Do you know who Amanda Hocking is?

If not, can your claim to knowing anything about pop culture fandom be sustained? Can mine?

The readers of the New York Times awoke yesterday morning to the first mention of Hocking in THAT paper (other than a name check in an earlier article).... Fascinating article about the future of no-gatekeeper publishing.

Since uploading her first book on her own last spring, she has become one of the best-selling e-authors on Amazon. In that time, she has grossed approximately $2 million. Her 10 novels include the paranormal-romance “Trylle,” a four-book vampire series that begins with “My Blood Approves” and “Hollowland,” which kicks off a zombie series whose second book will come out in the fall. Her character-driven books, which feature trolls, hobgoblins and fairy-tale elements and keep the pages turning, have generated an excitement not felt in the industry since Stephenie Meyer or perhaps even J. K. Rowling.

Given this success, it’s fair to ask why Hocking has decided to go with a so-called legacy publisher at all.

“I’d always known that if I could get the right deal, I would take it,” she said. .... Hocking wants to reach as many people as possible among the 85 percent or so of the population who don’t have e-readers yet. “For me to be a billion-dollar author,” she would tell me later, “I need to have people buying my books at Wal-Mart.”

In her office there was a framed check from Amazon for $15.75 for her first royalties, from a year ago. When we settled down in her living room, Hocking described what was, for someone who becomes a writer, a not-unfamiliar childhood. “I was seriously depressed for most of my life,” she said. She channeled her feelings into fan fiction.