Colleen Hoover talks about the book world, writing habits and the ‘It Ends With Us’ movie

GRAPEVINE — For someone who doesn’t regard herself as a literary force, Colleen Hoover has made significant strides from her origins as a bookstore operator in Sulphur Springs.

In her 12-year career as an author, she’s written 25 books, with one of them, It Ends With Us, being made into a movie. She’s been dominating bestseller lists for more than a year. She’s also a founder of one of the nation’s largest book conventions, Book Bonanza, which began a two-day run at the Gaylord Texan Resort on June 23.

Hoover was a panelist with Today Show co-host Jenna Bush Hager on the opening day of the fourth annual event, which raises money for charity. She also appeared on the Today Show on June 29.

Hoover’s nonprofit, The Bookworm Box, in association with the Book Bonanza, has donated more than $1.5 million to various charities, according to its website.

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The event has surpassed Hoover’s expectations in interest and scope — much like her rise to literary prominence.

“I don’t count myself as a literary writer,” she said this week. “I view my stories as just fun, sometimes emotionally entertaining reads. I don’t use big words and try to impress other writers.

“A little bit of that is why a lot of readers connect to them because they can pick them up, sit down and escape their life for a minute. And it’s fun.”

Her adult contemporary and young adult books include themes ranging from romance to sexual assault, domestic abuse and mental health issues.

Hoover is scheduled to release a new book on Tuesday called Too Late (Grand Central Publishing), a suspense novel about obsession and dangerous love. She’s also introducing a new line of branded merchandise.

In an interview with The Dallas Morning News, Hoover shared her thoughts on #BookTok, the movie adapted from her book, her writing discipline, Book Bonanza and other topics.

This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

TikTok, particularly the #BookTok hashtag, has been a significant marketer of your work. What are your thoughts about TikTok in particular?

When the pandemic hit, I think a lot of people started going to TikTok because they were bored and it was fun and people were posting funny videos. And that’s when I noticed people started tagging me in posts about books. And, like, what is happening? Because it wasn’t anything I was doing. It wasn’t videos. I was posting about my books because I was just doing weird stuff with my kids. But I started noticing it around that time. And that’s when people started doing the hashtag of #BookTok.

My publishers reached out to me... saying, “What ads are you doing for It Ends With Us because we saw this weird spike for some of your books?” And I [said] “I don’t do ads for my books.” And they were like, well, the sales are increasing for these particular books. I was like, y’all go look at TikTok. People are posting books that they’re reading, and they just happened to be picking up some of mine at the time. And it was extremely exciting when it started out.

There are some authors who are so good at it and somehow still get their... books out. And I know Jeneva Rose cracks me up, she has the best TikToks. Kandi Steiner has good TikToks. Several authors have it down, you know, and it does help their book sales, and at the same time, it’s very entertaining. I’m just a little too scattered to want to figure out how to market it.

It Ends With Us began production a few months ago. What are your impressions of the movie so far?

I got to go on set for about two and a half weeks. It was such an incredible experience but also very [surreal]. I had no idea what went into making a movie and seeing how many people were on set and how many different jobs there were. It was so mind-blowing that there were 140 crew members on set for this, to make this movie that I wrote. I’m very, very happy. And I think the readers are going to be really happy.

In your first Instagram post about the movie, you seemed very enthusiastic. What prompted such a strong reaction?

It’s one of the most important books to me that I’ve written because it was inspired loosely based on my parents. Like, it could go so wrong. But I just appreciate that they get it, and they get what I wanted it to be. I don’t like having high expectations. But now my expectations are up there. The movie can change as they go through the editing process. I really just hope that it continues to go the way that it’s going now. And if it does, I think that readers are going to be extremely happy.

Has director Justin Baldoni followed the spirit of the book so far?

They stuck to the book really well. I’m not an author who’s married to every word of my book, but I understand the changes they have to make to get it to be on film in a different way. But they’ve actually kept more than I thought they would be able to, so I really think that they’ve captured the emotions of the book, the point of the book, the message that we’re hoping to get out there.

How do you approach writing so focused?

I can’t work on more than one thing. If I start to get an idea for another book while I’m in the process of writing one, I have to make myself stop because I’ll go back and forth between projects. I have to set aside a whole week, two weeks, with nothing planned. Once I start and I get really into it, that’s my hyper-focus. And that’s all I do — just write 18 hours a day and sleep. 18 hours a day, sleep. I set aside big chunks of time, like two weeks here, two weeks there. I have to be in the mood. And I noticed if I tried to force it, then I ended up deleting what I wrote. Sometimes, I’ll go six months or more without writing, and then I’ll write two months straight. It’s very sporadic.

Book Bonanza started with more than 2,300 readers, authors and volunteers. Today, it’s drawn a capped audience of 2,700. Did you anticipate the event’s rapid growth?

Absolutely not. My sisters and I were sitting in a hotel room in Denver, and we’re like, we should put on a book signing together, that would be fun, and do it for charity. We started planning it, and it quickly got so far beyond what we thought it was going to be. I feel like we’re at a point where it could go either way. We could stop it here and just keep it this size, or it could turn into like a Comic-Con size. Of course, my goal is to donate more money every year than we did the year before. So, hopefully, we’re there.