Other Writers Are Not Your Competition
Let me say that again for those in the back:
📢Other writers are not your competition.
I felt this topic was appropriate in light of recent events (we’ll get into it, don’t worry) and the upcoming holidays.
Because battling against questions from relatives about writing or working in a creative field is annoying as hell—especially when questions arise like, “Are you finally writing that book?” or “When are you going to be a bestseller?” or “How do you think you’re going to pay bills as a writer?” 🙄
Today we’re talking about…
📘 That debut author who had it all and fell from on high
💔 Reframing your view of failure
🏆 Who your competition actually is
Failure is just information.
What you do with that information is up to you.
The Rise and Fall of Cait Corrain
💭Imagine for a moment…
Your debut novel is set to release in May 2024.
It’s gaining traction on social media, getting good ARC reviews, has a beautiful cover, and you have Del Rey Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House for science fiction and fantasy, behind you helping you with editing, publishing, and marketing—not to mention an agent on your side too.
Now imagine being overcome with the fear of your debut novel failing (a valid fear!).
The fear sways you to stack the deck in your favor. You make multiple Goodreads accounts to 1-star review other debut novels set to release around the same time yours is—a vast majority written by people of color in the same genre.
🤔I wonder if Corrain ever expected to be found out, but the patterns were obvious, and she was eventually outed as the one behind the fake Goodreads accounts. She 1-star reviewed others and 5-star reviewed her book with those same accounts—all posted on the same day.
This review-bombing was going on for months and the authors involved were trying to deal with it amongst themselves. But they weren’t getting anywhere trying to remedy the situation, so they went public on X and TikTok.
Once it was brought to social media, the reviews and accounts vanished.
Corrain’s initially responded (the tweets have since been deleted):
“Nasty surprise of the day was learning that there were fake accounts messing with my GR ratings recently. If you’ve ACTUALLY read my book and want to rate my book that would be great…”
“I guess this explains why my rating was fluctuating so much. If you like my book, please rate & review it. If you hate it, you’re also entitled to share your opinion but making fake accounts to manipulate my book’s rating is something else entirely. I’m gonna go be sad now.”
No one was buying these tweets. 🙅🏼♀️
She then switched the story. Her friend Lily was the one who review-bombed others. She shares the screenshots of her conversation with Lily.
Lily wasn’t real. She made her up.
And Corrain finally admitted that she was the one responsible.
Here’s what happened next…
Del Rey Books dropped her.
Agent Rebecca Podos dropped her.
On December 12, Corrain posted her apology to X and Instagram.
She stated that she’s been struggling with depression, alcoholism, substance abuse, and suffered a psychological breakdown in early December which is when she made the Goodreads accounts. She took full responsibility despite her struggles and decided to check into an intensive psychiatric care and rehab facility.
Do I know Corrain well enough to know if her substance abuse and mental health issues are real or more lies? No, of course not. All my information about this situation is sourced from the numerous articles published.
But I don’t want to discredit how hard it is to deal with substance abuse and mental illness.
To end this section with some light, here are the debut authors who were affected by Cait’s actions. Check them out, put them on your TBR list if they suit your reading tastes:
What Can We Learn From This?
While I know you would never act like this, there are lessons to be learned from others’ actions.
The Lessons:
Don’t let self-sabotage get you down
Failing isn’t the end of the world
Writers aren’t our competition
💣Don’t Let Self-Sabotage Get You Down
The one thing I took from this is how it’s textbook self-sabotage.
Self-sabotage happens typically when we’re on the cusp of good things happening in our lives. Our behavior—sometimes consciously and sometimes not—creates problems in daily life and interferes with our goals.
4 Most Common Self-Sabotaging Behaviors:
Procrastination
Self-medication
Comfort eating
Self-injury
The reasons and behaviors behind self-sabotage are more nuanced than just that little list above. It can be self-limiting beliefs and lies we tell ourselves, inaction, and making choices (no matter how big or small) that steer us away from what we want to achieve.
