Hocking lives in Austin, Minnesota. Employed as an assisted living worker until 2010, she wrote 17 novels in her spare time. In April 2010, she began self-publishing them as e-books. By March 2011, she had sold over a million copies of nine books and earned two million dollars from sales, something previously unheard of for self-published authors. In early 2011, Hocking averaged 9,000 book sales each day.
Hocking's published work, so far entirely self-published, consists of My Blood Approves, a vampire romance series; the Trylle Trilogy, which covers a teenage girl's journey of self-discovery in an urban fantasy setting; and Hollowland, a zombie novel. The New York Times characterized her novels as "part quirky girl-like-Hocking characters, part breakneck pacing, part Hollywood-style action and part bodice-ripping romance – they are literature as candy, a mash-up of creativity and commerce."