The first signs that something anomalous was happening in the world of books began to be detected a decade ago and reached their climax during the pandemic, when many sought refuge in reading.
Little by little, a stranger by the name of Colleen Hoover had been making her way without the support of anyone to become the best-selling writer (male or female) of all time.
With 20 published titles, the sales figure of her books exceeds 20 million invoiced copies.
The phenomenon reached delusional proportions last October with the publication in the United States of her latest novel, which has just appeared in Spanish under the title
Start Again .
(Planet).
When it came out, it went straight to number 1 on all the sales charts, trailing a trail of previously released titles behind it.
The best-
seller list
uploaded by
The New York Times
that week gave the impression of having been sabotaged by a
hacker .
paid by the author.
Among the 15 best-selling fiction titles were 9 of his.
And it was not just a question of the position occupied.
The most striking thing was the time spent on the list, to which some books had returned after years of absence.
The only novelty was the brand new number 1, of whose initial print run of two and a half million copies, 800,000 were sold on the first day.
The origin of the novel is unusual.
Hoover wrote it to please his fans, who had been demanding the sequel to
Break the Circle (
2016), his most celebrated title, with four million copies sold for years.
After a year and a half on
The New York Times list,
the appearance of
Start Again
relegated her to second place.
In third place, with a year and three months of uninterrupted presence, was
Verity, the shadow of a deceit
, a
thriller
that mixes mystery and romance.
The fourth place, with more than 14 months on the list, was occupied by
Ugly Love
(An ugly love)... Also monopolized by Hoover, the 6th, 9th, 10th, 12th and 14th positions had been on the list for a time that oscillated between two months and just over a year.
And so one week after another, with variations.
In 2022, three of his novels reached number 1.
Colleen Hoover was born in Sulfur Springs, Texas, 42 years ago.
Her parents owned a small ranch located in the vicinity of the town of Saltillo where they cared for fifty cows.
According to the author's statements on TikTok, when she was asked as a child what she wanted to be when she grew up, she invariably replied that she was a writer.
The first story of her,
Mystery Bob
(Mysterious Bob), written at the age of five, tells the story of an enigmatic individual who undertakes the search for five rings.
During his adolescence, his obligations were divided between working on the ranch, milking cows, and high school studies.
At age 20, after graduating with a social worker degree, she married her high school sweetheart, a trucker by profession.
The marriage settled in a trailer, where she raised her three children.
In order to combat her boredom, she would occasionally take her mother's laptop and write on the sly.
One day, while his seven-year-old son was rehearsing a play at school, he came up with a novel starring a teenager who, traumatized by the premature death of her father at 32, falls in love with her teacher and seek refuge in the
public performances
of poetry known as
slams.
A month later she put an end to his first novel,
Slammed,
translated into Spanish as
Love in verse.
She had to hurry from her because she wanted her mother to read it on the tablet she had given her for Christmas.
She self-published it on Amazon on New Year's morning 2012. The first day it had 6 downloads;
the second, 60. From there, the barrage was unstoppable.
She was 31 years old.
History repeated itself six months later with the sequel
Point of Retreat
.
In view of the results, Hoover hired an agent who had the two titles taken from her hands without her realizing it.
In August both novels broke into the US
bestseller lists
.
True to his principles, he self-published his third title.
Instinctively understanding the importance of cultivating a digital audience, Hoover was clever enough to give five of his titles free access in e-book format.
After devouring them, readers bought them on paper.
The sixth title,
Finding Cinderella
(Looking for Cinderella), was also published electronically, but its readers rioted, demanding a physical book.
Faced with the barrage of tweets, protests and threats, the publisher ended up giving in, adding Hoover's own story as a real Cinderella as an epilogue.
The author of Slammed signs books at the Grapevine fair (Texas, United States). Allison V. Smith (The New York Times / Contact)
With
Breaking the Circle
(2016) his career skyrocketed.
