Publisher Dumps White Author For ‘Review Bombing’ Competing Books Written By People Of Color
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So, here’s a movie idea about Karens:
(There’s already a Karen movie, but this one will be better than that one.)
A white woman writes a book about—I don’t know—something. The first-time author finds a major publisher, gets positive reviews on her work and is all set up for a big book release in 2024. For some Caucasian reason, Karen, the author, fears her book won’t get enough attention when it comes out so, in a preemptive strike, she aims to thwart her competition by creating fake social media accounts so she could anonymously “review bomb” other first-time authors’ books online and give her own book glorious reviews. And the twist: all of the authors whose work she digitally lynched were Black women and women of color. She’s a serial review bomber. She’s Jason Voorhees—if he only existed on the internet and was secretly a mediocre white woman with an extraordinarily racist inferiority complex.
The film would be called “Becky With the Pseudonym: A Karen Tale”.
Actually, we’re going to have to scrap this whole idea to avoid a lawsuit because what is described above is the real-life story of author Cait Corrain.
Corrain, author of the sci-fi fantasy novel Crown of Starlight, has recently been dropped by her publisher and agent after she was exposed as the puppeteer behind puppet accounts used to post fake negative reviews to the popular book recommendation website Goodreads.
From ABC News:
Suspicion around Corrain’s alleged anonymous review-bombing first emerged when writers noticed several of the same accounts leaving scathing one-star reviews on unreleased books from other authors. Many of them were also debut titles to be released in the first half of next year. Internet users also noted that the vast majority of targeted books were written by people of color.
Those accounts, which appeared to “like” one another’s reviews, seemed to be further connected when people discovered they all rated “Crown of Starlight” five stars and upvoted it across dozens of Goodreads book lists.
Corrain has made many of her social media accounts private, including those on Instagram and X. On TikTok, just one video from Nov. 30, featuring the U.K. cover art for the book, was up Monday.
Before she made her X account private, Corrain had written a post addressing the rumors. She reportedly claimed a friend had been behind the review-bombing and shared screenshots of Discord conversations between her and the alleged culprit, “Lilly.” But observers were not convinced — many pointed out disparities in the timestamps that make the screenshot conversations appear edited.
So, basically, she created fake accounts to leave negative reviews, created an imaginary friend to post on those fake accounts, and then created a fake text conversation with her fake friend about the fake reviews. (It’s like Inception but with deeper levels within deeper levels of caucasity.)
After the fallout, Del Rey Books, owned by Penguin Random House, posted on X that it was “aware of the ongoing discussion” about Corrain and that her book, which was originally scheduled for publication on May 14, is “no longer on our 2024 publishing schedule.” The publisher also noted that it still has “contractual obligations” it still needs to see about before deciding the future of Corrain’s book.
Good!
Context/explanation for those who are confused: https://t.co/dR1jSWI9BV
— Yenni Desroches (@yennidesroches) December 11, 2023
In light of the situation regarding the author Cait Corrain, Crown of Starlight has been removed from Daphne Press’ 2024 publishing schedule.
We are in contact with the US publisher to discuss the extent of our contractual obligations. pic.twitter.com/8YR9VyPeyS
— Daphne Press (@Daphne_Press) December 12, 2023
Then Corrain’s book agent, Rebecca Podos, followed suit and posted to X that she and her now-former client “will not be continuing our partnership moving forward.”
Cait and I will not be continuing our partnership moving forward. I deeply appreciate the patience of those directly impacted by last week’s events as I worked through a difficult situation.
— Becca Podos (is mostly not here) (@RebeccaPodos) December 11, 2023
After seeing the writing on the wall, so to speak, Corrain posted a mea culpa online confessing to the review bombing and saying she “accepts full responsibility” after she spent multiple paragraphs blaming her behavior on drugs and depression.
A sincere apology. I know this is long, but that’s because I’m trying to own and openly address every aspect of what I did. pic.twitter.com/MEtyDLCkDw
— Cait (@CaitCorrain) December 12, 2023
Corraine started by Karen-splaining that she’s been “fighting a losing battle with depression, alcoholism and substance abuse,” and that she had started a “new medication” that caused her to suffer a “complete psychological breakdown,” which somehow caused her to methodically create fake accounts in a strategic effort to boost her book at the expense of other authors, and then create a fake friend to cover her tracks. Also, the drugs made her racist.
“Let me be extremely clear: while I might not have been sober or of sound mind during this time, I accept responsibility for the pain and suffering I caused,” she wrote in her conclusion, adding that she spent the past few days “going through withdrawal as I sobered up enough to be brutally honest with you and myself.”
“I know some of you won’t forgive me, and I recognize that you’re not required to.”
Suffice it to say, she was not forgiven, and her pitiful, excuse-ridden non-apology did not make things any better.
The Cait Corrain thing actually proves that we should work harder to gatekeep greek mythology from the white queer feminists TM.
— Avra Margariti (@avramargariti) December 12, 2023
cait corrain doing this despite, by all indications, being on track to have a very successful debut, really speaks to how embarrassingly insecure a lot of queer white authors are about having to share publishing spaces with authors of color
— the queerest of the queer (@roseredwriter) December 7, 2023
You know who I REALLY care about, R.M. Virtues. A Black indie who’s only reason for getting swept up in this bullshit is the fact that he writes greek myth retellings (amazingly, btw). This all makes me so mad. When will y’all stop falling for this shit?
— Neeks OATHBOUND TO SHAKESUM (@ItsNeeksYeah) December 9, 2023
am i imagining things, or did cait corrain nonapologize, go to bed, then check in here, see her nonapology being dunked on for being a nonapology and limit dissent?
depression doesn’t cause racism sigh </3 pic.twitter.com/qbwx0lCvii
— patrick supports labor and striking workers (@pcarterwriter) December 12, 2023
From author Cait Corrain’s fuckery to some rando being mad that the Godmother of Grunge was a Black woman, the ridiculous extent white people go through in order to maintain white supremacy would be laughable if it wasn’t so dangerous.
— Uppity Black Faerie Gothmother of Metal (@FountainPenDiva) December 9, 2023
the meds made you racist? pic.twitter.com/gHORokdvGA
— Winnie M (@Winxx_777) December 12, 2023
All you white people who are saying, “But she’s mentally ill!!” in regards to Cait Corrain, are giving me this: pic.twitter.com/nVheMeeydx
— Damian is querying (@d_s_saavedra) December 12, 2023
I don’t condone what Cait Corrain did, but many of the quote tweets and replies are bashing her with the claim “Drugs don’t make you racist.”
I did some research, and there are actually several medications that do, including:
Klanerall
Bipocsenvy
Macroaggressitor https://t.co/zvuwNFts4h
— Mister Hand (@MisterHand1) December 12, 2023
i just can’t get over this cait corrain stuff… imagine having it all. literally having it all. an agent, a book deal, an ILLUMICRATE DEAL?? good pre-pub reviews, a social media following… and then throwing it away for what, jealousy? racism? it’s inconceivable to me
— ethan is drafting?? (@ethannku) December 11, 2023
It was also pointed out that “Crown of Starlight” is the Atlanta Waffle House of book titles by white woman authors.
LMAOOO
— ethan is drafting?? (@ethannku) December 12, 2023
Damn. This would’ve been a really good movie.
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