Amanda Hocking Self Publishing Success Story: The 26 year Old Indie Author Bestseller

Amanda Hocking sold over 185, 000 books between July 2010 and January 1^st 2011. That is in less than 7 months! This is no mean feat for someone who had worked as a dishwasher and who had spent five and a half of her years working in group homes for the disabled just to pay the bills. This is also in addition to the fact that she had never been traditionally published. Her journey to becoming a self publishing success story was not easy though. Here is her journey as an indie author.

Amanda Hocking admits that she has always had a love for telling stories. As a kid, she told stories even before she could learn how to write. She started with writing on notebooks and by the time she got her first computer at age 11, she had enough material to write a novel.

Since Amanda’s dream and passion was writing, she took advantage of every opportunity she had to write and learn how to write. She attended English classes in high school, English and writing classes in community colleges and even attended a writing workshop for two years. This was while she still held a day job as a dishwasher and worked in group homes for people with disabilities, just to be able to pay her bills.

July was not her first attempt to be published. By then, she had written 12 books and she had been trying to get published for almost 8 years, getting rejection after rejection. When she finally heard about self-publishing, she chose to try it out simply because there was really nothing worse that could happen. She first published on Lulu, but that was not where her success story began to take a turn for the better. None of her eBooks at Lulu sold.

Her efforts at self publishing on Lulu proving to be no success, she later decided to self-publish on Kindle. That is when she started selling. By August 2010, she had sold enough copies to leave her day job and concentrate on her passion which is basically to write. Amanda Hocking’s success story continues to inspire many aspiring authors. This is in addition to the inspiration that she gives her readers through her books.