Amanda Hocking: A Biography

ABOUT THE BOOK

The hottest topic in publishing right now is the e-book revolution, in which authors rather than publishers are rewriting the rulebook. Since March 2010, the author Amanda Hocking has taken the traditional publishing world by storm, making millions from a series of young adult paranormal novels that she self-published.

Online retailers have sold more than 1.5 million copies of Hocking's novels. The majority of these were e-books, priced at 99 cents or $2.99 on online bookstores like Amazon, where the percentage the author retains from any given sale is far higher than it would be in traditional publishing.

MEET THE AUTHOR

Anita Felicelli is a writer and an attorney. After graduating from UC Berkeley with a triple major in Rhetoric, Interdisciplinary Studies (art and design), and English, she attended Boalt Hall Law School and Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam. She worked as a litigator for eight years before commencing a full-time writing and editing career. Anita's first book of poetry was published in 2010. She has experience writing and editing on topics as diverse as law, medicine, film, books and travel. An intrepid cook and arts enthusiast, Anita lives in Northern California with her husband and two corgis.

EXCERPT FROM THE BOOK

Hocking grew up poor on the outskirts of Blooming Prairie in the '80s. Living in the woods, without cable television, she read voraciously and far beyond what was typical for her age group. She spent a lot of time at the local library that now carries her books. By the age of 7, she was reading Stephen King, Jane Austen, Michael Crichton, and JD Salinger, among other famous adult authors. Her parents divorced when she was 11, the same year she got her first computer.

Depressed from childhood through adolescence, Hocking suffered from romantic angst, including the common teenage malady of wanting unavailable guys. She identified with grunge superstar Kurt Cobain who died of suicide, believing she would not live to be older than Cobain did. (Her interest in troubled male celebrities who met death early extends to River Phoenix and Heath Ledger). She saw herself as a "bit of a wallflower" in school. When interviewed by The Guardian, she said, "I was always depressed growing up. There wasn't a reason for it, I just was. I was sad and morose. I cried a lot, I wrote a lot, and I read a lot; and that was how I dealt with it."

CHAPTER OUTLINE

Amanda Hocking: A Biography
+ Introduction
+ Amanda Hocking Goes From Rags to Riches With Digital Publishing
+ The Not-So-Secret Secret to Amanda Hocking's Success
+ Does Amanda Hocking Have a Personal Life?
+ ...and much more