She Confessed To Creating Fake Accounts On Book Review Platforms Just To Take Down Other Authors Who She Viewed As Her Competition
When you work in a competitive field, you want nothing more than to see your “competition” not succeed as much as you. But often, that’s impossible, and you have to accept your industry for what it is.
A first-time author recently lost her book deal and was dropped by her publisher after confessing to creating fake accounts on book review platforms to write bad reviews on fellow authors.
Cait Corrain is an author who was excitedly promoting her sci-fi fantasy novel, “Crown of Starlight,” which was due to be published in May 2024 through Del Rey Books, a publishing company from Penguin Random House.
What could have been a promising book release ended in disaster after Cait was caught writing bad reviews through fake accounts on Goodreads, the popular book review platform owned by Amazon.
This act is often referred to as “review bombing,” which is the practice of manipulating a product’s success or ratings by posting fake, negative reviews on it.
Before Cait came out with an official statement admitting to her actions in mid-December, several authors began raising suspicions when they noticed that the same handful of accounts on Goodreads were writing and posting nasty, scathing reviews about their books. Some of these authors also belonged to Del Rey Books, like Molly X. Chang and Danielle Jensen.
Many of the books poorly reviewed by these accounts hadn’t yet been released, just like Cait’s book, and several of the authors she targeted were minority, indie authors. People looking into the accounts began pointing fingers at Cait when they left raving, five-star reviews for “Crown of Starlight.”
Before admitting to creating the accounts herself, Cait claimed a friend of hers named “Lilly” had written the reviews and shared screenshots of their alleged conversations surrounding the reviews from Discord. However, those following the incident were quick to notice that the screenshots had to be fake because of irregularities in the timestamps on them. “Lilly” turned out to be a fake figure made up by Cait.
On December 12th, Cait shared a lengthy statement on Instagram and X, owning up to her actions and apologizing to the authors she tried to tear down in her reviews.
Viktoriia – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purposes only, not the actual person
“I boosted the rating of my book, bombed the ratings of several fellow debut authors, and left reviews that ranged from kind of mean to downright abusive,” wrote Cait in her statement.
“Two of those authors – Molly X. Chang and Danielle Jensen – are fellow Del Rey authors. Kamilah Cole and Bethany Baptiste just happened to be on the wrong Goodreads lists at the wrong time. I felt no ill will towards any of them; it was just my fear about how my book would be received running out of control.”
In her statement, Cait attests her behavior to a “psychological breakdown” she had in early December after she began taking a new medication. She claimed she was not “sober or sound of mind” when she created the Goodreads accounts and wrote the reviews, and she apologized to everyone she hurt in the process.
Cait was subsequently dropped by Del Rey Books, and “Crown of Starlight” was removed from their 2024 publishing schedule. Her book agent, Rebecca Podos, has also decided to cut ties with her, calling the incident a “difficult situation” in a statement.
Cait ended her statement by letting her followers know she would be spending time in a psychiatric care and rehab facility and personally contacting those who were directly impacted by her actions.
People in the literary community are hoping Cait will get the help she needs and the authors affected by her behaviors will be able to recover from this incident.
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