Author Emily Schultz (The Blondes) has made out with an impressive sum of cash and quite the story after an Amazon mixup sent readers looking for a Stephen King book to her novel instead. And now she’s documenting the purchases she’s made with her royalties at $pending the $tephen King Money.
Eight years ago, Schultz penned a book called Joyland, a coming-of-age story that takes place in a video arcade. Last year, Stephen King penned a book called Joyland, a very different coming-of-age story about an amusement park carny and the ghost of a murdered child. When King’s Joyland, went on sale, it was not available as an ebook, so people mistakenly downloaded the ebook of Schultz’s Joyland instead.
While Schultz enjoyed the sales bump, she started to get angry and confused reviews from customers who were expecting a Stephen King novel and somehow did not realize that’s not what they downloaded. According to Schultz:
I asked Amazon to change their search results to keep people from buying the wrong book but never heard back. Apparently there were a lot of confused readers as this week I got a—for me—big royalty check for those mistaken books. I’m not so upset anymore. Sure, it’s more a pleasant surprise than a fortune, and I’m stuck with those reviews, but I thought a blog detailing how we’re spending the Stephen King money would be a nice way to end this funny and strange story.
The Tumblr is pretty great, documenting a handful of purchases like books, “Four extra (half) days of daycare,” “Various Ikea items,” and “The deductible on bumper repair.” And bonus: Stephen King himself was tickled by the mixup and went and bought a copy of Schultz’s novel!
Brb gonna go write me a book named something like Frivolous Oaths or Fleeting Odes and hope to high hell Neil Gaiman happens to name his next novel the same. Hell, Danielle Steel would be okay too I suppose.
Image via Getty.
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