BookTok Feels Scammed - The Age of Scorpius & Audra Winter

🚨 Today we’re diving into the BookTok controversy surrounding Audra Winter’s The Age of Scorpius — a YA fantasy novel that took TikTok by storm… but not for the reasons you think. From viral marketing and massive pre-orders to editing disasters, shameless monetization, and the Goodreads fallout — we’re breaking it ALL down.

This video is a mix of comedy, commentary, and a cautionary tale for indie and self-published authors. If you’re on BookTube, BookTok, or just love the drama of the publishing world, you don’t want to miss this.

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⏰ Timestamps
0:00 – Intro
1:28 – The Age of Scorpius
2:15 – The shameless monetization begins
4:14 – The curse of a viral first release
5:11 – Breaking down the marketing
6:19 – Ragebait & Pinterest-board aesthetics
8:00 – The “10 years in the making” marketing gamble
10:14 – Flexing the Scorpius “team”
12:12 – Pre-orders, bragging rights, and PR mistakes
12:59 – Editing disasters & the missing editors
15:23 – How the editing process should look
17:56 – The red flags of skipping agents & editors
19:40 – The review lockdown & bad faith marketing
20:25 – Audra Winter’s reaction: “You’re too dumb to get it”
22:53 – The neurodivergent defense & why it backfired
24:38 – HR-speak posts & awkward damage control
26:23 – Rookie mistakes with public edits
27:12 – The “live service” Scorpius universe (Battle Pass edition)
30:10 – Horrible Monetization
30:53 – Goodreads reviews
34:18 – Final lessons

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