28 Mar 2011 04:38:02
A little more than a year later, Hocking's novel "Switched" sits at No. 41 on USA Today's list of top 150 best-selling books — just a few notches below such major juggernauts as James Patterson and Maeve Binchy. Hocking's books also occupy slots 54, 57, 114 and 149 on the list, and on Thursday, the publishing world finally caught up when the 26-year-old college dropout signed a four-book deal with St. Martin's Press.
Hocking said the first book in a new "Watersong" series was slated for release in fall 2012. She declined to release details of the deal. St. Martin's Press confirmed the deal but would not comment further. But executives from two publishing houses who were interested in the books said bidding had reached seven figures. The executives asked not to be identified, citing confidentiality of negotiations.
During an interview, the author was coy about discussing publishing deals before finally coming clean about her relationship with St. Martin's. She's only written one of the four books in the 'Watersong' series, and won't say what it's about yet, although it's in the same paranormal romance vein as her other books.
Aimed at young adults, Hocking's books occupy the same territory as the enormously popular "Twilight" books by Stephenie Meyer. Hocking has written about vampires, zombies and trolls — a strategic decision that she says she made after scanning the shelves at Wal-Mart.She has sold her books on such sites as Amazon's Kindle Store and Barnes & Noble's NOOKbooks at prices ranging from 99 cents to $2.99. Hocking keeps up to 70 percent of the sales.
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She sold a few hundred books last May, and the numbers slowly grew to a few thousand before spiking to more than 100,000 in December. Monthly sales reports Hocking provided to The Associated Press showed more than 333,000 sold in January and another 300,000 in February, enough to back her claim to have sold between $1.4 million to $2 million in e-books.
E-book sales have taken off along with sales of electronic reading devices. The Yankee Group, a Boston research firm, estimates e-book sales will generate $2.3 billion in revenue in the U.S. by 2013, nearly nine times that of 2009. Their appeal has become even stronger as Borders shuts down more than 200 superstores and millions of e-readers were given last December as holiday gifts.
Publishers say the e-market has grown from less than 1 percent of overall sales in 2007 to more than 10 percent, with no signs of stopping. The changes inspired thriller writer Barry Eisler to walk away from a $500,000 contract with St. Martin's, saying he could do better publishing his work on his own.
