Amanda Hocking

Amanda Hocking is an American author, born in Austin, Minnesota, in 1984, who became one of the first breakout stars of self-published fiction. While working at a group home for people with disabilities, she wrote more than a dozen novels before beginning to self-publish e-books in 2010; within a year she had sold over a million copies of her paranormal romance and urban fantasy titles, including the vampire series My Blood Approves and the troll-mythology-based Trylle trilogy. Her success, unprecedented at the time for a self-published author, led to a widely reported four-book, two-million-dollar deal with St. Martin's Press for the Watersong series in 2011, and several of her earlier self-published works were subsequently re-released through traditional publishers. She lives in Rochester, Minnesota.