Here are some cautionary tales for people aspiring to become writers and novelists.
There is a two-week waiting period (after the termination of a role) before an example can be added. This ensures the job loss is accurately reported, actually sticks and avoids knee-jerk reactions.
- In a more light-hearted example, Isabel Allende briefly translated Romance Novels from English to Spanish, particularly those of Barbara Cartland, in The '60s. Allende found many of the books to be frustratingly formulaic and the female characters lacking in agency, so out of boredom she began making changes to the stories as she translated them ("I had to change a little of the dialogue here and there so that the female protagonist would not come across as completely feebleminded, and then I would get carried away and change the ending. Sometimes Prince Charming ended up helping Mother Teresa in Calcutta, and the heroine, a beautiful tall blonde with big boobs, ended up smuggling weapons in the Middle East."). Allende ended up getting fired when the publisher discovered her "revisions", though she went on to become a successful published author in her own right.
- Jay Asher, best known for 13 Reasons Why, was dropped by his literary agency and forced to leave the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators in 2017 (though it didn't become public knowledge until 2018), after he was accused of sexually harassing several women at SCBWI events, violating the SCBWI code of conduct. Netflix also confirmed in 2018 that Asher wouldn't be involved in the production of the 13 Reasons Why TV adaptation going forward due to the allegations. Asher - who is married - admitted to having consensual affairs with women he met at SCBWI conferences, but denied there was any harassment on his part and said he voluntarily left the organisation due to his infidelity being made public (for which he apologised).
- In April 2021, Blake Bailey's official authorized biography of Philip Roth was withdrawn from sale by W. W. Norton after Bailey was accused of serial sexual misconduct, including multiple rapes and underage grooming, which took place during his teaching career back in The '90s. Bailey was also dropped by his literary agency, the Story Factory.
- J.D Barker got in hot water on January 23rd 2024 due to a controversial campaign to promote his newest book, erotic thriller Behind a Closed Door. An email was sent out to numerous TikTok and Instagram book influencers/reviewers, stating they would be paid to promote the book by photographing or filming "racy" content of themselves, which would be personally reviewed by Barker; suggestions included appearing naked with only the book covering their "naughty bits" and talking about "the most taboo place [they'd] ever had sex". A lot of the reviewers emailed were young women (including a few teenagers), many of whom publicly voiced how "predatory" and "creepy" the email felt, sparking widespread criticism over the sheer inappropriateness of the campaign. Barker apologised, claiming the email was erroneously sent unrevised by his PR firm and he wasn't personally involved, though some people questioned this given Barker co-founded the firm responsible. Three days later, Barker was dropped by his agent, Alec Shane of Writers House, in direct response to the scandal; Barker was also dropped by Kaye Publicity, another company handling some of the novel's marketing (who weren't involved in the email campaign).
- In 1632, Robert Barker had his printing license revoked and was fined £300 (equivalent to approximately £71,490 in 2021) after he co-printed the infamous "Wicked Bible" the previous year, named after a crucial typographical error in the Ten Commandments that omitted the word "not" from "Thou shalt not commit adultery", rendering the command as "Thou shalt commit adultery". 17th century England, a deeply religious culture, saw this as a very serious crime instead of a mere careless printing error, and almost all copies of the edition were recalled and burned at the command of the King himself, Charles I.
- In June 2020, Taylor B. Barton (who also wrote under the names Taylor Brooke and Brooklyn Ray) was widely accused of bullying and making racist remarks towards other authors online. Barton's attempt to apologise was criticised as half-hearted, with many also finding it odd that they announced they would make amends by donating part of the proceeds from book sales to LGBT mental health charity The Trevor Project (given that this didn't address the racism accusations); Barton later admitted they only apologised at the behest of their publishers and argued with people criticising their behaviour, claiming the bullying allegations were false or exaggerated. Consequently, Barton was dropped by their agent and their publishers, Inkyard Press and Carina Press, announced they were discontinuing publication of Barton's latest books, The Ninth Life and Full Moon in Leo. Things then took a bizarre turn when Barton was exposed for trying to pass themselves off as a Latino author named Jupiter Wyse (Barton is white), which resulted in them being dropped by their new agent Tara Gilbert in March 2021; Gilbert stated that she had never met Wyse in person and that they'd claimed they were uncomfortable about appearing via video chat due to dysmorphia, nor did they tell Gilbert about their previous publications and pen names.
- Truman Capote once said of his book Answered Prayers, "Either I'm going to kill it or it's going to kill me." By 1975, concerns over Capote's lifestyle led most people to believe it would never see the light of day. Despite that, Capote published four chapters of Answered Prayers in Esquire—where a number of Capote's fellow socialites promptly discovered that the dysfunctional characters therein were thinly-veiled exposés of themselves. The trope ultimately became downplayed in that Capote lost no roles of note over his work, but became Persona Non Grata among his acquaintances for how he'd portrayed them. Capote never wrote another novel after that, and Answered Prayers was published unfinished several years after his death from liver disease in 1984.
