My thoughts on Amanda Hocking

It's hard to be involved in the self-publishing world without knowing who Amanda Hocking is. She got rich by self publishing young adult books similar to Twilight. I tried to read one of her books, but I couldn't. I think it just wasn't my cup of tea. I don't normally read young adult novels. I remember hearing about her sometime in 2011, when I first started to research self publishing. This was way before I decided to self publish. Her story was one of the reasons that I decided to self publish. Not because I think I could make a fortune doing so, but because I could control my publishing experience. I'm one of those people who likes to experience things for herself, even if I'm not successful. Every now and then I google Amanda Hocking to see what she's up to, and it seems like she's disappeared. No more blog posts, no more twitter remarks. Is she forgetting that her interactions with her fans are what made her so rich and somewhat famous? She got to live her dream because of people she now ignores. Maybe she doesn't have time for all the posting anymore, but she also has an attitude that I don't like toward her publishers. Someone at a publishing house sent her flowers and she dismissed them by saying they were from 'people'. She failed to mention that those people were now busting their butts to promote her stuff. Her old blog posts are mostly about her wanting to get published. She doesn't go into detail about why she decided to self publish. I think Amanda Hocking only made it so far because of her fans. She was able to reach out to the younger crowd and sell them a product they were looking for at the time. Her story is one about her fans more than it is about herself.