🧐 How to not blow-up your career. The Cait Corrain debacle.
🧐 How to not blow-up your career. The Cait Corrain debacle.
A debut author had it all. Lessons to learn when blowing-up your author career before it even starts.
The Cellar Door Newsletter Format
🧐 Question of the Day
⏳ What I Did This Week ( ✍🏾 Business & 💅🏾 Pleasure)
📚 What I’m Consuming
🫣 What’s Next?
🧐 How to not blow-up your writing career.
I’m scrolling through booktok and authortok in the haze of my bronchitis. I come across Xiran Jay Zhao, author of Iron Widow and Zachary Ying, exposing Cait Corrain review bombing other books. Cait Corrain will forever be remembered as the author who destroyed her career before it could even start. Holy cow, this scandal was a wild ride.
An Overview
In short, we previously knew Cait Corrain as a Reylo fanfiction writer. She achieved what many dreamed of. Getting picked-up by an agent and getting traditionally published. Much like the plot of Yellowface, she created several fake accounts on Goodreads and reviewed bombed other authors with one star ratings. Many of these authors are of some at the same imprint and notably BIPOC. Some didn’t even have their debut out either. With these sock puppets, Corrain not only leaves one-star reviews of other authors but gave her own debut novel five star reviews. Crown of Starlight, Corrina's debut novel, had a slated release date of 2024.
Guess what? People figured it out. She got caught. The craziness continues, she tried to blame it on someone named “Lilly”. Pages and pages of receipts are there. The Lilly character was an obvious sock-puppet. Surprise, no-one bought it. Corrine now released an apology, confessing. Her publisher and agent dropped her; deals crumble before her.
What can learn from this?
Understand other authors are NOT your ENEMY.
Writing seems like a solitary sport. It’s not, it’s a team sport. Other authors are not your competition, they are your colleagues who should be supportive. The best are those who are with you during the hard times and the high times.
I’ve learned so much from authors in my genre and world, their advice invaluable. Their experience that they are willing to share and relationships are worth their weight in gold.
Trashing other author’s books like the way Corrain did is pretty cruel and hurtful. Why tear apart other debut authors? They are just as scared as she was. Tearing them down like that is a hard blow to this already hard journey.
Readers will not forget.
When you mess the careers of other authors. They will certainly will not forget. Their readers will not forget, and many of those readers could have been hers.
Reader’s trust is extremely valuable and takes work to maintain. Once trust is gone, it’s near impossible to get back.
In this day and age of technology, this will forever haunt her. Readers are smart. If she appeared five years down the line with a new name, new book and new publisher (if anyone ever signs her again) this will find her.
Take accountability.
Cait tried to cover it up. That always makes it worse. Things could have been different if she admitted her mistakes. It’s baffling how hard taking accountability is and how many people blame it on other things than themselves. She made a choice and went down that path.
Creating a fake person to take the blame was worse than making the mistake. There is a level of understanding that the choice she made was gravely wrong. Covering it up directly results from guilt. This makes her apology all the while useless.
Taking accountability is the first step in growth and learning. Time will tell if she learns this and if she will revisit this with a proper apology.
Medications do NOT make you racist.
NOT THE PROBLEM 👆🏽
Does more need to be said on that?
TDLR:
Author world, self-publishing or even trad-publishing is a team sport.
Don’t mess with readers, they will remember.
Take accountability for your mistakes.
Also, don’t blame your racism on medication.
⏳ What I Did This Week:
✍🏾 Business
Formated book one. My deadline is looming and this illness definitely set me back.
Writing 12k/20k of book two finished! We are almost there! I’m skipping spicy scenes at the moment. I write those for last.
💅🏾 Pleasure
Back into the some normalcy after my bronchitis. Went to my husband’s holiday party and had some bomb food.
Christmas gifts for friends, family & coworkers.
Enjoying random 50-60 degree days even though it’s winter.
📚 What I’m Consuming
Romance Rules for Werewolves by Lindsey Hall
Part of the Charming Cove series, this is the first book I read by Lindsey Hall. I added the previous two books to my TBR. I enjoyed this book, it is a cozy paranormal romance. The spice level is more on the mildish side but I didn’t mind. The couple was adorable, the stakes were low and overall she nailed the cozy atmosphere! If you enjoy cozy paranormal romance, give it a go!