J. D. Barker has been dropped by his agent and one of his PR firms after BookTok exposed some creepy and predatory behavior. The author was found to have sent emails to content creators requesting that they make racy content to promote his book in exchange for payment.
Many content creators likely hadn’t heard of Barker before unless they were big into horror/thriller books. He is mostly known for his collaborations with Dacre Stoker and James Patterson, although his solo novels Forsaken and The Sixth Wicked Child have also gained recognition from the Bram Stoker Awards and Goodreads. Most recently, Barker has been gearing up to publish Behind a Closed Door with Simon and Schuster. It is an erotic thriller that has been described as “50 Shades meets David Fincher’s The Games.”
The “sexually charged dark thriller” follows a couple who get sucked into a seductive and twisted game after looking into an app called “Sugar & Spice,” and is set to release on May 13. As a result, several prominent BookTokers received emails about promoting Behind a Closed Door. Given how TikTok has created an excellent environment for book promotion, content creators are accustomed to receiving requests for collaboration from PR companies. However, nothing could’ve prepared them for what the email about Behind a Closed Door promotions contained.
BookTokers expose J. D. Barker’s creepy and predatory promotion requests
On January 24, Siân Harper, Alisha Galvan, and an unknown number of fellow members of the sprawling BookTok community received an email from Barker’s email address, offering them a free copy of his book and the opportunity to receive a payment for promoting it.
The email then began to detail how these creators should promote the book. The email provided multiple suggestions for the creators to follow, which included having “a camera pan up or down the body using only the book to cover up your naughty bits” or answering the question, “Where is the most taboo place you’ve ever had sex?”
The email noted those were just “suggestions,” but insinuated creators were expected to create something along those lines. It went on to list pay rates for such videos, starting at $100 for creators with 3,000–5,000 followers and offering as much as $2,400 for those with 700k followers. It also noted that Barker would “personally review each video and either approve it or offer suggestions to get it approved.”
Harper was one of the first creators to share on TikTok the exceedingly “predatory, creepy, and downright offensive” email she received. She began her video by asking, “Can authors not be f*****g creeps in 2024??!”
The video prompted many more BookTokers, almost exclusively female, to come forward, revealing they had also received the email. It is unknown how many women were sent the email, but there was concern that some creators under age 18 had received it, too. Many creators, like Galvan, described how excited they were to receive an offer with compensation, only to read the details and find themselves disgusted and horrified.
Several female TikTokers also explained that there are content creators and even whole platforms devoted to the kind of promotion the email sought, which is not a problem. However, Barker didn’t send the email to those interested in such promotions, but to seemingly anyone who was a young female content creator with no regard for whether they were even adults or what kind of content they made. Additionally, it offered pay rates upfront, even though PR companies usually negotiate compensation with each creator individually. This approach suggested that the goal was to exploit an entire community of young women and small creators, many of whom are building modest careers on the platform and don’t frequently get paid opportunities. What Barker did could equate to sexual harassment of content creators.
J. D. Barker’s unsatisfying response to the scandal
After news of Barker’s email spread across TikTok, he sent a follow-up email to anyone who had received the initial creepy request. In his follow-up, he insisted that he did not approve the email, placing the blame on his PR company, Best of BookTok, for sending out the message.
Of course, it didn’t take long for BookTok to point out that the PR company he was blaming was the same one that he co-founded and owned.
On January 26, he addressed the situation again via X. This time, he acknowledged his ownership of the PR company but stuck to the excuse that he never approved the campaign and that it wasn’t supposed to be sent out. He insisted that the message was sent “without consideration of age or gender.” Additionally, he apologized to anyone impacted by the message and stated that he has “nothing but the deepest respect for women.”
Unsurprisingly, his explanation has been met with skepticism. He can’t seem to explain how exactly the firm that he co-owns managed to send out this email, magically editing out revisions of the text and only leaving the questionable suggestions. As a result, he has been dropped by his literary agent, Alec Shane. Meanwhile, another PR company, Kaye Publicity, which was promoting his book, also cut ties with him after clarifying it had no involvement in the email.
Behind a Closed Door‘s publisher, Simon & Schuster also issued a statement to NBC News, indicating that it was “horrified” by the campaign. Despite the publisher’s disapproval of the campaign, it does not seem to be wholly cutting ties with Barker, as his book is still slated to release in May per Simon & Schuster’s website.
(featured image: @booksofaginger / @alishagalvanauthor / TikTok / Simon & Schuster)
