Stephen King gains 180,000 Twitter followers in just three days

The horror author has struggled to think of what to say on the social network

Horror author Stephen King has joined Twitter despite struggling with writer's block on the network (Getty Images)

Horror author Stephen King has amassed nearly 180,000 followers in just three days after launching his very own, blue tick-verified Twitter profile.

King, whose fictional bestsellers include The Shining, The Green Mile and Carrie, can now be followed at the account @StephenKing after trying and failing to secure @StephenKingAuthor because it contains “too many letters”.

The popular author’s assistant, Marsha DeFilippo, confirmed that King’s publisher Scribner had pushed him to join the social network., only for him to suffer from writer's block.

Despite being open-minded to advances in digital publishing, the Doctor Sleep author has thus far resisted Twitter.

He warned fans that he was unlikely to update his feed regularly in a message on his website. "Tweets may not be frequent as [King] still believes you’d rather read his books than tweets, so he’ll be spending more time writing the book," the statement read.

"My first tweet. No longer a virgin. Be gentle!" were his opening words on the platform.

Nevertheless, within just 90 minutes, some 30,000 readers had followed his account.