Kitty – A Guide To Finding A Publisher

In July, 2014, six years after self-publishing my book, Set Free From Darkness, I finally sent it out to publishers.  Until that point I knew I had to learn to cope with the criticism I would surely receive about the subject matter.  The July 4th weekend I had given my book to a family at my church and their response was “silence”.  In the past that would have me home and into a meltdown, but this time I simply shrugged my shoulders and said, “It matters very little.  It says more about their relationship with God than it has to do with me.”  I had finally arrived at the point that I was not going to have other people’s opinions determine my worth.  It was time to send my book out to publishers.  I picked the top 10 Christian publishers and mailed them a copy with some clever items to get them to look at it.

I was sitting in my quiet time with the Lord one morning shortly afterward and I simply asked the Lord for someone to pray for regarding the book being published.  And in my mind flew the name “Kitty”.  I wrinkled up my nose and said, “Really, that’s it? That is not even a real name like Carol or Mary or something; it was a nick-name.”  But pray I did.  My best friend gave me a Hello Kitty watch, earrings and necklace as a reminder to pray for “Kitty”.  I did not know if “Kitty” was a woman or an organization, an acronym for something or what.  I was simply to pray for “Kitty”.  I never heard God whisper the name again.

A year had gone by, it was July 2015, and was being obedient and praying for “Kitty”.  I told a few people, very few, but just enough to have some proof when my “Kitty” showed up.  I didn’t tell too many people as they might think I’d gone off my medication.

It had been just over a year later and I was checking email one day about 5:00 p.m. and I received a LinkedIn request to be connected with someone.   I had been staying away from social networks but my friend’s wife sent me a connection request.   I did not want to make her feel bad by not accepting her request, so I went on LinkedIn for the first time in about a year or more.  I was never on it very much before anyway so I wasn’t sure how to accept her invitation.  I figured it out and then I looked around a little bit at the other people it suggested I connected to.  It appeared that the majority of them were from my area. 

However, there was a name that caught my attention - Kitty Honeycutt.  I did not know her and half-heartedly I pressed something to see her profile.  Her name disappeared from my phone.  I thought, “Good, this is stupid anyway!”  I swore off all social media for the next 100 years.

Well, this is where the story gets good.  Our power went out at 10:05 p.m. due to a thunderstorm.  I picked up my phone for lack of something better to do and “Kitty Honeycutt” had accepted my invitation.  I thought, “This is exactly what I don’t like about social media, some random woman accepted my invitation to something I never intended on sending.”  And then…

I looked to see what she did for a living; it stated she was a book publisher! The name of her company is Ravenswood Publishing out of North Carolina.  I proceed to pinch myself to see if I was dreaming and stop my jaw from dropping.  Two days later I sent her a copy of my book and explained to her how I found her.  She called me a week later, and I signed a contract on July 29, 2015.  Five years to the day that I got 100% off paper and freed from the State of Wisconsin. 

This is also interesting.  I would never—and I mean never—have picked her company.  She publishes mostly fiction, New Age, mystical, fantasy, horror, alien, etc., so I asked myself, “What is God up to?”

In 1987, several months before my bipolar illness first surfaced and I became psychotic, I had gotten heavily into New Age philosophies.  I have never returned to the New Age world.  My past psychotic delusions and terror would keep me permanently away.

I talked to her on the phone and she explained that she read my book in one sitting.  She had lost a two-year-old child and she could relate to the pain I’d experienced and she has had periods of deep depression.  She was brought up in a Christian home; her grandfather was a Baptist minister.  These are the words I told her in my letter, “You would not have picked me and I would not have picked your company, but I believe with my whole heart we have a divine appointment.”

My book was supposed to be reintroduced in January 2016, or at the earliest December 2015.  I woke up to an email late in August that asked, “How does September 20, 2015 sound?”

I have watched something come full circle.  From dealing with my own insecurities of “other people’s opinions” to trusting God when He and He alone gave me a name, there is no way to explain that one away with logic.  He gave me the name “Kitty” as He knows her and He knew my need.  And the more I journey with Him I am realizing that I may just be there for her, too.  My husband, John, who is a Christian is sometimes skeptical but he cannot deny how “Kitty” came about.  John knew I was praying for this unknown person for over a year.  It is funny because Abraham and Sarah were told they would have a child and the Bible states,“Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, “So shall your offspring be.”  Romans 4:18

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not comparing myself to Abraham but you go ahead and try to explain why one day when I was praying and asking for who to pray for to publish my book I heard in my Spirit, “Kitty”.  What are the odds that there was a “Kitty” who was a publisher?  And that if she did exist that she would have anything to do with me and my book?  So my hope was not in “Kitty” but in God.  That He knew and He would direct my path to her.  And I told just enough people who would know I wasn’t making this up, and now they simply smile and have no other way of explaining it.

I think what I do right—if anything—is that I set aside time to be with God.  If you want to know your spouse better, really spending time with them would be the only way.  It is a privilege to commune with Him.  The Holy Spirit is a gentleman and will not typically shout to get your attention.  I am a firm believer that you are as close to God as you want to be.  Or at least look at it this way, you are as close to God as you make time for.

When I wrote Set Free From Darkness in 2008, I began actively looking for a publisher.  I downloaded some sort of marketing program on what steps to follow.  I followed the steps and sent out two proposals and when I was done with the second one I heard the Holy Spirit very clearly say, “That’s enough now.”  I wasn’t ready and He knew it.  As a matter of fact, one day while I was working I posed the question to Him, “What am I supposed to do about selling my book?”  And in my Spirit came the most unusual response, “What makes you think it is for this generation?”  Before I knew it I thought, “Well that is stupid who writes a book for another generation?”  And I heard in my Spirit, “What about the Bible?”  Honestly I stopped dead in my tracks and stopped arguing at that point.  He did not say my book was necessarily for another generation but I have never forgotten the question.  I think He was simply saying, “When the time is right.”

If there would have been “noise” to block out His voice, I would not have heard Him whisper Kitty’s name.  I wonder what He is trying to say to you today?









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