Move over, J.K. Rowling. A new novelist just shattered your sales.
Zoe Sugg, the woman behind the popular YouTube channel Zoella, recently earned the highest first-week sales for a debut author since records have been kept. Her debut novel Girl Online sold 78,109 copies in its first week beginning Nov. 25, according to The Telegraph, which is higher than the first-week sales of debut novels by Rowling, E.L. James and Dan Brown.
If you're like most people, you're probably thinking to yourself, "Um, excuse me? Zo-who?" The general public probably didn't know who Sugg was until this astonishing news hit the Internet this week. So who exactly is Sugg, and how was she able to outsell the authors of some of the best-selling novels of the 21st century? Here's what you need to know about the young author and her rise to fame.
She started as a blogger
Before Sugg was a YouTube star, she started out as a regular old beauty blogger in 2009. On her blog called Zoella, she wrote about products she purchased and eventually grew her audience to a five-figure number before conquering the Internet.
She is a YouTube star
Though you may not have heard of Sugg before she started ruling the publishing world, the 24-year-old has quite the following on YouTube, which is probably why her debut novel has been so successful. Sugg has more than 6.6 million subscribers on YouTube who watch her dole out beauty, fashion and lifestyle tips. She also occasionally collaborates on videos with other famous YouTube-lebirities, including Tyler Oakley, Miranda Sings and Caspar Lee. Sugg is even dating a fellow YouTube star, Alfie Deyes, whose YouTube channel PointlessBlog has more than 3.3 million subscribers.
Girl Online is being called a modern-day Notting Hill
Sugg's book debut may be fiction, but it sounds eerliy similar to her real life. Girl Online chronicles the life of Penny, a teen blogger who goes by the online alias GirlOnline. When Penny's parents decide to take the family to New York for Christmas, she falls in love with a boy named Noah, who also just happens to have a secret. It's easy to see why Sugg's YouTube subscribers would be interested in this book. A sequel is already in the works for Girl Online, which is slated to be released next year.
2014 is clearly her year
Not only is this the year Sugg has become a best-selling author, but she's made many accomplishments leading up to that. She won the Teen Choice Award for Choice Web Star for Fashion/Beauty this year. The inevitable launch of her very own beauty product line happened in September. Sugg was also featured in the November 2014 issue of British Vogue. She even sang on the recent remake of the 1984 philanthropic hit "Do They Know It's Christmas?" It's your move, 2015.