- Jessica Cluess (known for the Kingdom on Fire series) was dropped by her literary agent Brooks Sherman in December 2020, due to controversial Twitter posts she'd made in response to a tweet by Lorena Germán; Germán's tweet questioned whether classic literature written before The '50s was still relevant enough to be required reading in schools and suggested the texts be switched with more recent literature. Cluess' tweets defending the classics were exceptionally hostile towards Germán, including repeatedly insulting her intelligence; Germán responded that she'd made the original post from an academic stance, but that Cluess' tweets felt more like personal attacks. Cluess deleted the tweets and posted a public apology to Germán a day later, but shortly after Sherman announced Cluess was no longer a client as he viewed her behaviour as "racist and unacceptable". The incident also apparently resulted in Cluess' book War of Dragons being dropped or delayed by the publisher; it was supposed to come out in 2021 (with a cover and synopsis being released, and advanced reader copies sent out), but the release date came and went with no news.
- In June 2020, Myke Cole was accused of sexual harassment by several women, resulting in his debut comic book series Hundred Wolves being cancelled before its release by Vault Comics, the planned sequel to his 2019 novel Sixteenth Watch being abandoned by publisher Angry Robot and Cole being dropped by his literary agency. This wasn't the first time he'd been accused of inappropriate behaviour towards women; Cole was previously named as a serial harasser of women at conventions in 2018. At that time he'd apologised for his behaviour, donated money to the Time's Up movement and stated he would work on himself, but the later allegations suggested he hadn't learned his lesson. An ex-girlfriend claimed that in private he would belittle and dismiss those who had accused him of harassment, nor did he follow through on his promise to cut back his drinking (Cole had stated many of the harassment incidents occurred while he'd been drinking heavily). It also didn't help that Cole's first response to the new allegations was to just post a link to his 2018 apology. He has written a few non-fiction books since then, but has had no new speculative fiction novels published.
- Cait Corrain's debut novel Crown of Starlight was due to be published on 14th May 2024. However, in December 2023 the book's release was cancelled by Corrain's publishers Del Rey and Daphne Press, her contract for a sequel was terminated, Illumicrate removed the book from their May 2024 subscription box and she was dropped by her agent, after she was exposed for creating at least eight fake Goodreads accounts to review-bomb other authors' upcoming books (two of the authors, Molly X Chang and Danielle Jensen, also had contracts with Del Rey) and leave fake 5-star reviews for Crown of Starlight. Worsening matters is that the authors Corrain review-bombed are disproportionately people of colour, while Corrain is white and some of her fake accounts had her posing as people of colour. Xiran Jay Zhao brought widespread attention to the sockpuppeting and review-bombing after Corrain refused to address the issue privately with the affected authors. Corrain dug herself deeper by trying to claim an over-zealous friend was responsible - going as far as (unconvincingly) fabricating Discord conversations between them - before admitting in a public apology that this friend didn't exist and it was all her; she attributed her actions to a "psychological breakdown" stemming from ongoing problems with mental illness, substance abuse and a change in medication, leaving her so insecure about her book's release she tried to sabotage her so-called 'competition'.
- James Dashner, known for The Maze Runner, was dropped by his agent Michael Bourret in February 2018 after being accused of sexual harassment by multiple people, with Bourret stating that in light of the allegations he "couldn't in good conscience continue working with [Dashner]"; his publisher Penguin Random House also announced it would no longer publish any books by him. Dashner publicly apologised and stated he would seek therapy to address his behaviour.
- Nozomi Ginyoku's light novel series I Chose to Leave Because I Was Threatened with Expulsion from the Party Unless I Became the Sex Slave of the Female Hero was canceled
in February 2019 after he posted a series of volatile and abusive tweets directed at series illustrator Monety. - MINE, the author of the web novel [New Life+] Young Again in Another World, got in very hot water in June 2018 when it was discovered that he had a long history of racist tweets towards both the Chinese and South Koreans, a controversy further exacerbated by the protagonist of his novel Renya Kunugi being a reincarnated Imperial Japanese Army war criminal who unapologetically murdered thousands of Chinese during and after World War II, who escaped retribution for his crimes. MINE apologized and deactivated his Twitter account, and the majority of the staff for the anime adaptation resigned, resulting in the production committee deciding to cancel the adaptation altogether. Additionally, shipments of the print version of the novel were halted effective immediately, with English distributor J-Novel doing the same just a week later.
- Boris Pasternak, the author of Doctor Zhivago, was (as mentioned on Banned in China) forced to refuse his Nobel Prize for Literature under pressure from the Soviet Union simply because the book violated Soviet laws of the time.
- Science fiction writer Sunil Patel was dropped by his publisher after he was revealed to have sexually harassed numerous women for years; they reportedly all met at a convention and started complaining about it, and gradually realized they were all talking about the same guy.
