I’ve been sitting on this news for a while, trying not to make waves with it until it was tidily wrapped up and I could present it as a solved problem where everything was handled amicably. But it seems like it’s going to be a more difficult situation to get out of, and I do think you all deserve to know.

My publishing career began when Midnight Meadow, then Hansen House, offered me a three-book deal for the Imperial Mars series. Book one, Black Sails to Sunward, came out in 2023; book two, The Sea of Clouds, in 2024. Book three, Under False Colors, was scheduled for September 12 of this year.

Unfortunately, the past year has been full of chaos at the publisher: delayed communications, orders not fulfilled, my release date pushed back all the way to next spring. My sales reports for 2024 were very late, and the check itself never did arrive. I knew the owner was having difficulties in her personal life, so I didn’t rock the boat, figuring her attention was divided many ways and it wasn’t a big deal if my own check was late. However, once the authors began communicating with each other, it turned out the problems were universal. To my knowledge, no one had been paid in over a year, including staff.

We had a zoom call with the owner and she told us the press was solvent, things were settling down now, and we should all get paid very soon. However, because payments were already delinquent, she also offered us back our rights immediately on request. (Our contract says we may have them back on request after six months, or after 30 days if it’s because MM is already in breach of contract regarding sales reports and payments. She was offering to waive the waiting period.)

I waited for a little while to see if I could verify any of the claims she was making. However, after some time in which checks still did not arrive for anyone, I chose to request my rights back as well. I was told the process would begin immediately and be completed by the end of August.

August has ended and I still do not have my rights back, nor received 2025 sales reports, nor been paid for 2024 or 2025. So I decided to stop waiting and make the announcement anyway. It is possible that failing to “play nice” by going public will delay the return of my rights even further. However, given my contract guarantees my rights back by September 17th regardless (30 days after my request) I think it’s probably safe to speak out. And this way I can explain why my book has disappeared from sale.

My heart is a little bit broken over this. I was so proud to be published by this small, queer-centric press. I was excited to soon have my trilogy complete. Now I have two books homeless, which I need to re-release as soon as my rights are mine again, and one book which I have to find a way to release on my own. And yet I did not feel ethically okay with lending my name to the reputation of a press that was failing to pay its creative workers, so I couldn’t see a way to continue in my contract.

I’m trying to get excited and look toward the future. This change means my books will be entirely under my control, and I can give them an update inside and out. I’ll be able to release them on itch.io, run sales on my own schedule, and sell them as a bundle. And, of course, now I will profit from my own creative labor.

I have been promised the files and rights to my covers, so hopefully the re-release of the first two books will be quick and inexpensive for me. I hope to release book 3 in early spring, finally finishing off the saga that I started…wow, back in 2019. The revolutionary themes definitely feel more relevant than ever. I hope readers will find that it’s worth the wait.

I’ll keep you posted as the books reappear.