THANKS FOR SCREWING IT UP FOR THE REST OF US, CAIT CORRAIN
All of the wrong people are getting the right breaks...and then fucking shit up forever
If you’re not an indie author slogging through the 250-view trenches of #Booktok (the writer’s hashtag on TikTok) while desperately trying to get seen, you won’t know who Cait Corrain is.
Cait was inspo for a lot of Booktokers because she broke through. She got an agent and a proper publishing deal for her fantasy book, Crown of Starlight, set to come out next year.
Now, if you’re a first-time author who just landed the book deal of your dreams, you should be doing nothing other than celebrating. But instead of being gracious in her gratitude, Cait Corrain deliberately self-sabotaged herself by trying to eliminate her competition.
Corrain took herself anonymously over to Goodreads, which is THE make-or-break website for authors. A great review on Goodreads can potentially launch a writer into the stratosphere. I’m still waiting for the impact of this amazing review, but now it might just mean more nothing thanks to Cait being a c-u-n-t.
Pre-Cait, this is the kind of review that would impress readers. Now they might accuse me of writing it myself. Which I didn’t, because I don’t need to, because my readers love my rock and roll love story THE SOUND OF SETTLING (back to that in a sec).
The story has gotten so big, it’s made national headlines. NBC News, among other outlets, credits author Xiran Jay Zhao for blowing her up. Because not only did Corrain try to elbow her way to the top of Goodreads, but she also went after mostly BIPOC writers and BIPOC writers who also happen to be LGBTQIA+.
Hateful, Cait. Thankfully, Karma (and Xiran) was paying attention and now Cait has no agent and no book deal.
GIVE THEM TO ME NOW PLEASE.
The extra infuriating part of this for me is that my book is getting authentic rave reviews that I don’t have to pay for or make fake accounts to write fake reviews or buy tons of books to falsely inflate my sales like the RNC did for Marjorie Taylor Greene’s ghostwritten crapbook.
Between Friday, December 8th, and today, December 12th, nearly 1000 pages of The Sound of Settling were read on Amazon Kindle. I’ve sold 373 copies by myself thanks to endless and exhausting self-promotion.
These numbers seem impressive to me, but I also don’t work in publishing and maybe this isn’t what agents are looking for. But at least I’d be a better and more successful client than Cait Corrain.
If that’s how low the bar is now for struggling indie authors, I’m happy to help raise it back up. The whole point of becoming successful for me is not just how I can personally benefit from The Sound of Settling finally getting a proper publishing/film deal.
I think about how I could parlay my success into helping other people as soon as I can. It’s all part of my manifestations. I think about it all the time.
I think about shooting as much of the streaming series here in the Portland area as possible. Aside from the financial incentives to film in Oregon, I know so many great people who could work on the crew. I want pretty much the entire Grimm crew fam on that set. I want my friends to be extras in the concert scenes, I want my musician friends to write songs for the fictitious bands in the series, I want to hire every actor I know personally to get them post-strike work.
And then there’s the chance to boost other writers. The best way to use social media is to take your platform and use it for good. I can promote myself while also pointing people in the direction of the other talented and struggling people who are always out there.
I just need that Yes Person to finally show up. Seems like Penguin Random House is down a new author, so once again I shout into the Internet Voids:
#SignTara already please ffs
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Chuck Wendig posted a blog about this today, too. What a mess (of her own doing).