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Bestselling Texas Author Has a Warm-Hearted Conversation With Eastex
Colleen Hoover is 1 of the bestselling writers of her generation. While most people know her as the author of uber-popular books like “Verity,” “It Ends with Us” and “It Starts with Us,” her family and friends in her small Texas town know her as a mom with a passion for reading and writing.
Growing up on a farm in East Texas, Hoover developed her love for reading and telling stories at an early age. A Publishers Weekly article in January 2023 said it was “something of an understatement to say that Colleen Hoover dominated the 2022 overall bestsellers list.” Out of the 25 books on the NPD BookScan list, 8 of the titles were Hoover’s.
Hoover had the top 3 books of 2022. She has sold more than 14.3 million print copies. 2 of her titles, “It Ends with Us” and “ Verity,” sold more than 2 million copies each.
Hoover sat down for a Zoom conversation with Dee Dee Longenecker, director of business development at Eastex, while Hoover’s sister, Lin Reynolds, looked on.
Full Transcript of Colleen Hoover Interview*
- Interview Date: November 9, 2023
- *This conversation has been slightly edited for clarity.
Eastex: I'd love to know what makes East Texas special to you.
Colleen Hoover: Oh, gosh. So many things. I'm still here after all this time. I was born and raised here. First of all, family. I could never leave my mom. My sister, I guess, counts too. [laughs] You know, we were raised on a dairy farm on a big plot of land, and it was just the best childhood. And I wanted the same for my kids. I have 3 boys, and we were able to raise them on the same land that Lin and I grew up on. We love small towns. I had 13 people in my graduating class in high school.
Life feels very much the same as it always has here. People here have known me here all my life. They knew me before I was writing books, and they think it's funny that I write books. It's just that for someone who never wanted to grow up and be any kind of well-known person, it's the best place to be because nobody cares. I can still go to Walmart in my pajamas.
Eastex: Let's talk about your writing. You self-published your first book, "Slammed", in 2012, and have since produced 2 to 4 books a year. That's a lot of book writing. How have you maintained that level of productivity?
Colleen Hoover: Well, some of them are novellas. They're not as long as [novels], so I get away with seeming like my body of work is bigger than it is. But that's a good question because right now I feel like I'm suffering from writer's block. That happens to me every now and again, where I'll go a year without writing anything, and then I'll get motivated and write 2 books in a row. I don't put any kind of rules on myself. I probably should, but I'm way too disorganized. I just write when I feel like writing and when I feel like being creative. Luckily, steadily it has come to me, but I feel myself slowing down a little bit. I don't think we're going to get 2 books a year from now on. Maybe 1 every year-and-a-half, if we're lucky.
Eastex: Where do you get some of your inspiration for these stories?
Colleen Hoover: I live inside my head. I think it's harder for me to be in the real world. My husband has to ask me questions 3 times in a row before I realize he's talking to me. So, it's more like how do I shut my inspiration off? I can turn anything into a story. I eavesdrop a lot when I'm at dinner. I'm not paying attention to what's going on at my table. I want to know what's happening at the next table. I just enjoy being in my own head, and I enjoy my imagination. I have since I was 4 years old. I knew I wanted to write books. I used to be really jealous of Lin because she started school before I did. She came home and could write. I was so mad that I couldn't. I was so jealous. I was, like, I have so many stories I need to tell and I don't know how to tell them. I remember that feeling. Before I could even write, I was ready to write.
Eastex: Your 2016 novel, "It Ends with Us", has had a big resurgence lately. It's now slated to become a movie starring Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni, who helped adapt the book into a screenplay, directs, and also plays the character of Ryle Kincaid. How does it feel to see 1 of your books being turned into a movie? How involved have you been in the process of either writing the screenplay or converting everything to the big screen?
Colleen Hoover: First of all, it's very surreal. Until I'm sitting in the theater, and I'm watching it I still, you know, have doubts. I think, "This isn't going to happen - this isn't real." [laughs] But I was on set, so I know it's real. As far as being involved, I'm not heavily involved with this one. It's basically just been timing. Justin's been great about keeping me in the loop and asking my opinions and stuff, but it's just been a really busy year for me so I was only on set for a few days out of the entire time they were filming. But I plan to be more involved in future films, it just wasn't in the cards this time. I'm so excited for it. The actors' strike ended yesterday. They just came to an agreement. So, now they have 2 weeks left in filming. Then, hopefully, I'll get to see the whole thing put together. I'm super excited.
Eastex: It must be wonderful to see your work come to life. I know movie adaptations are always a little different -- they have to be sometimes. But I hope it turns out to be something that you love.
Colleen Hoover: I hope so too but I'm also -- I kind of understand the whole process, and that things have to change in order for it to translate on screen. So, I don't get stressed out by that part of it. I kind of look at it as a complement to the book. Like, you have the book and then you have the other thing that may not be like the book, but how fun is it that this other thing exists, too?
Eastex: You have had a busy year, "Time" magazine named you one of the most influential people of 2023. How does that make you feel?
