Amanda Hocking (born July 12, 1984) is an American writer of paranormal romance young adult fiction.

Early life

Hocking was born and raised in Austin, Minnesota. After high school, she studied human services while working in a group home for people with disabilities.

Career

While employed as a group home worker, she wrote 17 novels in her free time. Hocking left her employment as a group home worker and started self-publishing her novels as e-books in April 2010, at the age of 25. By March 2011, she had sold more than a million copies of her first nine books and earned two million dollars from sales, previously unheard of for self-published authors. In early 2011, Hocking averaged 9,000 book sales each day. She's since published more than twenty novels, several of which have made the New York Times Best Seller list.