through the growing online community of book bloggers. After their approval, the demand for her books rose. In June 2011 alone, she sold 4,258 copies. In July, her fourth book in the Vampire series was No 25 on the Kindle store's most read.
"In one 24-hour period, I made $1,200 (Dh4,404). Working at my full-time day job, the most I'd ever made in a month was $1,000. I just made more in a day than I used to make in a month," Hocking said.
Between April 2010, when she began putting up her books online, and January 2011, she had sold more than 185,000 copies, mostly through Amazon and Barnes & Noble at an average rate of 1,000 books per month. She has now crossed the $2-million mark, joining the ranks of other online sensations such as Stieg Larsson and James Patterson.
Her online book portfolio now includes the four-book Vampire series, the Zombies series and the Trylle trilogy. In her books Hocking delves into the world of fantasy and alternate communities, offering readers an escape into a thrilling, page-turning world of romance, conflict and glory.
"I try to write books that are a fun escape from the real world, and I think that can apply to anyone. So far, my audience has mostly been mothers, because e-readers aren't that popular with teens yet. They've all been really supportive and great," Hocking said.
The Trylle trilogy has been especially well received. It depicts a parallel world in which a community of trolls (or Trylle, as Hocking describes them) live. Hocking said she stumbled on to the idea when doing some research.
"I came across an article about trolls in Scandinavian folklore. I thought that would be a great idea for a book, and then all the ideas just started falling into place," Hocking said.
She went on to research different troll stories in Sweden and Norway. "A lot of the words and traditions I write about are taken from the Swedish language," Hocking said.
The kingdom of the Trylle is mostly Hocking's imagination. "I tried to build on what the basic story was from a couple of hundred years ago and tried to see how trolls would fit into a society that is more advanced," she added.
Readers lapped it up, and with such a resounding success, Hocking was keen to take her books to the traditional book market.
"E-books make up, at best, 20 per cent of the market. Print books make up the other 80 per cent. Traditional publishers still control the largest part of the market, and they will for a long time, maybe forever," Hocking said.
Her first paperback is Switched, from the Trylle series, and is doing the rounds in the European market, where Hocking said the book has received a positive response.
Even Hollywood has caught on to the success of the books. The Trylle series was recently optioned to be turned into a film by Media Rights Capital, the company behind District 9 and The Adjustment Bureau.
Hocking has come a long way since the collection of short stories and poems she scribbled down at the age of 12, the full-length film script she completed in high school and the first novel she wrote at the age of 17.
"My first novel was about a guy in a mental asylum trying to solve his sister's murder through flashbacks, because of memory loss. It was awful. I think, when I started writing, I was writing about subjects that are a lot darker than I am. Now, I write books that fit my personality a little more, and I think that comes across in the writing," Hocking said.
At present, she is working on the fourth book in her Waterson series. The first of the series is due to come out in August.
However, there is always a small price to pay for fame. Since Switched was released about a month ago, Hocking has had to set aside her passion and dedicate most of her time promoting the book through interviews, events and her blog. Her days are now a whirlwind of tours, interviews and book readings.
"I have several ideas, but not much time to do anything with them at the moment," Hocking said, with a twinge of regret.