Colleen Hoover: I mean honestly, I thought the email was spam when it came in. [laughs] What? Did they run out of humans? But no, I mean it was a huge honor, and I'm still a little in shock that it happened. And honestly? I was just too nervous to even go. To be in the room with those people? I didn't feel worthy, I guess. My best friend forced me to go, and I ended up having a wonderful time. I got to meet my idol, Judy Blume, and it was a great time.
Eastex: As an internet company, I've been fascinated by the way you use social media to promote your book. It's amazing to me the level of transparency and just the authenticity you have with the videos you post. You brought me to tears with 1 of your recent videos that you took in front of the house you grew up in. You talked about the gratitude you have for your mother. Social media is controversial in some ways, but it's here to stay. There are so many platforms out there. You have 1.4 million followers on TikTok and 2 million on Instagram. How did the internet and social media contribute to your success as an author?
Colleen Hoover: I don't think my first book would even have gotten into the hands of readers without social media. It was such perfect timing when I wrote it. Self-publishing was taking off, and Facebook was taking off. There was no training in social media back then, so I didn't know what I was doing. I just went on, and I was myself on social media like I was in real life. And it worked out because I think that was the biggest thing. I didn't want it to seem like a commercial -- I just wanted to share things about my kids and my everyday life. I used it as a place to do giveaways for readers and thank readers for supporting me. It's definitely played a huge, huge part in my career. Especially with TikTok and what's happened in the last couple of years. Some of my books have had a resurgence. That would not have happened without TikTok, so I'm very grateful that I get to be alive at this time. I don't feel like if I tried writing 20 years ago anyone would have paid attention. That's a wonderful part of it. Of course, there are a lot of negative parts of social media, and I'm happy to learn how to balance everything. But definitely social media is a huge, huge reason my books have done as well as they have.
Eastex: I think you're the reason why BookTok started [on TikTok]! [BookTok viewers] have their own language and terms like HEA for Happily Ever After, and DNF for Did Not Finish. I think you may have started all that.
Colleen Hoover: The dreaded DNF! [laughs] I don't know if I started it. I definitely think being a reader helps, because I'm also on that side of it as a reader. I also want to find the books with the hashtag that I'm drawn to. And from very early on, I've also snatched my name on any platform that comes up. TikTok actually started as an app called Musically years ago. I thought, "Hey, if this ever becomes something, I want to have my name on there as Colleen Hoover." Then it changed to TikTok. I probably had several hundreds of thousands of viewers on Instagram, and that's where I put most of my stuff. But I was over there on TikTok posting silly videos of me dragging my kids across the floor and making scary videos. I had maybe 100 followers.
So, it just felt different back then. But I think because I was already there and knew how it worked, it was easy to navigate when [BookTok] started taking off. It also helped that, at the beginning of the pandemic, I allowed people to download some of my books for free -- the ones I still had financial control over. People were off work and were bored, so they had all these free books they could read that I had put on my page. It was just the timing of it all. I think I ended up having a quarter of a million free downloads on "Verity" and "Heart Bones" -- the ones that I still owned. I think it all just really snowballed and really benefited me honestly. It was just a lot of good timing and good choices.
Eastex: Who are your favorite authors, and what are your favorite genres?
Colleen Hoover: I'm obsessed with Emily Henry. She has the best, most intelligent dialogue, and it makes me want to quit my job. I read her books, and I'm like, why am I still writing? She's who I aspire to be. [laughs] But really, I love her books. I also like Christie Barlow, and Kennedy Ryan has a few that I love. I could go on and on. I'm really into the contemporary romance genre now that I started writing in that genre. But I just picked up "The Fourth Wing" by Rebecca Yarros because "Iron Flame" came out and it's my son's favorite book. So, I'm about to dive into fantasy. I've never really read fantasy before. I'm excited, and I'm hoping I can get into that.
Eastex: You mentioned your boys. You live in Texas with your husband and 3 boys. How does your family feel about your fame?
Colleen Hoover: They don't care. [Laughs.] They're very proud of me. But my kids don't read my books, and my husband doesn't read my books. I'm just a Mom to them. They don't make me go to sports games with them, and I don't make them indulge in my hobby. I have the 4 most supportive men a girl can have. But it kind of feels like this side of it is just my hobby and they're not really that into it. And that's ok.
Eastex: All over the world people enjoy books and find a sense of community through book clubs online or in person. In my own book club, we sometimes debate the virtues of reading a hard copy book versus a digital copy or audiobook. Do you have a preferred format for your books?
Colleen Hoover: I don't. It really irritates me when people think that audiobook listening is not reading. Yes, it is! You're consuming a book. I do all 3 - it just depends on where I'm at. In the car, I'll switch to audiobooks, but I'll [sync] them. So yeah, it doesn't bother me how readers consume books, because as a reader I'll do whatever is convenient for me at the moment.
Eastex: Do you get a choice of who the reader is for the audiobooks?
