This may change some day in the future but at this time I am 100% unwilling to enter into ANY contracts with the publishing industry. I reject far more than I accept because it’s all either companies with zero cash flow asking me to subsidize their shitty business model. Or it’s a bigger company who just wants to take advantage and asks me to license my soul to them with a 35 page contract of absolute garbage rights grabs, as though I should be desperately grateful to blow up everything I’ve worked for over the past two decades because they have a “recognizable brand name.” Who the fuck cares? Literally nobody cares about your publishing house’s “brand name”. The only brand names that matter are the authors. Do you think ANYBODY knows who James Patterson’s publisher is? or Stephen King? Anybody who isn’t a complete publishing nerd? Of course not.
Until the publishing industry decides to act like serious adults, I’m fucking out. At this point it is self-harm for me to even answer emails from these ghouls. The number of people acting in genuine good faith is so vanishingly small it’s not worth my time. It disregulates my nervous system to think maybe this time will be different only to have all my emotional energy drained while some vampire paragraphs me endlessly with justifications for why they can’t do honest business.
I’m tired of authors being at the absolute bottom of the pile even though publishing would have NO business without them and every single other person they PAY FAIRLY only has a job because of us. So fuck this.
I have removed the contact form from this site because I don’t want to be bothered by bad faith actors. I’m tired of having to be hyper-vigilant to protect my IP from absolute fucking ghouls trying to get one over on me all while pretending materially harming me is “industry standard”. Fuck your industry standard, bitch.
And on top of that the absolute joke of “the blacklist”. Oh you mean you’re going to talk so no OTHER abusive asshole tries to abuse me? Oh no, what’ll I do?!? Jesus. Be really fucking for real. Any honest good faith actor has nothing to worry about with me. Unfortunately the amount of broken glass I have to crawl over to get to them is so actively harmful to me it isn’t worth it. Publishing industry CLEAN UP YOUR ACT! You have only yourselves to blame when authors start noping out of contact with your entire industry altogether.
Anyway, this is also why I don’t date. The percentage of men who act exactly like these predatory and cash-poor publishers is HIGH. It is an act of self harm to date men in 2026. And it’s an act of self harm to deal with publishers in 2026.
Obviously if I already have a working relationship with you, this doesn’t apply to you. It’s not EVERY publisher but it’s 95% of them. Just like it’s not EVERY man, but it’s 95% of them. The world we live in currently doesn’t socially punish bad actors enough for their poor behavior because there is always somebody out there who is foolish or hates themselves enough to accept poor treatment and it leaves the rest of us, even those of us with healthy standards and boundaries constantly dealing with the emotional drain of having to be hypervigilant in every exchange to the point of toxicity. Having hours, days, weeks wasted on negotiating deals that I have to reject because they were never going to be fair or honest to begin with.
Cécile Smits says
Power to you,Kitty!
It’s so good to hear an author stand up for her rights,and tell the world what’s happening behind the curtains.
All those companies that only exist because of the hard work authors have put into their creations.
Trying to make them feel grateful for publishing those beauties.
It’s not their name that makes readers buy a book,it’s the author’s.
They’re the ones that should be grateful if the author decides to publish with them!
Reward those authors,show them the respect they deserve!
Not squeeze them for every penny or blacklist them without reason!
Sharks,that’s what they are….and it’s about time someone called them out on their behaviour.
Kitty says
Blacklisting is not a threat. Good people know what this industry is and aren’t going to “blacklist” someone who speaks out. In the case of “blacklisting” in this industry, rejection is protection. It’s VERY clear to me that the only situation in which a publisher with the actual means and will to help raise my profile comes along… is when I won’t need them so why the fuck would I shake hands with the devil when I no longer need them. I just wish more authors would tell them to go fuck themselves. I’m done with this clown show or even entertaining their ridiculous offers. It’s not worth the nervous system dysregulation to constantly be available to this kind of constant gaslighting and disrespect. I stopped involving myself with dating when I realized the juice wasn’t worth the squeeze and I was literally signing myself up for abusive behavior just engaging in the process, and the publishing world is an EXACT mirror of that same shit. It’s an emotional tax on creatives to swim around in this toxic sludge and constant manipulation and gaslighting and I’m done with it. I can scale this mountain by myself faster just focusing on my own art than I can entertaining these clowns and their unserious or predatory offers.
Cécile Smits says
Hear,hear!! There’s too much wrong with this world today,and there’s no sense in adding to your stress if you don’t need to….
And if you can handle things for yourself,without someone trying to interfere,why wouldn’t you?
No more gaslighting,no more disrespecting,no more abuse!
Saves you the aggrivation,and keeps you independent.
And yes,more authors should speak up about it…..
Kitty says
I was always going to stay independent. i was willing to license some SUB rights, but now even that part of publishing is corrupt. There are people doing non-exclusive deals trying to sneak in derivative rights grabs and “first right of refusal to future work.” These people all want to own you and fuck them and fuck that.
I’m so glad I didn’t bring children to this world. It’s so crazy to me that people are pulling their hair out over the birth rate declining. WHO WANTS TO BRING A CHILD INTO A WORLD LIKE THIS? A low trust society where everything is too expensive, nobody can get ahead, nobody has any security or stability all based on the greed and control fetishes of those in power. Why would I bring a slave here. WHY? So insane. Add to that just how much they’ve turned motherhood into extreme suffering. Like seriously fix this gross low-trust greedy world or fuck off.
Cécile Smits says
Sadly,corruption is as old as civilization,and will always remain….
It would be só good if everybody treated eachother fairly,the way they should be.
To not only think of how they could take/own as much as possible without any thought of what that would mean for the other.
We did bring children into this world,and sometimes i worry about their,and our grandson’s, future.
With leaders in power that seem to grow worse every day,that break down the rights we fought so hard for,the future doesn’t look bright,to put it mildly.
The right to have the life you want,where you want,to have an opinion without getting locked behind bars for it.
Not to mention the way they think,and act,about global warming.
I need to have hope this will change….that people will stand up against them.
It happened before,it can happen again….right?
Kitty says
Civilization is actually not that old and not evenly distributed. My ancestors were not part of civilization until Christianization 1,000 years ago. Prior to that they did not have “civilization” and were probably happier and better for it. The issue is always the same… too many people. Humans are not biologically designed to give a crap about more than 150 people. So when human society scales larger than that, the problems start. The more people, the more anonymous everything is. The more anonymous everything is the less reciprocal everything is. Global warming isn’t even the actual problem. That’s actually a fairly small issue. the real issue is the AMOC. which is what transports the heat in the ocean. That’s going to collapse because of the lessening salinity in the ocean and then civilzation as we know it is over. It can’t be stopped no matter what they think, and since they aren’t calculating numbers right or bringing in NEW data into their figures (like the massive ice melt happening UNDER antarctica), it’s probably 60 years away. Humans will be forced back to nature and natural society whether they like it or not… by NATURE herself. She has had enough of us and our garbage behavior. (Technically the ice melt is due to warming, but if the issue was JUST global warming in the way they often portray it, it would be something we could find a way to manage. 8 billion people will not survive the AMOC collapse.)