Stephen King gets scary number of followers on Twitter

Stephen King's popularity has not waned even though he hasn't penned any novel for the last few years - the American horror, suspense and fantasy novelist's Twitter account was flooded with tens of thousands of followers as soon as it went live.

On Friday, December 6, King opened his official Twitter account @StephenKing. Just within 90 minutes of his account opening he had over 30,000 followers and as of reporting, he has 175,391 people following him on Twitter.

In the past, King has been open to e-books and other forms of digital reading; however, he did not want to join Twitter.

Marsha DeFilippo, King's assistant, confirmed that the Twitter account was authentic and Scribner, King's publisher, encouraged him to join Twitter.

"My first tweet. No longer a virgin. Be gentle!" was King's first tweet on December 6, which was then followed by another tweet on the same day that said "On Twitter at last, and can't think of a thing to say. Some writer I turned out to be."

King is regarded as one of the best-selling authors and his books have sold over 350 million copies, besides his writings having been adapted into a number of feature films, television movies and comic books.

The author has also published around 50 novels, which includes seven under the pen-name Richard Bachman. King has also written more than two hundred short stories, most of which are in nine collections of short fiction.

With thousands of people following King on Twitter, the author himself is following a select few. The author is following his wife, Tabitha King; sons, Joe Hill and Owen King; and his daughter, Rev. Naomi King, among others.

King's last tweet on December 7 says, "Watching THE RETURNED. Scary and sexy. Fun to see a foreign TV show that hasn't been Americanized. That kid Victor's giving me nightmares."

Now that's scary.