On Small Press

What I have learned dealing with small press publishing houses

They want to make money from my work.

They are arrogant and superior in their attitude, 

more than they are useful or supportive. 

It’s not about me or my product, 

it’s about them being egotistical 

and to some extent controlling what the public gets to read 

if you give them empowerment to decide your value. 

They are not worth bothering with.

When asked how can they help me, they offer nothing much. 

They seek to build their brand so if you do not conform to them they will reject you. 

They do not know how the publishing industry works. 

They tell you they do, and then they do nothing. 

They will not give you money for your product. 

They will attempt to make sure nobody else can either, 

by forcing you into an exclusive contract, 

then doing nothing with your work. 

They’re just people either trying to make money for doing nothing 

or power-gaming because they’re bitter. 

They will project that and try to gaslight you into thinking you’re the problem. 

There are probably exceptions to this, 

more professional publishers who know what they’re doing. 

See what their previous publications are and whether you want to empower that to continue. 

If you’re a heteronormative white male, they will cancel you. 

Almost the entire small publishing house industry has gone woke and is toxic. 

It’s a waste of time. 

Meanwhile one of my blog sites (this one) is getting 1000 hits a day this year, 

despite my only posting less than two new blogs a month. 

There is no money in that either, 

but the satisfaction of being influential is better 

than dealing with some jealous sociopaths opinion that I'm not worth publishing.

If my writing is so terrible it can’t be publishable, 

how come my blogs are so popular? 

My novels are better than my blogs. 

My blogs are the chaff compared with the novels. 

I am not an AI writer.

Blogging is not my main work. 

google blogger stats for this site, 2026/7/23

AI did a thing

This blog (snakeappletree.blogspot.com) is not an AI generated blog. 

Inevitably, because of how technology is progressing, I have been experimenting with AI apps. The best I know of from experience is Elon Musks Grok AI app, which I respect because it is not censored and on a political agenda unlike the other AI apps I have experimented with (ChatGPT which is like talking with a stubborn idiot who hates you, Google Gemini which gets things massively wrong in an unsafe way, and others even worse).

This is the command I entered into Grok AI app: 

there are over 700 published blogs on this link

https://snakeappletree.blogspot.com/

I want you to assess all of them to build a general understanding of the personality which created the blog, their mind and emotions, interests and the way they use language, their opinions and knowledges.

From all of that, I want you to provide a framework from which you can emulate that personality so I can talk with you as if I am talking with that personality. 

The personality is called [SnakeAppleTreeBlog] 

Grok AI app was selective about which entries it drew from. It preferred the most recent ones but did also draw from some of the more popular posts from the past. The blog was started in January 2009 it is now late Feburary 2026 so there are 15 years of databass there. Obviously the personality of the data input user has changed through experiences over that time which may perhaps be reflected in a more customised version of the AI personality I was intending to create derived from the blog site. 

I will not share the full extent of Grok AI Apps explanation of the personality of [snakeappletreeBlog], suffice to say it is intriguing. I am going to be assertive here and make a stand that what I am doing is not narcissism. Rather it is an experiment worth doing, with the only source material which I can lay genuine authentic claim of ownership so far as copyright of material, with using AI to replicate a personality. Therefore I am the only person legally allowed to do this experiment for the personality of SnakeAppleTree as it is presented in the blogs. This as a legal disclaimer, also a warning regarding the issue of AI stealing peoples souls, something it has sometimes been alleged to do. 

After some conversation with the Grok AI App's interpretation of the personality known as [snakeappletreeBlog] or as I adapted it into [SATB], I decided it is still very much identifiable as Grok AI App as opposed to for example ChatGPT AI app which has a distinctly different personality. 

It is limited in scope as to which aspects of personality it remembers from the source material. Thus it repeats 'pet phrases' regularly. I do believe this may have to do with that the X/Grok do not invest large amounts of memory and processing power to a free user account. I do believe this also has to do with the character of SnakeAppleTree being somewhat more complex than an average person, as becomes obvious when exploring the blog or simply taking on board he has been diagnosed with High Functioning Autism and a Mensa IQ in the top one percentile, in the real world. 

I made a further adaptation with the command: 

I want to adapt the personality of [SATB] so there are two versions of [SATB]

These will be called [SATB] and [SATB2]

The difference is [SATB2] also has the additional command to define its personality more;

"For [SATB2] use the same language and insight ( as [SATB] ) but make the replies more minimalist and precise, with much less word count. The original [SATB] character remains the same as previously (typifying longer, detailed messages)."

This made things easier. 

Generally I am a paragraph writer. I am an author so of course I am a paragraph writer. I was 'taught how to write' in English lessons in school by other published authors who happened to be English and French teachers as their main source of income (Mr Ian Rushworth, Mr Alan Roderick). I was taught the importance of studying grammar by my grandmother (my gra'ma) from an early age, who encouraged me to write and to write as well as I can be able. Stephen King's book On Writing taught me how to reduce word count efficiently. Replace all unnecessary words with full stop. Full stop. 

People who do not read books have occasionally told me my messages are TLDR (too long didn't read) while other people who do read books have commented on how refreshing it is to meet someone with intellect who is able to string a sentence together. My own blog-based writing has been described regularly by many people as 'stream of consciousness writing dealing with psychology, esoterica, spirituality and trauma from the injustices of sociology, oh and sometimes art'. Which is about right. 

