Not surprisingly having a Google Doodle can help spike an interest in an author.
For example, when Google featured a Google Doodle of Mark Twain in November 2011 to celebrate his 176th birthday, searches for the author reached an all time high. The majority of those searches came from the United States and related searches that trended included: “quotes mark twain,” “mark twain quotes,” “about mark twain,” and “mark twain school.”
You can explore how this feature has influenced the online popularity of other authors using this Google Trends tool.