His fans nicknamed him
CoHo,
proclaiming himself his cohort.
The trajectory followed by the writer until today continues to be vertiginous.
Of the 20 million copies that she has sold in total, half correspond to 2022. The phenomenon completely blurs not only the map of what is understood by literature, but also that of the territory occupied by specialists in mega
best sellers
.
Hoover outsells authors of the caliber of James Patterson, John Grisham, JK Rowling, Stephen King or EL James, the author of
Fifty Shades of Grey,
whom Hoover has befriended.
The case has caught the attention of mass psychologists, who have tried to analyze her amazing ability to connect with the most elemental feelings of people she doesn't normally read.
Both the viral videos posted by fans of her and the live presentations of her books are delirious spectacles.
Her admirers travel from remote places willing to endure hours-long queues equipped with towers of books on which they wait for the author to stamp her signature.
The reactions of Colleen Hoover's fans are recorded in
bookstagrams
and videos in which they appear with trembling hands, as if in a trance, or thanking her, laughing or sobbing inconsolably.
When she appeared
Reminders of Him
(
Memories of him
) in early 2022, a fan uploaded a seven-second video online in which all that was visible was the book cover.
It had 700,000 views.
The most significant of the CoHo phenomenon takes place in the virtual world.
Hoover has legions of followers on BookTube, InstaBook, and BookTok, the YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok niches dedicated to the world of books.
His impact on networks is unparalleled: almost two million followers on Instagram, one million on both TikTok and Facebook, where he has a following of 170,000 cohorts.
Add to that 200,000 followers on Twitter and nearly 3 billion views of the
hashtag #Colleen Hoover
on TikTok.
The root of all this is emotional.
The great discovery of the writer was to find the existence of virtual communities made up of legions of readers eager to share their traumas, longings and frustrations.
The arrival of the pandemic had a huge impact on these communities, creating a breeding ground in which the new digital platforms changed the rules of the game.
As a consequence of the confinement, a very vital literary subculture emerged.
It should be noted that more than 40% of BookTok users are between the ages of 16 and 24, most of them women who want to share their opinions about the books they read, making recommendations that translate into million-dollar sales.
When someone recommends a novel on BookTok,
an algorithm is launched that causes interest in the book to skyrocket uncontrollably.
Of course, the publishing industry is aware of the movements of the readers, taking care in more than one case of coming into contact with the
influencers
and paying them to recommend books.
This is not enough to explain the specific case of Colleen Hoover.
In large-area bookstores and supermarkets there are promotional tables and shelves dedicated exclusively to it.
In turn, the author posts one-minute videos in which she gives advice to new generations of readers, talking about herself and her problems, not just her books.
A particularly striking aspect of TikTok's impact on massive book sales is what could be characterized as the rebound effect.
Unexpectedly, extinct
best sellers
come back to life, generating even more interest than when they were first published.
Such has been the case, among others, of
So Little Life
, by Hanya Yanagihara;
The Song of Achilles
, by Madeline Miller;
The midnight library
by Matt Haig, and, of course, books by Colleen Hoover, who saw sales of works published years ago skyrocket again.
There are other factors to take into account.
One of the most intriguing is the books ability of hers to arouse primal emotions, like crying.
Numerous videos posted on TikTok show their readers filming themselves crying uncontrollably, displaying their anxiety and their need to share their emotions.
Some of Colleen Hoover's best-selling millionaires, exhibited at the Grapevine book fair in Texas. Allison V. Smith (The New York Times / Contact)
Success has taken its toll on her, making her something of a recluse.
After blocking all contact with the press, categorically refusing to comment, she canceled the tour planned for her latest book, much to the annoyance of her fans, although this has not affected her sales.
Exceptionally, thanks to the mediation of her Spanish publishers, the writer agreed to respond summarily by email to a meager number of questions exclusively for
El País Semanal.
How does Colleen Hoover explain the power her books have over millions of people who say their lives have changed forever after reading it?
