Teusery

"This guy are sick"
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May 18, 2022
2,664
www.npr.org

Author Colleen Hoover went from tending cows to writing bestsellers

The top-selling author in the country right now is a 42-year-old mom and former social worker who lives in the same small Texas town where she's spent practically her entire life.

Colleen Hoover's romance-heavy reads are regular fixtures on bestseller lists. She's outsold the Bible by more than 3 million copies so far this year. And her latest novel out this past week, It Starts With Us, published by the Simon & Schuster division Atria Books, set a company record for first day fiction sales.

According to the company, the novel sold a total of more than 800,000 copies on the day it was released (Oct. 18). It also had more pre-orders than any novel in Simon & Schuster's 98-year-old history.


Hoover's popularity also stems from the wide variety of tropes and genres she draws on in her writing. In an essay published this past August in Slate, columnist Laura Miller called Hoover's books "the everything bagels of popular fiction" because of the author's catch-all approach.

"If you want a super dreamy romance, you can get that. If you want it to be pretty erotic, you can get that. And you can also get a big tear jerker," Miller said in an interview with NPR for this story. "Her skill in promoting herself on social media and the sort of weird evangelical quality of her books that make people want to recommend them to other people — all of that combined sort of reaches a mass audience."


Humble Beginnings:

It was in 2011, while living in a trailer and working for child protection services, that Hoover started writing her debut novel, Slammed. She self-published the young adult romance set in the world of slam poetry on Amazon.

"She called me and she said, 'Six people I don't even know bought my book.' And I'm, like, 'You are kidding!'" said Hoover's mom, Vannoy Fite, recalling the fantastical quality of the weeks following Slammed's release. "And then a couple weeks later, she said, '60 people bought my book. I think I can pay my light bill.' I'm, like, 'Oh my God, Colleen, that's crazy!' And then it just blew up from there. Just blew up."


I've never read any of her books (yet) but she's the biggest thing in novels right now.

www.goodreads.com

Colleen Hoover

Author of It Ends with Us, Ugly Love, and Verity
 

Zippedpinhead

Fallen Guardian
Member
Oct 25, 2017
11,199
my wife read through a bunch of her books the past few weeks including Verity and then passed that one off to me.

Haven't touched it yet, but she has LOVED them.
 

Loxley

Prophet of Truth
Member
Oct 25, 2017
10,081
What a cool story, I always love hearing about self-published authors blowing up entirely through word of mouth.

Also, aren't romance novels by far the largest-selling genre in literature? I think it makes up something like a third of all fiction sales every year. The audience is fucking massive, so when a particular author or series take off, they take off big.
 

Surakian

Shinra Employee
Avenger
Oct 27, 2017
11,637
My boss was reading her books and has been loving them. I can't even manage to get a digital copy from Libby to read her books because there are so many holds on the recent ones.
 

Transistor

Or else Pizza is gonna send out for you
Administrator
Oct 25, 2017
38,498
Washington, D.C.
Wait…Folks buy Bibles? You can get them from free haha
There's, like, a billion versions of the bible. It's a huge market.

6y9uc7.jpg
 

Aiqops

Member
Aug 3, 2021
16,363
Wait…Folks buy Bibles? You can get them from free haha

There are even fancy big letherbound hardcover Bibles.

Regarding this news, funny how this stuff happens. I just yesterday watched an asmr video of a book haul and one book that was recommended there was Verity. And boom comes this thread.😆
 

Transistor

Or else Pizza is gonna send out for you
Administrator
Oct 25, 2017
38,498
Washington, D.C.

Gay Bowser

Member
Oct 30, 2017
18,052
Dated a girl for a while with a really Christian family. Seemed every birthday / Christmas / celebration a special bible was given.

Yeah, there's a whole genre of bibles cashing in on the lucrative "maybe if I get my teenage son this Xtreme Teens Bible he'll like coming to church" market. And yes, they do all have severe "how do you do, fellow kids" vibes.
 

mael

Avenger
Nov 3, 2017
17,654
You can have some really fancy bibles out there,
the problem is that you can't get the cover without the bad fantasy book that's inside :/
 

Thordinson

Banned
Aug 1, 2018
19,222
I mean, like the kids bibles and bibles for women and adventure bibles and shit. Huge market:

www.lifeway.com

Shop CSB, KJV, and NASB Bibles | Lifeway

Buy Lifeway Bibles online from popular translations like CSB, KJV, and NASB Bibles.

Dated a girl for a while with a really Christian family. Seemed every birthday / Christmas / celebration a special bible was given.

Oh! Gotcha!

That makes a lot of sense. It's just blowing my mind how huge the market is.
 

