The 3 Most Bonkers Bookish Scandals

As with any community, the online book community has its fair share of drama. An author creating an army of sock puppet accounts to try and tank the rating average of their fellow debut authors’ books. That one time someone tried to copyright the Sun. A seemingly endless parade of white authors who try faking being a different race for clout.

But three particular incidents from book community lore have stood out in my mind for being especially over-the-top wild. Today, I’m counting down my top three most bonkers bookish scandals — and I made a whole video essay about the number one entry! These aren’t necessarily the most serious scandals, or the ones that have caused the most damage, but rather the ones that I find the most hilarious.

Number Three: The Infamous Soap

In 2018, the company Bookish Stuff announced their Illyrian Book Boyfriend Box, a box of bookish merch based on the Court of Thorns and Roses series by Sarah J. Maas intended only for fans aged 18+.

At the time, the Court of Thorns and Roses series was published by a children's publisher and marketed as young adult. While the series has recently been rebranded to adult, and rightly so in my opinion, in 2018 there was a lot of discussion about whether it was appropriate to create an 18+ book box for a series that was ostensibly marketed to teenagers.

The item in the box that received the most attention was a bar of lemongrass-scented soap shaped like a ... certain body part. Complete with a suction cup. However, the potentially illegal part is that the book box also contained a work of printed and bound fanfiction called A Court of Smut and Wingspans.

There is always a bit of a gray area with unlicensed merch, since it's technically illegal to sell merch based on a fandom without getting permission from the rights holder. In practice, however, bookish boxes and merch shops sell unlicensed merch all the time, and the publisher and author often don't care (sometimes they even like it, since it can be good marketing).

However, selling something like fanfiction goes beyond merch licensing rights and would be more likely to incur the wrath of the author and publisher. Luckily for the creators (who I truly believe didn’t mean any harm), the publisher’s reaction was just to sort of back away slowly.

(Yes, there are several published books that used to be fanfiction. But, as I argued in this post about republished fanfic, if the serial numbers are filed off, I don’t think it should be an issue legally or artistically.)

Number Two: Cockygate

In April of 2018, romance writer Faleena Hopkins, the author of the Cocky series, successfully registered a trademark for the word "cocky" in relation to a romance novel series. Hopkins then started contacting other romance authors who had used the word "cocky" in their book titles or series, telling them they had to change their titles — even if they had published their books before Hopkins published hers.

Note that Hopkins's copyright claim only covered series titles. Even under her own copyright, she had no right to dispute individual book titles. But it’s questionable whether the copyright should have been awarded to Hopkins at all, given how common the word “cocky” is in the realm of romance novels. Imagine if a mystery writer tried to copyright the word “murder,” for example.

Some of the targeted authors changed their book titles to try and avoid legal action, at great time and expense to themselves. Some, however, pushed back. One affected author, Jamila Jasper, opted to change the title of her novel "The Cocky Cowboy" to "The Cockiest Cowboy to Have Ever Cocked."

Several authors also banded together to create a short story collection called "Cocktales: the Cocky Collective.” Faleena Hopkins then tried to file a temporary restraining order against them.

The incident culminated in Hopkins suing the author Tara Crescent, who had also published a "Cocky" romance series. Luckily, the judge didn't think the case had much merit, and Hopkins ended up withdrawing the lawsuit and surrendering her trademark for "Cocky."

Number One: Handbook for Mortals

And finally, the mother of all bookish scandals — one with so many twists and turns that I made a half-hour-long video about it!

In August of 2017, The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas had spent 24 weeks at number one on the Young Adult Hardcover New York Times bestseller list. But on the 25th week, a new book appeared at number one: Handbook for Mortals by Lani Sarem. What followed was the uncovering of a bonkers scam that rocked the literary world to its core.

In my newest video essay, I recap all the drama, but I also aim to ask the question: Could the Handbook for Mortals bestseller list scam happen today? The video will be public in three days’ time, but you get to watch it now!

Is there another book community scandal or piece of drama you would add to this list? Share in the comments!

What I Read This Month

I’ve been listening to a lot of audiobooks lately, and I listened to two nonfiction books this month: Ain’t I A Woman? and Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center, both by bell hooks, as part of a reading challenge set by my lovely bookstagram friend Rita from @TheRitaReads.

Both books contained complex ideas expressed with clarity, and it was refreshing to read such clear expressions of what feminism should be. It’s easy to lose sight of that in a world where we’re inundated with reductive ideas about feminism that encourage people to uphold existing systems of oppression in the name of being a girlboss.

In terms of fiction, I devoured a book that I’d been keen to read ever since I watched the movie in December:

Wicked by Gregory Maguire

The novel Wicked is very different from the movie and musical, but I also liked it very much, though for different reasons. This book is a twisted retelling that descends into cynicism at times, and deals heavily with philosophy, religion, and politics. It would make a terrible musical, but it makes a great dark fantasy story.

For my full thoughts, read my full review of Wicked on Storygraph.

In Case You Missed It …

In which I round up my other favorite fun posts that I made this past month!

On YouTube Shorts, Instagram, and TikTok, I shared some of my favorite non-Amazon places to buy books for those who are hoping to reduce their reliance on Amazon due to their unethical business practices and union busting:

Ahead of Doctor Who’s new season coming out, I cross-posted my review of the audio drama Doctor Who: Redacted to YouTube Shorts and Instagram. Bonus: the showrunner for this audio drama will be writing an episode of the new season!

On YouTube Shorts, Instagram, and TikTok, I posted a funny little rant about how my boyfriend has started trying to read my to-be-read pile faster than me (to be clear, it’s all in good fun — I feel I should clarify, because some of the comments took it way too seriously!):

On Instagram and TikTok, I shared a list of tips for getting out of a reading slump, adapted from my newsletter on the subject a few months ago:

And finally, on YouTube Shorts and Instagram, I cross-posted a TikTok video picking my favorite episodes from every season of Doctor Who:

Thank you so much for reading! Until next time, bookish friends.

Love,

Ellie