Laid-Off Software Engineer Now Top-Selling Author on Amazon Due to Selfless Act of Kindness

A former paratrooper who long dreamed of becoming a writer got to do just that after being laid off from his job.

Army veteran and former software engineer Shawn Warner decided to make the best of a bad situation when he found himself out of work, and sat down to write his first book.

He then self-published and took some copies of "Leigh Howard and the Ghosts Of Simmons-Pierce Manor" down to his local Kroger grocery store in Fort Worth, Texas, hoping to sell a few copies.

Sales were slow, and one shopper who stopped to grab a copy offered to put the book on his TikTok in hopes of helping out Warner.

"He looked defeated. You could tell he spent so much time working on it and he wanted to share it with the world," Jared Swearengin tells Inside Edition.

Swearengin then purchased a second book and put it on his social media account, hoping to maybe help Warner sell a few more copies.

It soon became, and as of Friday afternoon remains, the best-selling book worldwide on Amazon.

Warner cannot believe his luck.

"One trigger action of kindness and this whole tsunami follows," Warner tells Inside Edition. "It is an incredible validation that there are good people."

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