Shannon Phillips

According to The New York Times:

By the end of last week, The Cuckoo’s Calling, by the debut mystery novelist Robert Galbraith, was as good as dead. Bookstores with unsold copies on hand were contemplating shipping them back to the publisher. Reviews, while generally positive, had tapered off. According to Nielsen BookScan, which tracks about 85 percent of print sales, only about 500 copies had sold in the United States since the book went on sale in April.

Then J. K. Rowling, easily one of the most bankable authors on the planet, admitted over the weekend to The Sunday Times of London that she—and not a male military veteran, as initial information from the publisher claimed—was the real author.

Well, that certainly makes me feel better about the two hundred-some copies that The Millennial Sword has sold so far. Not bad for an unknown author, I guess.