Colleen Hoover: Authors do. But I was not very involved in that for probably the first 6 or 7 years. The audiobook would come out and I never listened to it. It's almost like having to watch yourself on TV or hear your own voice. It makes me uncomfortable. But now that audiobooks have taken off, I'm listening to reader feedback and the narrators that they like. Then I can request samples when they're going through that process with the publisher. For the first several years I just left it up to the publisher and didn't really know that I could have a say in it. But now I really want a say in it.
I will tell you the thing that I do have an issue with. Amazon just recently came out with an article about training AI to read their audiobooks. I hate that. I want it to be an actual artist who does that for a living and is getting paid. I just feel like it's -- I don't know -- it's scary that they're going to be cutting voice actors out of this process. I don't want to hear a computer reading it. But that's just me wishing artists could be more compensated for their time.
Eastex: That's valid. AI is writing books too. I had read an article in Forbes magazine that discussed the future of books. It suggested that digital tech doesn't kill books but rather makes them more accessible. It predicted that books in the future -- they called it the "era of the metaverse" -- could include the reader becoming a co-author or allow the reader to experience different facets of the books through digital portals. The example they gave is that the reader could flip through an encyclopedia of dinosaurs, take a tour of a dinosaur museum in China, and virtually walk through Dinosaur National Monument. Have you thought about the future of books, or how books might evolve? Does any of that excite or scare you?
Colleen Hoover: I think it's both. I've always tried to include extra stuff in my books so that the experience for the reader is little bit different than just reading words on a page. Like with "Confess", I had an artist actually paint the paintings that are described in the book. And with "Maybe Someday", I worked with a musician and we wrote the songs for the soundtrack together that the characters wrote in the book. In "Without Merit", there was a kid in the book who drew. I had an artist out of Greenville, Texas, help me with those drawings. So, I'm very big on creating more of an experience than just the written word. But I think it's important as we move into this digital era that we are using art and AI to work for us. We want it to work for us so our job is easier. We don't want it to work instead of us. I want to continue to write and continue to have a job, but I don't want the computer to take over my job and start writing the books that I would put out.
It would be neat to find a good balance between all that you can use this for as a writer and how it could help. I would love an experience like that where I could read a book and watch a video of places in the book. I think all of that's really exciting. It's also scary. I just think it's going to be a challenge to figure out how to make it work for us. As an author, I've always tried to include other stuff because I do enjoy that as a reader, and I think there's a lot of opportunity to expand the way we read.
Eastex: Switching gears a little bit and going back to your background. You earned a degree in social work from Texas, A&M University-Commerce, and you worked in various social work positions. You also received another degree in infant nutrition and held a job with the federal WIC program before you began writing. How have those experiences played into your current work or your philanthropy?
Colleen Hoover: Oh, gosh. Heavily. Just majoring in social work and working in [Child Protective Services] for several years, I saw a lot of stuff that I wish I hadn't seen. But it always put me in a position where I was always wishing I could help more than I could as a social worker with very low pay. There was always this dream I had -- "Oh, if I ever made enough money to help people..". Once that became a reality, my sisters and I put a lot of effort over the last several years into how we can make the world a little bit better. Definitely, the experiences I've had in all my jobs contributed to the storylines in my book. I obviously like to write about emotional things, but I tend to leave anything from my real life out of my books for sure.
Eastex: I see your sisters and you had begun an autograph book subscription service in 2015 called the Bookworm Box. Then that shifted into running the Book Bonanza and the Book Bonanza Raffle which raises money to support food banks in the US. It has donated over 1 million to charities and supported over 400 charities. Do you have a favorite cause or charity?
Colleen Hoover: No, I don't have a favorite. That's why I enjoy the way we've set our charity up because we donate to different charities every month. I can't pick a favorite. There are so many great causes out there that we want to help. I will say the things that are closest to my heart are domestic violence charities, anything that goes to help children, and literacy charities. So, yeah, we just like that our charity goes to help multiple charities. We have a great team of really strong, wonderful, and nice women who make this possible for us because it's a lot.
Eastex: The number of public-school book banks across the country has increased by 33% over the last school year, according to a new PEN America report. Some of your own titles have been banned. How do you feel about this increase in book banning or book banning in general?
Colleen Hoover: I'm ready for the day that it's over. I feel like the pendulum is swinging all the way in one direction, and it's going to swing back. Then we'll settle on a good middle hopefully. To me, it's just sad. As someone who consumed every single book in the whole library -- I'm not kidding -- I read every book on that shelf throughout my childhood. I just think it's sad that other people are going to be choosing what other people's kids can read. Like, yeah, if you want to monitor what your child is reading, great. Make sure that as a parent your child is reading what you want them to read. But everyone is different, and every parent is different. And I really feel like it's getting a little bit ridiculous.
Eastex: Anything I've missed or that you want our readers to know?
Colleen Hoover: I get a lot of questions about what's next. I'm working on it. I bought my new laptop yesterday and hope I write a book on it soon. [laughs] But right now? I have no idea when my next book is coming out.