in the 1990's author Walter Kirn went into a convenience store in Montana and saw some young dork dressed like a wizard trying to sell customers copies of his self published fantasy book. Kirn thought the costume and desperation was cringe and declined to buy a copy. Another author happened to come into the store though, Carl Hiaasen. He bought one for his child to read on their road trip. The kid went the whole drive without making a peep, totally engrossed in the book. Hiaasen decided to take a look at it too, and eventually passed it onto his publisher. The kid dressed like Merlin was Christopher Paolini and the self printed book he was hawking was Eragon, went on to sell 41 million copies.

2:01:30 mark
https://youtu.be/BEcloLz3ICc?t=7290