Suzanne's Mom's Blog

The book Stone Maidens, by Lloyd Devereux Richards, was promoted on TikTok by his daughter.

Never turn down help from your kids. Today’s story is about the daughter of an unsuccessful author who decided to take on promotion of his book using social media the dad knew nothing about. After languishing ten years, the book suddenly caught fire.

Kyle Melnick reported at the Washington Post, “Marguerite Richards visited her family’s Vermont home for an Italian dinner when she brought up her father’s novel, Stone Maidens. Lloyd Devereux Richards’s crime thriller, which published in November 2012, still wasn’t making money. It was ranked 1,452nd among mystery, thriller and suspense novels on Amazon, he said.

“Hoping to provide the book some publicity, Marguerite asked her father whether she could record a TikTok video of him. Lloyd, 74, hadn’t heard of the social media platform.

“ ‘Well, what’s that going to do?’ Lloyd recalled asking.

“ ‘Believe me, Dad,’ responded Marguerite, 40, ‘just trust me.’

“Marguerite recorded Lloyd working in his attic office — a 16-second video she posted that night with a message: ‘I’d love for him to get some sales.’ The video went viral, and a few days later, Stone Maidens ascended to the top of Amazon’s bestsellers chart. …

“In the mid-1970s, Lloyd was attending Indiana University’s law school when he said he remembers several women went missing in forests around the Midwest. Those crimes would later inspire the premise of the book he dedicated years to writing.

“After he moved to Montpelier, Vt., in June 1984, Lloyd began working as a lawyer for a life insurance company. For two years, after finishing his workdays, he studied dialogue, structure and pacing with a local college professor. He read legal files about murders and studied books by his favorite authors, including Stephen King and Michael Connelly.

“Around 1998, Lloyd began writing Stone Maidens, a 300-plus-page book that follows an FBI forensic anthropologist investigating a serial killer strangling women and leaving their bodies in southern Indiana forests.

“Lloyd’s home office in his attic isn’t insulated, so he wore a hat and mittens in the winter and blew fans on himself and his computer in the summer as he worked on the novel. While practicing law and raising three children, he said he found a few hours to write at night and in the morning. He said he slept about four hours per night for more than a decade.

“After he finished a draft in fall 2009, Lloyd said, he was turned down by about 80 literary agents.

Lloyd said his mail carrier despised him, because his rejection letters weighed down his delivery bag. In May 2010,

“Lloyd thought he was being hoaxed when an agent finally agreed to work with him. But more disappointing news followed. By fall 2010, Lloyd said, not one editor had agreed to publish his book. …

“The next year, Lloyd enrolled in an online writing class. Then, in fall 2011, Thomas & Mercer, an Amazon subsidiary, agreed to be his publisher. … Although a few dozen people bought the book in the following two years, Lloyd said, sales soon fell off. He said he donated his books to his small town’s bookstore. He sold three copies online between this past December and January, Lloyd said.

“Marguerite had been plotting since the fall to promote her dad’s book on TikTok. Growing up, she witnessed her father’s long hours in his office, and she wanted to make a video that would honor his hard work. She figured a few people might learn about his novel. …

“ ‘My dad spent 14 years writing a book,’ she wrote on top of the video. ‘He worked full time and his kids came first. But made time for his book.’

“The next morning, Marguerite said, the video had received about a million views, which she thought was a glitch. Then she looked at Amazon’s book charts and saw Stone Maidens was one of the top-selling mystery, thriller and suspense novels.

“The following day, Marguerite invited her dad to her condo. … As he read the video’s comments and Marguerite told him about the sales, Lloyd cried. He celebrated with a chocolate milkshake.”

More at the Post, here. Now many struggling writers will now be hiring TikTok mavens to promote their books, I suppose. But I think that what came from a daughter’s heart is the thing that did the trick.