Gigglepoo

Member
Oct 25, 2017
9,681
my wife read through a bunch of her books the past few weeks including Verity and then passed that one off to me.

Haven't touched it yet, but she has LOVED them.

I read Verity a few years ago and loved it. I'm going to have to check out her other books. I'm glad she's so popular!

Verity not something I would call a "romance" though. Kind of a weird categorization. I wonder if that's true for her other books as well? It's closer to The End of Getting Lost (if anyone has read that excellent book). It's a mystery/thriller centered on a romantic relationship.

EDIT -- It looks like her other books are contemporary romances whereas Verity is a thriller. Definitely read Verity if you dig books like Gone Girl.
 
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mael

Avenger
Nov 3, 2017
17,654
Look, the fantasy isn't soooo bad but rather the fandom that makes it worse.
I dunno, the plot is super cliché and the world building is shite on top of being entirely unbelievable.
But yeah, nothing is worse than the fandom there.
We say how bad random topic's fandoms are like StarWars, Dr Who or Avatar but this makes them look like puppies.

No one was ever killed for defending the good name of Lando Calrisian, we can make top tens of the most horrible serial killers who justified it by misunderstanding the bible!

And good luck trying to get rid of pedos too!
 

petitmelon

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,414
Texas
She's super popular in book groups, to the point I have joined book groups whose entire premise is banning talk of CoHo books. She's huge on booktok.

Her and Sarah J Maas make up about 80% of the book recs I see everyday. They're both not for me at all but I'm glad they're selling books at a time when it seems like books aren't selling.
 

bananab

Member
Oct 27, 2017
3,098
What a cool story, I always love hearing about self-published authors blowing up entirely through word of mouth.

Also, aren't romance novels by far the largest-selling genre in literature? I think it makes up something like a third of all fiction sales every year. The audience is fucking massive, so when a particular author or series take off, they take off big.
When I worked at a used book store as a teenager, we had running lists of books we weren't taking, and romance was a permanent fixture on that list. Whole store would just be romance novels if we took more. Folks would come in with big trash bags of em and be so disappointed when we told them. Then they'd just creep by in the night and leave the bag by the front door as a "donation."
 

mael

Avenger
Nov 3, 2017
17,654
When I worked at a used book store as a teenager, we had running lists of books we weren't taking, and romance was a permanent fixture on that list. Whole store would just be romance novels if we took more. Folks would come in with big trash bags of em and be so disappointed when we told them. Then they'd just creep by in the night and leave the bag by the front door as a "donation."
There's worse though, on twitter there's a librarian who ended up with a donation of rando washed up dead racist politician book from the 90s.
At least the romance novels can be sold, who the fuck is gonna buy the 2nd book of Charles Pasqua?
If you have idea who that is, that's exactly the point!
 

Aiqops

Member
Aug 3, 2021
16,363
Btw, I always wanted to someday read the bible. I give zero Fs about religion and see it as a Silmarillion, Fire and Blood type fantasy book.

Is it worth it to experience it like that?
 

mael

Avenger
Nov 3, 2017
17,654
Btw, I always wanted to someday read the bible. I give zero Fs about religion and see it as a Silmarillion, Fire and Blood type fantasy book.

Is it worth it to experience it like that?
Not even.
I'd suggest something like John Milton's Paradise Lost, because at least it's well written.
The bible is so dry, it's the reading equivalent of watching paint.
 

Joe

Member
Oct 25, 2017
8,979
Hahaha. My wife loves romance novels (like, she's read hundreds of them) and she just hates Colleen Hoover. Gonna have to tell her about this.
 

Aiqops

Member
Aug 3, 2021
16,363
Just a warning Paradise Lost is poetic prose.
I absolutely love it and I hold it as the single best written piece of art but it's incredibly obtuse.
Just so you know.

I plan to read many literature classics that are super old, so I am sure many will have obtuse writing. Just gonna jump in and see.😅
 

Sesha

▲ Legend ▲
Member
Oct 25, 2017
10,182
Btw, I always wanted to someday read the bible. I give zero Fs about religion and see it as a Silmarillion, Fire and Blood type fantasy book.

Is it worth it to experience it like that?

The bible is a bunch of books by various authors, written over hundreds of years, slapped together in a vague attempt to make a coherent canon. Some of them are worth it as examples of good literature from the region and time period where and when they were written. Some are absolute chores, like Leviticus.

Read Genesis and the Book of Job, at the very least, if you bother at all. Prob should be a good translation, though. Unfortunately I can't help you there, as I don't know which ones are "the good ones" from a recreative reading perspective, only which ones are good for critical readings.
 

