IG influencer culture was different then, and influencer books had a bit of a moment, and capitalizing on that was Byrd’s primary interest. I work in a literary agency and honestly, I’m not surprised! Celebrity memoirs sell, and to be honest, we don’t do a ton of vetting or research on authors-we all have a lot of authors, and we do cursory checks on the person (what’s their brand? Are they marketable? Do people seem interested in their content? How loyal are their followers?), but y’all have to remember that her content then looked way different and for all intents and purposes, she seemed legit.

It’s one thing to dupe a bunch of people on IG, but conning a well known lit agent by basically storming into his office and lying through your teeth is, IMO, so much more interesting because it says so much about her privilege and utter disregard for recognizing it. It was well written and concise and I think focused on the right things to make her fit into the overall narrative - I say that not having read the whole book yet but it’s pretty obvious you’d have to leave out some multitudes (she contains so many)Įdit (because I’ve had a few hours to digest this now): I wanted to know more about Byrd! He’s very briefly quoted saying he never would have worked with Carp if he knew she’s bought followers, but I’m just so fascinated by how she also scammed him. I just bought it to read the Caroline chapter (chapter 6 if you’re wondering!) and I’ll probably finish the rest at some point. Love that none of us would pay $5 for the Ion pod but we’re all down with $14 for this book.

Hype gabrielle bluestone