Community in an Industry in Decline

What a publishing microscandal tells us about the race for readers.

Author Cait Corrain had, by standards of modern publishing, “made it.” As a debut author, she had signed a two book deal with Del Rey publishing, with her first novel set to appear in May 2024. Del Rey is a powerhouse of fantasy and science fiction, genres that attract enthusiastic and loyal readers, especially online.

With months to go before her debut, Corrain likely had to contend with bouts of pride and doubt. In hopeful moments, she might imagine a “Harry Potter” future for her work, but she also must have known she could fall far short of that kind of cultural hegemony and still make a living. Audiences for this kind of fiction form strong bonds and there are myriad authors and series that people outside of the community have never heard of that have financially sustainable followings and that always leads to the possibility of more money through speaking and teaching, but also by licensing work to other media. For Corrain, this book deal opens a world of possibilities that are non-starters for writers still outside of the kingdom.

The flip side is that most writers will never get that first book deal, that most books never earn out their advance money and sometimes publishers shut the door on new authors if they fail to sell, reminding all that invitations to the kingdom are made for visits, not to move in. Even Corrain’s two book deal would not protect her. If her debut sold poorly, Del Rey can always cut its losses by finding some editorial reason to reject her second manuscript, sending her back to the start.

Years ago, I worked with an editor who had written a novel that got a great review in The New York Times but failed to sell. He could not sell a second novel. Despite the great critical response, his publisher, other publishers he approached and eventually his agent, all considered him damaged by his poor revenues, so he never got another chance.

This kind of thing happens throughout the economy. The best products and services are not always the biggest sellers, or the most profitable. In creative fields, critics offer people guidance for judging quality, but they cannot control consumer choices. For me to say that markets can be cruel seems like deliberate understatement.

So, back to Corrain story. She says she has mental health and substance abuse issues. Whatever roles those played, she also clearly has a lot to hope for and a lot to fear, heading into winter and the U.S. holidays and she made a series of bad decisions that included setting up fake accounts so that she could positively review her work on Goodreads, while also review bombing authors she considered the competition with one star attacks. Patterns were noticed, evidence gathered, accusations made and Corrain’s initial denials became a confession.

In the early reactions to all this, I noticed this from the excellent novelist Darrin Strauss:

This observation gets me wondering if this is less a story about Corrain’s mental break than it is about the industry — despite the advantages of a genre like science fiction, the competition for attention remains fierce and the looming threat of artificial intelligence might be scarier for genre writers who deploy formulas that well-directed chatbots might exploit.

In short, when attractive opportunities are scarce, people will scrap for them. Strauss describes the 90s/00s literary scene as supportive, the way the Jazz Age writers who coalesced around Gertrude Stein and Scribner helped each other out. I’d only remind Darrin that for those of us who weren’t selected for publication in those days, his supportive community seemed hopelessly exclusive — and things were better for debut authors back then!

One reason for writing fiction in the first place is to become part of a conversation with readers, critics and other writers. It means to be part of a literary community that’s lively enough to even turn Normal Mailer punching Gore Vidal into an amusing anecdote (where Vidal said from the couch he’d been knocked upon, “Once against, words have failed Normal Mailer.”)

But if there is no community, then there’s nothing to be part of, no common cause to make and no rules. Corrain went the old school “sock puppet” route and was quickly caught because internet people have now been exposing such review bomb schemes for more than a decade. What if, however, she had deployed generative AI to pass all the Turing tests and execute her scheme more effectively? It’s going to happen. A devotion to community is the best deterrent against such an outcome. So we have to wonder if Corrain’s story undermines the idea that a community exists at all.

Courtney Maum, who writes an excellent Substack for readers and writers, points out that selling a book is like being hired to a high level job at a firm that takes no time to onboard new employees. She suggests that publishers should spend more time with first time authors, teaching them how to behave throughout the process of marketing and publishing their books.

Maum makes a good point, and when we think about the golden age of American publishing, it’s to people like Max Perkins, who was as concerned with the quality of each book he edited as he was with the health and well-being of the authors he cared for deeply. But, Perkins functioned in a different industry, one where the editors had more authority of publishing decisions and more freedom about how they spend their time. Given the demands of the modern publishing professional, time set aside for “don’t create fake reviews online,” might be a lot to ask. For most, it’s hopefully not necessary, either.