Well in OTL, Some listeners heard only a portion of the broadcast and, in the atmosphere of tension and anxiety prior to World War II, took it to be an actual news broadcast. Newspapers reported that panic ensued, with people across the Northeastern United States and Canada fleeing their homes. Some people called CBS, newspapers or the police in confusion over the realism of the news.
This is with a good ending, with a Martian victory, we may see, suicides, riots and massacres.
H.G. Wells' aliens would have just exterminated the earth, the humans were of no use to them.
Its influence on literacy would most likely be the same, the first alien invasion book painting mars as an ancient world, nearing the end of its life. It would be seen as the modern Tim Burton Mars Attack.