the haunting of publishing twit_ter

A querying writer’s totally-fed-up-with-publishing burner account. enjoy all my unattributed thoughts/rants about publishing and writing here!

[the haunting of publishing twit_ter @writingzombie2]

@ktliterary: Is it an acceptable practice for your agents to steal ideas/concepts from querying writers? Because if @HilaryHarwell felt comfortable doing this on main, I can’t imagine what happens offline. The complete lack of integrity is shameful. 🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩

[Shar - follow me on threads @shardai_smithh]

Jesus Christ what the fuck what the fuck

[the haunting of publishing twit_ter @writingzombie2]

Some querying writers spend their entire social media presence sucking up to agents and it is unbearable. See, e.g., 📀🐴 today re: a certain agent’s personalized “feedback.” When everyone knows how loud the whisper network is on that agent’s “feedback.” IFYKYK 🤷

[the haunting of publishing twit_ter @writingzombie2]

🫶🏼🫶🏼😹

[the haunting of publishing twit_ter @writingzombie2]

Ope. I guess we got our answer. Life comes at you fast when you show your whole ass 👋🏼✌🏼😘 Bye, Hilary!

[the haunting of publishing twit_ter @writingzombie2]

@ktliterary: Is it an acceptable practice for your agents to steal ideas/concepts from querying writers? Because if @HilaryHarwell felt comfortable doing this on main, I can’t imagine what happens offline. The complete lack of integrity is shameful. 🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩

[Shar - follow me on threads @shardai_smithh]

Jesus Christ what the fuck what the fuck

[the haunting of publishing twit_ter @writingzombie2]

Ope. I guess we got our answer. Life comes at you fast when you show your whole ass 👋🏼✌🏼😘 Bye, Hilary!

[the haunting of publishing twit_ter @writingzombie2]

@ktliterary: Is it an acceptable practice for your agents to steal ideas/concepts from querying writers? Because if @HilaryHarwell felt comfortable doing this on main, I can’t imagine what happens offline. The complete lack of integrity is shameful. 🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩

[Matt Sparrow @AYS_Universe]

The feeling of entitlement those gatekeepers have made some of them forget they are dealing with real people who put their life worth efforts to make their dream come true. The whole situation is just disgusting.

[Samantha Campas @bysamanthamarie]

If this happened to me I'd be devastated. I know I'm a nobody, but if the querier sees this post, I want to read your work and tell you all the great things about it.

[Kat Coffin Author @KatinOxford]

I’m going to be seething about that Hilary Harwell tweet all day.

When I was querying (2016-2019), it was understood and common courtesy for agents to respond to full manuscript requests with editorial notes.

2020 onward? Form rejections for fulls. It is disheartening & nasty.

[Nicole Michelle @TheNicole_C]

Was not expecting any drama in the writing community today, but true colors do usually tend to reveal themselves eventually. Good to know Hilary Harwell of @ktliterary is a bad and untrustworthy agent in the industry. 🚩🚩🚩

[Maureen Langloss @MaureenLangloss]

A quote from @splitlipthemag staff guidelines: readers should not comment on submissions or submitters, nor quote from submissions or cover letters, on social media or elsewhere. Reading unpublished work is a sacred trust that we aim not to violate.

[patrick 🏳️‍🌈 supports labor and palestinians @pcarterwriter]

things hilary harwell will do:

✅steal an idea
✅ "no but actually" in response
✅ hide
✅ delete her account
❌apologize

#amquerying, we deserve better.

[patrick 🏳️‍🌈 supports labor and palestinians @pcarterwriter]

#amquerying i'm at work and thus have little time, but if you'd like my do-not-query list—such as if you'd like to avoid agents who go "i just rejected [specific book idea]. someone write it better"—dm me your email for access. i'll try to get to everyone today.

garbage sigh </3

[Courtney Reece @courtneyreece0]

the burning rage that would explode if i saw my manuscript premise posted by an agent i queried, but asking someone else to write it…

[Thrice-Great Nusky 𓅔 @Nuskylicious]

Sometimes I think I’m just being paranoid about not talking about the fiction projects I’ve been working on, but shit like this always inevitably comes along and reminds me that the people in the industry are scum-sucking ghouls

[the haunting of publishing twit_ter @writingzombie2]

@keslupo The cruelty in this follow-up too, when questioned, especially considering this author is probably seeing all of this. It’s breathtakingly unethical and unprofessional.

[the haunting of publishing twit_ter @writingzombie2]

The cruelty in this response from @HilaryHarwell is truly breathtaking. How dare she. I hope the querying author doesn’t let this schmagent take any of their shine.

[the haunting of publishing twit_ter @writingzombie2]

Professional agent, my a$$. she’s a professional thief.

[Mayo Agard-Olubo @MayoPoetry]

@JayMoneWrites Holy crap, I know you can't like own comps but an agent encouraging people to basically steal someone's concept/make a book that publishers would see as in competition to the querying author, is just insanely toxic scum bag behaviour

[the haunting of publishing twit_ter @writingzombie2]

@rachkmc 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

[the haunting of publishing twit_ter @writingzombie2]

👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼agents, say it louder for the people in the back—it is UNPROFESSIONAL and UNETHICAL to break querying authors’ trust the way @HilaryHarwell did 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

[rachel mcmillan 🇨🇦 @rachkmc]

if i ever speak about queries it is not specific. i will speak to general best practices that could refer to a zillion queries: word count, best comp practices, etc

it's unprofessional to break a sacred trust someone has when they send you their query

[the haunting of publishing twit_ter @writingzombie2]

This is brilliant. We should go paste it on all of @ktliterary agents QT pages because everyone should know what kind of “agency” they’re dealing with.

[✍️ Gabrielle Steele 🐉 @eldris]

@shardai_smithh Someone quoted this on her querytracker comments, so even though she deleted the tweet, hopefully future queriers will be aware. I get that two writers with one idea will write vastly different stories, but imagine being the querier and seeing this.