“I write what I would like to read myself.
I just go where the readers take me.
When I read I want to be entertained and when I write my intention is to entertain.
Undoubtedly, a good part of her secret is related to her ability to echo the traumas experienced by people like her.
Hoover explains it like this: “There are many people who feel immediately identified when they read the story of a mother who manages to break the cycle of domestic violence of which she is a victim.
This is the case of Lily [the protagonist of
Breaking the Circle]
.
Many readers have gone through the same thing as her.
Is it possible to narrow down the keys to your success in any way?
"Who can expect something like that?
I am deeply grateful to my readers, but I must admit that the merit belongs to BookTok, I have no doubt”.
What is clear, in any case, is that the author masters the rules of the game.
In addition to publishing simultaneously with three different publishers, she continues to self-publish.
Another feature that distinguishes her is that, unlike
best-seller professionals,
Colleen Hoover doesn't stick to a set formula that's known to work.
Her novels cover very diverse genres, from sentimental romance to psychological thriller, through the chronicle of paranormal phenomena.
Her arguments exploit borderline emotional situations: traumas, abusive relationships, sexual harassment, tormented love, stories of survival, infertility, cruelty or abandonment.
As she needs it, the author incorporates abundant doses of sex, domestic violence, psychological torture, frustrations of all kinds, and plenty of melodrama.
He does not have a fixed work habit, he writes when he feels like it.
Months of inactivity alternate with 12-hour days of frantic writing.
She often spends more time signing dedications than writing.
Does she know where she goes when she starts a novel or does she just follow her intuition?
“The process is different with every book.
There are times when inspiration comes suddenly and other times I have to make an enormous effort of will”, she admits.
As for the deadlines she is required to meet so as not to interfere with sales, she clarifies: “Sometimes I am afraid of missing them, but writing gives me a pleasure that I don't want to do without, so I prefer to write alone. when I feel creative.
The American writer poses at her ranch in Sulfur Springs, Texas. Jake Dockins (The New York Times / Contact)
Applying to Colleen Hoover the criteria reserved for what is normally understood as literature makes no sense.
Some commentators have noted that her characters fit a set pattern: they are white, cisgender (meaning they identify with the gender they were assigned at birth), and heterosexual.
These are issues that the author is completely careless about.
The only opinion that she cares about is that of her readers.
According to her fans, reading a Colleen Hoover novel is a dizzying experience, which, according to the author, is a consequence of the attention deficit syndrome she suffers from.
The same goes for other deficiencies.
Lily, the protagonist of
Breaking the Circle
, is a florist trying to break out of the cycle of violence and psychological abuse inflicted on her by her lover, Ryle, a brilliant neurosurgeon.
Pregnant with him, she seeks refuge with an old love, Atlas, a famous chef.
The tormented love story between the surgeon and the florist was inspired by the abusive relationship that her mother lived through, a victim of the brutal treatment to which her husband subjected her, a situation that the author witnessed when she was very young.
How is it explained that such a successful novel left millions of readers unsatisfied to the point of demanding a sequel?
The author talks about her characters as if they were flesh and blood individuals: “They begged me to continue the story and I did, but I didn't want to limit myself to something as simple as redeeming Ryle.
Lily and Atlas had to go through very painful trances each on their own,
so I decided to bring them together in the next book.
Separately, they had a hard time, but together they gave each other strength.
Judging by the result, the readers had as much fun as she did, although at the center of the Colleen Hoover case there remains an inexplicable enigma.
The key to her success is a mystery to both her publishers and the author, who at some point stated that "writing a novel is a matter of getting from the first to the last page as much as possible."
As far as literary role models go, the best book she's ever read in her life is
How
to Kill a Rock Star
,
by Tiffanie DeBartolo.
As for whether there is a magic formula that explains what makes a story good, her answer could not be more unequivocal: "I have no idea," she replied.
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