- Gillian Philip, who had been part of the Erin Hunter writing team and penned several books in the Survivor Dogs and Bravelands series (as well as writing other books under both her own name and different pseudonyms) was dropped by book packager Working Partners and her literary agency in June 2020 due to Philip making Twitter posts supporting J. K. Rowling's transphobic social media posts, with publisher HarperCollins also distancing themselves from Philip. A Working Partners spokesperson specified in a public statement that it was less Philip's controversial posts that were the main issue and more that she'd used the Erin Hunter handle to express her personal views, which misrepresented and reflected badly on all the other authors who write under the name. Philip subsequently retrained as a truck driver to maintain her income.
- German-Turkish author Akif Pirinçci, best known for his Felidae series of crime novels, spoke at a rally of the far-right organisation Pegida in October 2015, where his anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant statements were deemed too offensive by the crowd and led to him being booed off stage. In response, his publishers Goldmann and Random House discontinued sales of his books and severed ties with him, and Amazon Germany also delisted his books.
- Jewish horror writer Zachary Rosenberg was dropped by several publishers, had his stories delisted from Amazon, and was dis-invited from several horror anthologies in April 2024, after he was accused by several authors and former friends of lying, bullying, falsely accusing female editors of anti-semitism for turning his stories down, forcing co-writers to include lesbian BDSM sex scenes, threatening publishers with lawsuits should they not pick his stories up, and for manipulatively abusing and dismissing up-and-coming writers in an attempt to increase his social status. While he seemed to apologize, a myriad of factors prevented most from seeing it as genuine, thanks to the excuses and shifting of blame laced through it.
- Sarah Stusek was dropped by her publisher SparkPress in June 2023, just months before her semi-autobiographical debut novel Three Rivers was set for release in September, after she made a since-removed TikTok video berating and insulting a Goodreads reviewer who gave an advance copy of her novel a 4 out of 5 stars rating (with Stusek being upset it didn't receive a full 5 stars), then initially refused to apologise and claimed it was a joke after being called out by commenters and the publisher. A spokesperson stated the company made the decision to drop Stusek for a "number of reasons, including but not limited to attacking a reviewer and multiple others online". Stusek managed to find a new publisher for her book, stating that in hindsight being dropped by SparkPress was a "blessing in disguise" as she now regarded the publisher as being "sketchy as hell" and "kind of like an MLM."
- Natasha Tynes' upcoming novel They Called Me Wyatt was dropped by distributor Rare Bird Books and their publisher imprint California Coldblood in May 2019, in response to Tynes making a Twitter post calling out a Metro employee for eating on the train (it's against Metro policy for passengers and employees to eat on the train, with Tynes finding it hypocritical as she had previously been admonished for eating by employees), also posting a photograph of the employee. Tynes received immense backlash from people who felt she had overreacted and potentially cost the employee her job over a minor infraction, or that she should've reported it privately instead of publicly exposing the employee's identity; Tynes also received accusations of racism as the employee was black (Tynes is Jordanian-American), though Tynes insisted the employee's race had no influence on her actions. While Tynes apologised and deleted the post, her publisher announced they were cutting ties with her as they felt her conduct was inappropriate and discriminatory. Tynes eventually found a new publisher and sued Rare Bird for defamation and breach of contract.
- Kaavya Viswanathan had a signed a two-book contract with Little, Brown and Company, with the first book, How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life, being released on 4th April 2006, but the publisher pulled the book from stores and cancelled the contract just under a month later, after it came to light that several sections of Opal Mehta appeared to be heavily plagiarised from other works. While the scandal torpedoed Viswanathan's writing career, Harvard University - where she had recently enrolled as a law student - released a statement that it wouldn't affect her standing at the university and she went on to have a career in law.
- Author Chuck Wendig was hired by LucasBooks in 2014 to write stories for the new Star Wars Expanded Universe, beginning with the Aftermath Trilogy (2015 - 2017). He was set to write another Star Wars novel and was writing the five-issue comic series Shadow of Vader for Marvel Comics, but on October 12th 2018 it was reported Wendig had been fired by Marvel, with Shadow of Vader being cancelled two issues in and the planned novel pulled from the schedule, and he hasn't written anything for the Star Wars EU since. While neither Marvel or LucasBooks gave an official reason, Wendig stated he was fired because Marvel deemed his social media posts (particularly in the then-recent aftermath of Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation to the US Supreme Court, which Wendig opposed due to Kavanaugh having been accused of serial sexual misconduct) to be excessively vulgar and hostile, negatively overshadowing his work.
- One of the most infamous examples in the literary world is Oscar Wilde, who was convicted of "gross indecency" (homosexuality) in 1895 and subsequently spent two years in prison doing hard labor. He was blackballed from the British publishing industry and high society, and was forced to relocate to France under a pseudonym after his release.
