Despite 1.1 million TikTok subscribers and 20 million books sold, best-selling author Colleen Hoover says she has ‘the worst case of impostor syndrome’
You don’t have to scroll far on TikTok before you come across a pastel pink book with a sprig of lily. Loved by the #BookTok community, the 2016 novel It ends with usby Colleen Hoover, was #1 on the New York Times list of best-selling paperback novels for 74 consecutive weeks.
With 1.1 million followers on TikTok and 20 million books sold, Hoover rose to fame and stayed on top, writes Alexandra Alter in a New York Times profile on the author this week. Alter chronicled Hoover’s rise from social worker earning $9 an hour and living in a trailer to best-selling author with six dominating books the Time’ Top 10 bestselling paperback novels.
But that doesn’t mean Hoover feels secure in his success. She told Alter that she had “the worst case of impostor syndrome in the world.”
“I read other people’s books and I’m so jealous. I’m like, ‘Oh my God, they’re so much better, why are mine selling the way they are?’” she continued, attributing her success to her fan base. She added: “It’s not me. Readers control what’s selling right now.
What’s amazing about Hoover’s success, Alter points out, is the fact that many of his bestsellers were published years ago. While she already had an established fan base, TikTok’s popularity during quarantine made Hoover one of the most talked about names among readers, many of whom were discovering her for the first time.
But Hoover should give himself more credit for his rise on the shelves. His feelings of inadequacy are common among top performersabove all women and people of color.
The James Pattersons of the world escape impostor syndrome
The feeling that you didn’t deserve your success was identified for the first time in 1978 by therapists Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes. It’s easier to feel like an impostor when you don’t see anyone who looks like you or shares a similar past achieving the same level of recognition, said clinical psychologist Emily Hu. BBC.
The search finds that women, especially those of color, are more likely to suffer from impostor syndrome in workplaces or environments that value values such as “brightness.”
“It’s much harder to find examples in popular culture of women, especially women of color, who, like a Sherlock Holmes or a Dr. House, have that kind of special raw brilliance,” Sarah-Jane Leslie, professor of philosophy and co-author of the study, said Science.
This means that impostor syndrome is not so much an individual issue as it is linked to a lack of representation, a sign of larger systemic issues. Ruchika Tulshyan and Jodi-Ann Burey write in the harvard business review that “systemic racism, classism, xenophobia, and other biases” were not taken into consideration when developing impostor syndrome as a concept.
While she’s a white woman, Hoover writes in a sea of James Patterson and other white men who have dominated the best-selling categories for centuries. Publishing is a particularly undiversified and white fieldand Hoover’s genre – books written by women for women – has long been downplayed or considered not as worthy of critical praise. To research shows they are often less read by men too.
Even though Hoover is an undeniable success story, it’s no surprise that she feels a bit like a fish out of water — she works within a canon that has a long history of championing only male authors. white as geniuses.
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
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