Gibson

Member
Oct 29, 2017
2,398
Good for her.
Though I know a lot of CH books romanticise abusive relationships so eh.
 

Nida

Member
Aug 31, 2019
12,632
Everett, Washington
How has Hollywood not broken down her door?

There's worse though, on twitter there's a librarian who ended up with a donation of rando washed up dead racist politician book from the 90s.
At least the romance novels can be sold, who the fuck is gonna buy the 2nd book of Charles Pasqua?
If you have idea who that is, that's exactly the point!

Ohh link?
 
Dec 30, 2020
16,555
I really hate the milestone of "outsold the bible" when the bible's not a terribly interesting book, and is one that's constantly being forced on me. The sad irony is I've generally read more of it than the folks trying to force it on me have.

But all in all, glad for Colleen Hoover on her impressive sales.
 

Rosebud

Two Pieces
Member
Apr 16, 2018
46,904
Btw, I always wanted to someday read the bible. I give zero Fs about religion and see it as a Silmarillion, Fire and Blood type fantasy book.

I'm doing that veery slowly. At first I read the physical book but everyone thought I became religious so I switched to Kindle lol

If people use this book as a moral compass we're fucked
 

Dre3001

Member
Oct 28, 2017
1,900
I've seen people gushing about her books on social media all the time before. Good for her.
 

mael

Avenger
Nov 3, 2017
17,654
I plan to read many literature classics that are super old, so I am sure many will have obtuse writing. Just gonna jump in and see.😅
And I thought I was the only one!
Like to be fair I'm mostly reading XIXth century classics these days but it's certainly refreshing!
Also anyone using War and Peace to make any commentary on Russia deserves a punch to the head.
me also : War and Peace translated by Pevear and Volokhonsky is absolutely glorious and everyone should have it.
It's even better if you're fluent in French.

I managed to find it!

View: https://twitter.com/FilledAlbum/status/1138703105879674881

On the left is from the hasbeen racist politiican, the other is from what is basically an oligarch (heir to the rich family behind the Darty line of shops, think walmart but for electronics).
 

Aiqops

Member
Aug 3, 2021
16,363
And I thought I was the only one!
Like to be fair I'm mostly reading XIXth century classics these days but it's certainly refreshing!
Also anyone using War and Peace to make any commentary on Russia deserves a punch to the head.
me also : War and Peace translated by Pevear and Volokhonsky is absolutely glorious and everyone should have it.
It's even better if you're fluent in French.

If I ever try reading that behemoth of a book I will try to read the original. Though these days I am half as fast or even slower reading russian than german or english. All because in the 22 years since moving to germany I only kept up with speaking russian, but barely reading it.😅
 

Beren

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 25, 2017
4,737
Btw, I always wanted to someday read the bible. I give zero Fs about religion and see it as a Silmarillion, Fire and Blood type fantasy book.

Is it worth it to experience it like that?
I've just finished reading it, with a similar purpose (just a big lit nerd and this was an obvious omission). It's worth reading to see where so many ideas, stories and even stock phrases of western civilization come from if that interests you. As a fictional narrative it has some interesting structures and quirks and probably the premiere example of an "abstract myth to grounded story" arc, similar to Tolkien's legendarium. As a general read, it's a fucking slog, out of chronological order with a poor framing device, and probably half of it is just painful as an attention-keeper. As a manual on how to live your life, it's outdated and outclassed.
 

mael

Avenger
Nov 3, 2017
17,654
If I ever try reading that behemoth of a book I will try to read the original. Though these days I am half as fast or even slower reading russian than german or english. All because in the 22 years since moving to germany I only kept up with speaking russian, but barely reading it.😅
i think the official is probably the best way to go about it but I'm not learning Russian now.
The Pevear/Volokhonsky translation is, I think, the best at trying to get the feel of the original text, keeping the parts that are not in Russian in their original language.
So when they speak French, it's in French.
Of course when they speak English (exceedingly rare) it's noted as such in the edition.

I've just finished reading it, with a similar purpose (just a big lit nerd and this was an obvious omission). It's worth reading to see where so many ideas, stories and even stock phrases of western civilization come from if that interests you. As a fictional narrative it has some interesting structures and quirks and probably the premiere example of an "abstract myth to grounded story" arc, similar to Tolkien's legendarium. As a general read, it's a fucking slog, out of chronological order with a poor framing device, and probably half of it is just painful as an attention-keeper. As a manual on how to live your life, it's outdated and outclassed.
I feel like if you wanna know where most of the ideas, stories and all that comes from the western civilization you're better served with a study in western civilization that goes into details of how cultures influenced each other than just the bible.
Depending on your translation it's probably not even accurate to begin with....like the official French version up till they redid a translation in the 00s