In less than a week, British YouTube star Zoella (Zoe Sugg) sold over 75,000 copies of her first novel, Girl Online.
At one point, it hit #1 on all of Amazon. As of Thursday, it ranked #73 in Amazon.com, including #1 for teens, dating and sex; #2 for teens, contemporary romance; and #2 for teens, new experiences.
It also ranked #801 paid in the Kindle Store.
Her novel, the first in a series she is writing, tells the story of a blogger who falls in love with a musician.
Girl Online is the first book to be published by Keywords Press, a division of Simon & Schuster that plans to publish more books from hot digital stars.
On her Twitter profile, Zoe thanked all her fans:
I’m legit blown away by this. I never in a million years thought that so many of you would pick up a copy of Girl Online. Almost wanna cry..
— Zoë (@ZozeeBo) December 2, 2014
Her Zoella YouTube channel has 6,634,366 subscribers and 307,946,467 views. In fact, today her channel got another 3,000 subscribers in just 8 hours!
Many of us would love to have even 3,000 followers for one of our YouTube channels.
She has a second YouTube channel (More Zoella) that has 2,534,359 subscribers and 164,009,769 views.
Her videos often get millions of views within a week or two. Here are a few of her most recent videos and their viewing numbers:
Note to Book Authors
Note how Zoe built a huge social media platform before publishing her first novel. Indeed, her book was published because of her social media platform. Her novel is probably average at best.
Zoe now joins a group of other famous YouTubers who have become successful authors: John Green, Hannah Hart, and Grace Helbig, among others.
What can you do for your book? Start by focusing on one key social media network and building up a fan base.
If you like doing videos, create a YouTube channel.
If you like doing short posts, focus on Twitter.
If you like images, quotegraphics, and tip-o-graphics, focus on Pinterest.
If you have a business book and like networking, focus on LinkedIn.
Or do what most book authors do, focus on Facebook.
Here, by the way, is a video of Zoe celebrating the publication of her book:
