Words by Sooz

Amanda Hocking has become an Indie Princess in the publishing world. However, it took me a little while to finally get to my first Hocking book. I enjoy supernatural fantasy novels, but after a heavy dose of Twilight from several years ago, Karen Marie Moning's books, a bunch of Keri Arthur and Lara Adrian, I needed a break from that world while I found characters who were busy running from bad guys who didn't want to bite them in some way. My Blood Approves was the book I chose from Hocking. It's the start of a series that finds a Minnesota teenager Alice unsure of her future, and especially her present. But she meets Jack on a fateful night and her life is never the same. Hocking holds off on telling the reader exactly what makes Jack different. He's looked at differently by most people, he moves especially quickly and his skin is strange to the touch. However, that's nothing compared to what happens when Alice meets his family. With them, she feels...

FutureBook caught up with Amanda Hocking recently and talked about going from a self-publishing platform to a traditional publishing house. Hocking has become a poster child for many indie authors, selling 1.5 million self-published eBooks. Although she has been successful in that realm, Hocking wanted to see her books in a traditional bookstore. She wanted to be in print. Hocking felt St. Martins Press was the best outlet for that – but it was not the highest bidder for her work. "Amazon actually was [the highest bidder] but I did not necessarily think they could get the books into the stores," Hocking told FutureBook. "I knew they could do good promotions for e-books, but what I really wanted was a publisher who could get the paperbacks into stores, and I didn't think they quite had the influence." One of the more interesting notes in the Hocking article was the different between freelance editors and those working in a publishing house. "Th...