Struggling Author Success Strategy: Get Stephen King to promote your book!

Struggling first-time authors will sometimes take unusual actions to boost sales of their unknown debut books.

For example, there was a woman who became mayor of Baltimore and subsidized her children’s book with city funds. That was genius but illegal. I prefer not to break the law when selling my book.

Then there was the male author who pretended to be a hot chick online and got a bunch of lonely guys to buy his/her book. Technically, that’s not against the law, but that’s a mean thing to do to lonely guys. I’d almost rather break the law.

Then there was the guy who lied to a bunch of women about having eye cancer and then got a job with a book publishing company and then used both to promote his mystery novel geared to women. Yeah, lying to women about eye cancer was probably fun for him and got him some decent action with a lot of women who fell for his schtick, but then he had to work for a book publishing company. Ugh, that had to be dull.

Those were pretty devious ideas, but this first-time author had the best idea of them all.

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New Novelist Gets Support From Stephen King After Sad Tweet About Book Signing

Chelsea Banning was disappointed when only two people showed up at a signing event for her debut fantasy novel — but not for long.

The book, Of Crowns and Legends, leapt to No. 1 in its genre on Amazon after Banning’s tweet about the low turnout at Pretty Good Books in Ashtabula, Ohio, on Saturday, went viral.

“Only 2 people came to my author signing yesterday, so I was pretty bummed about it,” Banning tweeted Sunday morning. “Especially as 37 people responded ‘going’ to the event. Kind of upset, honestly, and a little embarrassed.”

She considered deleting the post later, she told NPR, but changed her mind when she saw an amazing response on Twitter, which included comforting words from some of the most successful authors in the world, as well as her favorite writers like Neil Gaiman, Robin Hobb, and Jodi Picoult…

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I don’t know how this first-time author got famous writers to see her tweet, but that was genius. Twitter is a constant bombardment of struggling authors trying to promote their books. I get headaches whenever I’ve tried to navigate writing hashtags or book hashtags on Twitter. Blogging is more my thing.

Whatever that unknown author did, whether it was strategy or astoundingly great luck, good for her, and good luck to her with her future books!

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But enough about me! If you were writing a book, what famous author would YOU want to support it?