[fakedang]

Honestly, she just hit the lottery with a reasonably good story at a pivotal time. The late 90s to the late 2000s was the one period in human history with maximum teenage readership. Paper books were still in vogue, bookshops were still a thing not being swallowed by Amazon, a lot of cheap paperbacks and copies were appearing in the emerging market countries, reading was significantly encouraged at schools, with many places stocking Harry Potter, Chronicles of Narnia, Goosebumps and the likes in an effort to encourage teen readership. Also, no mobile devices!

I doubt we'll ever get a period like that ever again. Those 2 or 3 decades were the peak for writers. Almost every prolific writer of that time with a reasonably good (not great) hand at writing could mint money. It's no surprise that some of the biggest hit authors of that time were Rowling (catering to the teen market in general, with a fantasy theme that easily mirrors school - unlike LOTR), Danielle Steele (catering to the female teen market) and Tom Clancy (catering to the male teen market).