Army veteran who got fired as software engineer has now become top-selling author on Amazon

When life gives you lemons, turn them into lemonades, just like former software engineer Shawn Warner. The army veteran was recently fired from his position at Amazon but did not let it demoralise him. Instead, he used the opportunity to channel his inner writer and penned the first book of his life, as reported by Inside Edition. He invented himself and his time in a lifelong ambition of his - writing.

Shawn Warner, before becoming a software engineer, was in the army. Due to his busy schedule, he was never able to pursue his dream of becoming a writer. After being laid off by Amazon from his position as a software engineer, Warner put all of his focus into his dream. And his hard work paid off. His resilience led to him becoming one of the best-selling authors on Amazon. But along with his dedication, this feat was also achieved by a random act of kindness.

When Warner finished his book, he could not find any publisher. So, he decided to self-publish his novel. To increase his sales, he went down to various places in order to sell the copies of his book. One of those places was his local Kroger grocery store in Fort Worth, Texas. It was a meeting in this store that changed the fate of his book titled "Leigh Howard And The Ghosts Of Simmons-Pierce Manor." Before meeting one of the customers there, Warner had only sold a few books with his efforts and had garnered two reviews on Amazon.

Jerrad Swearenjin saw Warner diligently trying to sell the book and decided to promote it on his TikTok profile. In the video, two men came to the author when he was sitting alone during the Fourth of July weekend. The overlay text on the video read, “This new author seemed super defeated when I first walked past him. So before I left the store, I decided to go back”. Then, Warner began to explain the premise of his book, “It’s about a teenage girl who teams up with a ghost of multiple personalities to solve the mystery of her parents’ murder."

It was evident that the interest showcased by the men gave the author a lot of happiness, as he was smiling during the conversation. In the end, Warner gave a second copy to Swearenjin as a token of thanks for promoting it on TikTok. None of them thought that TikTok would explode the way it did, garnering almost 18 million views and making Warner the #1 author on Amazon.

@lacedgems was so emotional seeing the video that she decided to quickly buy the book. @jayv472 loved the gist so much that he bought the book: "I gotta get off booktok. My bank account is gonna hate me. Bought it though." @firefly.and.the.witch hoped only the best for Warner: "As a new author myself, I can only hope for this kind of support! Thank you for doing that. I'm going to go get his book." Warner posted a follow-up video thanking people for their generosity.