True to the epithet "Twitter do your thing!" fortunes of The Petersfield Bookstore in the United Kingdom's Hampshire county turned around after an employee on January 14 tweeted that the store had sold no books for the first time in 100 years.
The family-run store, which also sells antiques and second-hand books saw disheartening sale records earlier through the week.
Robert Sansom, an employee for 13 years, uploaded a picture of the deserted store on micro-blogging site with the text: "...Tumbleweed... Not a single book sold today... £0.00... We think this may be the first time ever..." (sic)
...Tumbleweed...Not a single book sold today...
£0.00...
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We think think this maybe the first time ever...
We know its miserable out but if you'd like to help us out please find our Abebooks offering below, all at 25% off at the moment.... pic.twitter.com/Cn5uhYWw88
— Petersfield Bookshop (@The_PBS) January 14, 2020
The heartfelt message struck the right chords and went viral, with noted author Niel Gaiman also retweeting the post - appealing to his 2.8 million followers to help the store.
Not only did book lovers from across the world step in and spike sales manifold, but the stores' follower count also increased substantially overnight.
Overwhelmed by the response, Sansom, who handles the store's social media handle, thanked Gaiman on Twitter for the over £1,000 they earned in online orders since the author’s endorsement.
What a night! We have been completely overwhelmed in a good way.We have 1,100 new followers.
We have loads of online book orders.
We have over 300 messages, many asking after books. We will answer all as soon as we can, please bear with us
Thank you all so much!
— Petersfield Bookshop (@The_PBS) January 15, 2020
Can we just say thank you @neilhimself this is not the day we thought we were going to have but it's been the best. People are kind and that's something to never forget
This is a small portion of the orders we received overnight and today as a result of the Gaiman bump pic.twitter.com/9qxDx7Ct58— Petersfield Bookshop (@The_PBS) January 15, 2020
In these dark days it's wonderful to see Twitter doing something good! https://t.co/g0YNPkRsG2— Neil Gaiman (@neilhimself) January 16, 2020
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