Is This Horse-Crazy Author The Next Colleen Hoover?
Every publisher in the book industry is looking for the next success story. The latest may have just been found.
Famed authors like J.K. Rowling were found in a slush pile–a mountain of books submitted by agents that interns and low-level employees plow through, hoping to discover a diamond in the rough amidst a lot of bad writing. Some scout social media and decide people with enough followers are worth gambling on. Maybe their fans will buy a book by their favorite TikToker?
But the best guarantee of success is success. That’s why name brand authors like Stephen King and Nora Roberts get big bucks. And that’s why publishers keep an eye on self-published authors. That’s where major stars like Colleen Hoover and Hugh Howey and E.L. James got their start.
Publishers ask themselves these questions. Who is scoring a lot of sales? Who is getting better and better? Who is delivering in a proven genre or pioneering a new one? Who shows the determination to promote themselves via podcasts and tours and fan support? One horse-crazy, self-published author checks all those boxes and just got snapped up.
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Is This Horse-Crazy Author The Next Colleen Hoover?
Courtesy of the author and Flatiron Books
Publishers Weekly just reported that author Natalie Keller Reinert is jumping from self-published author to Flatiron Books, a division of Macmillan. The deal is valued at a reported seven figures, meaning Reinert is a million dollar franchise right off the bat.
Reinert’s deal will see Flatiron publish two of her most popular series and launch a brand new one. Fans dub Reinert’s horse novels as part of the Ocala-verse, since so many take place in and around Ocala, Florida, a hotspot for equestrian lovers. Reinert herself lives in North Florida.
To start, Flatiron will repackage and re-promote the Eventing and Briar Hill series. (All cover images in this story are from Reinert's self-published editions. The books will likely all receive new covers.) In the first, Jules is a hungry young competitor new to Ocala and she’s determined to do anything to become a top Three Day Event rider. The Briar Hill books are more bucolic and gentle, filled with friends and of course horses, along with characters who cross over from other ongoing series.
Reinert is no overnight success. She’s published dozens of books over more than a decade, including You Must Be This Tall, a novel set in a fully imagined theme park, pure romance novels, literary fiction and of course more horse books than you can shake a bridle at. Reinert also co-hosts the Adulting With Horses Podcast with fellow author Heather Wallace.
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Will she match Colleen Hoover? That’s the self-published author who has since dominated the charts and sold millions and millions of copies of her novels, currently outselling even the likes of Stephen King and James Patterson.
Courtesy of the author
But that’s not the measuring stick we’re using. Reinert believed in herself, self-published her books, promoted them, booked tours, launched a podcast and social media and kept working away at her craft. She published dozens of books and reached fans all over the country. Now she’s been signed to a major publisher and will see her books become more widely available than ever.
That makes her a big success story, right along with Hoover and Hugh Howey (the sci-fi author of Wool) and E.L. James (the author of erotica, especially 50 Shades of Grey) and Andy Weir (of The Martian fame) and a hundred other authors who launched their careers on their own. Reinert has already entered the winners circle most self-published authors can only dream about.
