Is it Luck?

I wanted to know who sold the most books last year, 

so I asked Google. 

Back came the answer: Colleen Hoover.

Who? I consider myself a reader, yet I have never heard of the lady.

So I had to look further. CH is an American who writes in the romance and YA genre. Best known for her 2016 title It Ends With Us, she had sold 20 million books by October 2022. Her debut novel was Slammed which she wrote with no intention of getting published. (They always say that, don't they?) she published it in 2012 so her mother could read it. (Mum had just got a Kindle.)

A book blogger gave her five stars, and sales rocketed. Atria Books picked up the novel and republished it on August 10, 2012. A decade later, the author is the most successful  of all. It seems that once again, luck plays a huge part in who is successful and who is not.