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Journalism of Courage
Her Instagram bio reads, “I don’t get it either” — a reference, perhaps, to the phenomenal success of her literary career that she kickstarted with a romance novel meant as a Christmas present for her mother. But if there is one thing that Colleen Hoover does get, it is how to leverage social media to reel in readers and hold them in thrall.
If you are a reader or a social media enthusiast, chances are you have been touched by the CoHo fever or that she is on your #TBR (to be read) list already. CoHo, as Hoover is known among fans, has become the toast of the commercial publishing world thanks to the dizzying popularity of her books — a mix of romance and YA themes. For 62 weeks now, the 42-year old Texan writer’s ‘It Ends With Us’ (2016) has been on The New York Times bestseller list for print and e-books (fiction), followed by ‘Verity’ (2018) and ‘Ugly Love’ (2014) at 37 and 32 weeks, respectively.
In the last couple of years, her books have made it to nearly every bestseller list in the US, with sometimes as many as six books in the top 10. ‘It Ends With Us’ alone has sold over 3 million copies. Her books dominate #bookstagram and #BookTok trends and there is a movie adaptation in the works for ‘It Ends With Us’.
A mother of three, Hoover, who lives in east Texas, was a social worker and a nutritional counsellor before she began dabbling in writing. She wrote her first YA novel ‘Slammed’ — a romance between an 18-year-old woman, Layken, and Will, a poet — and would go on to self-publish the book in 2012, to runaway commercial success. Since then, she has written over 20 novels, including ‘Layla’ (2020), ‘Regretting You’ (2019), and ‘All Your Perfects’ (2018), besides novellas and short stories. Her new book, ‘It Starts With Us’, is a sequel to her monster hit, ‘It Ends With Us’, and will be released in October.
TikToking her way to success
In 2012, when Hoover published ‘Slammed’, her first foray into YA territory, she adopted what was then a nascent promotional strategy. She used BookTube, the book community on YouTube, to interact with readers and give away free copies to bloggers with sizeable follower bases. In an industry reliant on traditional methods of marketing, this turned out to be a golden opportunity to connect directly with readers and use social media for real-world success.
When Instagram arrived, Hoover graduated to #bookstagram, putting up anecdotal snippets of her writing life, her family and the journey that takes a book from an idea to a reality. Even when Hoover is promoting her work and herself to her 1.6 million followers on the platform, she is irreverent and self-deprecatory, wearing her success lightly, a trait her fans find endearing.
Hoover, of course, is not the first writer to have leveraged social media to favourable outcomes. Taylor Jenkins Reid, author of ‘The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo’ (2017), Ali Hazelwood (the Italian author of ‘Stuck With You’, 2022, ‘The Love Hypothesis’, 2021, among others), fantasy author Sarah J Maas, have all been its beneficiaries.
Hoover’s success only reinforces the influence that such mass social media fandom can exert in this age of digitisation. An avid TikToker herself, in the last few years, especially since the pandemic, Hoover’s books have become a staple for #BookTok virality. The hashtag #colleenhoover has nearly 2 billion views on the platform, followed closely by #ColleenHooverBooks, and #CoHo.
Hoover’s CoHort, mostly young women in the influential age group of 18 to 24 years, have put out countless videos professing their love for her work, ranking their favourites and recording their reactions to many of her novels. At a time when readers are hard to come by, this validation across social-media platforms, is worthy catnip for publishers.
Modern love and other incredible plot twists
Imagine a Harlequin romance redux, add a dose of secret trauma, finish off with an emotional rollercoaster of an ending and you might get a drift of what makes Hoover’s novels tick. From steamy romances to comedies to gothic suspenses, Hoover has tried her hand at every variation of the genre, but the things that anchor her books are trauma and her ability to introduce the most fantastic of twists to timeworn tropes of happily ever afters.
Most of her lead pairs are individuals who have withstood domestic abuse or sexual violence or some other form of suffering that brings them together or tears them apart. ‘Verity’ involves a ghostwriter, hired to finish a paralysed author’s autobiography, dig into her mysterious past, even as she falls headlong into love with the woman’s dashing husband.
In ‘It Ends With Us’, the lead pair has to process their complex history of domestic violence to make sense of their relationship. In the formulaic world of White, heterosexual romances, this translates into binge-worthy, accessible, dramatic content for everywoman. It’s a win-win situation either way.