You can self-sabotage yourself out of a relationship, a friendship, moving somewhere new, a promotion, a job, writing your book (finishing your book)…
And, as we’ve seen, becoming a published author.
How do we prevent self-sabotage?
The first step is to become aware of actions and choices that take you further away from your goals—whatever they may be. And record them in a journal. Remember, what gets measured, gets managed.
Decide if the behavior you choose to do now will lead you closer to what you want later.
And if you need help navigating this, professional help is a route you can take. I’ll always be an advocate for talk therapy and finding the right therapist for you.
💔Failure: It’s Not the End of the World
Corrain’s decision behind her behaviors—whether or not they were fueled by alcohol, drugs, etc.—possibly stems from a vicious fear of failure (and potentially a fear of success).
Our society prays 🙏🏼 at the altar of success. It even demands it. The unfortunate truth is we’re defined by our successes in all areas of life. Failure is to be avoided at all costs. Or else.
Or else what?
You’ll be damned to wander purgatory for eternity, haunted by everything you could have achieved in this life!
😜I’m kidding. But it does sometimes feel like that, doesn’t it?
Our society deifies success and demonizes failure—this is black-and-white thinking here. One good, one bad, no gray.
Let’s consider:
MLB players fail to hit the ball 75% of the time (and they’re still paid millions)
Meteorologists predict rain correctly 15% of the time (and they still keep their jobs)
Roger Federer, winner of 20 Grand Slams and won 103 singles titles in his career, finished with a win rate of 65% (He’s touted as the male GOAT of tennis)
Some of the biggest successes were once failures:
Amazon narrowly avoided bankruptcy in 2001 (And look how they’re doing now)
Star Wars was rejected by several film studios for being too unconventional and risky (Can you imagine a world without Star Wars?)
Thomas Edison failed 1,000 times before perfecting the light bulb (Where would we be if he stopped trying after the 10th or 100th attempt?)
When we step away from fearing failure, we see it in a new light.
Failure is just information. What you do with that information is up to you.
Failure teaches. It makes us ask questions, it allows us to be curious and discover new ways to do things. Failure is a part of being human—imperfect, incomplete, erring creatures.
It sucks to fail, especially when others know about it (or it’s blasted on Forbes, Time, and the New York Times).
But, no matter how it finds you, there’s always more out there for you. Don’t fall back when you fail, fail forward.
✍🏼Why Other Writers Aren’t Your Competition
Competition is everywhere. Sports. Business. Academics. Reality TV. They’re all selling something and wanting to be the best at selling it.
But the one community that is (and should be) free of competition is the writing community.
I know publishing houses, agents, editors, and even authors have financial goals and want to make money. We all gotta eat. But competition isn’t helpful in the arts—as we learned earlier in this newsletter. What do we get out of competing with our fellow writers?
Nothing.
Creative industries benefit from everyone’s tastes being wildly subjective. Fellow authors aren’t your competition. They’re your peers, community, and colleagues.
Here’s why:
✅Readers like what they like
Readers will read whatever genre and category they enjoy. Some may stay with one genre, some love to genre-jump. There’s no controlling what readers read.
✅Fellow writers are resources
We writers can offer each other different things and we benefit from making friends within the community to further push our writing craft, get advice about the publishing industry, and just have a laugh about how hard it is to write a book.
Check your ego at the door. Build community instead. Writing can be lonely, but it doesn’t have to be.
✅ There is room for all of us
I don’t have to explain this one. If you show up, go after your goals, do the work, and cultivate relationships…the universe will make space for you!
🏆The 1 Person You Can Complete With
Yourself. The you that existed yesterday.
Compare old writing to new writing—see what’s improved and applaud yourself for getting better, for growing in your writing craft.
You know what’s better than competing with fellow authors? When you can celebrate your wins together and bolster each other through the hard times.
Celebrate every small win, gain, or progress. Even the mundane. Find the lessons in your letdowns.
Always cheering you on,
Kourtney ✌🏼