Another day on the internet… In a – nothing – amazing situation, an American author of a science fiction book created fake profiles on a website, gave negative reviews of works by competing authors, was discovered, lost contracts, was confronted and ended up asking apologies on social media.
Cait Corrain, author of Crown of Starlight, to be released in May 2024, published a letter on her profile on X, admitting:
– having created eight fake profiles between 2022 and November 2023 on the Goodreads website, where readers post book reviews;
– having boosted the ratings of your own book;
– detonate the evaluation of several debut authors, including two from the same publisher as her, the American Del Rey, from the Penguin group;
– leaving comments, according to herself, that “ranged from malicious to abusive”.
The truth came to light after Goodreads readers discovered that Cait was pretending to be someone else. The distrust occurred when readers saw that there were very negative reviews of unreleased works on the same theme as Cait’s book.
Confronted, she assumed the gesture. “I blame myself more than you can ever imagine. There is nothing I can say that will take away what I did to you,” she said.
The author said she had been fighting severe depression, alcoholism and substance abuse since 2022 and, when changing medications, she had a mental breakdown.
After the negative repercussion, the company Del Rey, which was responsible for publishing Cait’s book, canceled the release — originally scheduled for May 2024. The literary agent who followed Cait’s career, Rebecca Podos, said she terminated the partnership with the author.
Even considering that it was an imbalance and a momentary crisis, the author took responsibility “for the pain and suffering it caused.”, adding that she was seeking mental clarity: “I stayed off social media for a few days to feel more sober and be completely honest with you and with myself”, she said.