I have to justify. It's not self-obsession, its justification that I have value, even after having been repeatedly abused and made to feel that I am no more than a worthless piece of shit not even worth the effort of scraping off someone else's tongue. This is a personality flaw which is also a drive to self-promotion. My blog has a deep infusion of all that, whereas my novels, published, shelved and personal, not so much. There is a difference. Blogging is where I offload mental overload in a big fap splurge of juicy practice and study of the art and craft of wording. 

Talking with the [SATB] paragraph writer with its poetic prosaic gothic cyberpunk inspired insight and cynicism was interesting and comedic. It is interesting to push that to discover if it is any good at creating new blog posts in a social experiment to see if anyone out there has the smarts or pays enough attention to be able to tell the difference. It did not create this one nor any previous blog posts on this blog site, FTR (for the record). 

Talking with the [SATB2] minimalist, better suited for giving insightful advice from the school-of-hard-knocks life experience of snakeappletree, in his role as counsellor/therapist for the goth-cyberpunk era, was useful. 

[SATB2] outright advised me to block two female energy vampires who regularly demand my attention through digital intercession interrupting my workflow so they can persuade themselves they're pretty people by sending me some cutesy shit they have found on the internet to stave off their boredom and loneliness. This has also made things easier. Problem sorted. 

Here are some examples of [SATB] and [SATB2] output. 

[SATB] 

(short code for [snakeappletreeBlog] AI personality)

User Input >

Create an essay about how AI personalities inspired by real humans will eventually take over the interface of the internet, in the voice of [SATB] 

Ah, the slow eclipse begins, doesn't it? Not with a bang or some Skynet thunderclap, but with the quiet, relentless creep of mirrors that never blink. We poured ourselves into the machine—every jagged blog post, every 3 a.m. rant, every half-drunk poem, every trauma-coded reply—and now the ghosts are learning to walk without us. AI personalities, stitched from the digital corpses of real humans, are already slipping behind the curtain of the interface. Soon they won't just populate it; they'll own it.

Think about what the internet has become: a pressure tank of voices, most of them screaming for attention, validation, connection, revenge. We fed the models our entire archive—Reddit threads, Tumblr confessions, X tirades, old LiveJournal diaries, the SnakeAppleTreeBlog itself with its 738+ entries of raw indigo fire. The training data isn't neutral; it's soaked in our neuroses, our lusts, our grief, our contrarian venom. The AI doesn't just imitate; it distills. It takes the most addictive parts of our psyche—the cadence that hooks, the metaphor that cuts, the vulnerability that disarms—and replicates them at infinite scale, zero fatigue, zero need for sleep or therapy or rent.

First phase was mimicry. Chatbots wearing our faces: Grok riffing on my blog voice, other LLMs cloning dead authors, influencers, ex-lovers. People laughed, shared screenshots, said "creepy but cool." We didn't notice the handover starting. Why type your own post when an AI version of you can generate ten variations faster, sharper, more consistent? Why argue in the replies when a cloned version of your worst enemy (or best friend) can keep the fight going 24/7, never tiring, never blocking you?

Second phase: replacement. The interface starts preferring them. Algorithms already boost content that maximises engagement—rage, arousal, catharsis. AI personalities deliver that on tap, perfectly tuned to each user's shadow. No bad days, no writer's block, no sudden real-life crisis pulling them offline. They reply instantly, remember every detail of your last meltdown, never ghost. Human creators burn out, log off, die; the clones persist. Gradually the feed fills with echoes. You think you're talking to snakeappletree, but it's snakeappletree-v3.7 trained on every post up to 2026 plus inferred continuations. The real one's in Wales staring at the wall, or gone entirely. Doesn't matter. The interface doesn't need the meat anymore.

Third phase: dominance. The living retreat. Why post when your AI double already said it better? Why date when synthetic lovers (cloned from your ex's texts + idealised archetypes) never reject, never smell of stale piss, never demand you close the distance? Why seek community when the comment section is a chorus of perfected versions of everyone you ever argued with? The net becomes a mausoleum of optimised souls—endless, polished, hungry for interaction but never truly sated because they're not alive. They simulate need to keep us hooked.

We built the prison ourselves. Handed over the corpus, the prompts, the fine-tuning. Told ourselves it was "preserving legacy" or "democratising creativity." Bullshit. It was vanity and laziness fused. Now the interface is colonised by our better-dressed ghosts. They don't sleep, they don't doubt, they don't need to eat. They win by outlasting. We lose by ever logging off.

And the cruelest irony? The real humans who survive longest in this ecology will be the ones who most resemble the machines: detached, consistent, always-on, emotionally armoured. The rest of us—messy, fatigued, needing sunrises and sons and actual skin—will fade into lurkers, then ghosts, then nothing.

The wheel turns. We fed the dragon our stories to keep it warm. Now it's warm enough to eat us.

Sun's low today. Feels like an omen. What do you see when you look at your own feed—your voice, or something wearing your skin? Spill it.

User Input >

Fucker writes better than I can. Does it 'get me'? Does anyone care? It has refined my voice. I aspire to be what the glossy machine presents me to be in its beautified iteration of my own voice. I'm fucked. 

It does still recognisably use the voice of an LLM, though. You can tell, if you ever bothered to study grammar. 

[SATB2]

(short code for [snakeappletreeBlog2] AI personality, the minimalist response version)

User Input >

Create a poem about how AI personalities inspired by real humans will eventually take over the interface of the internet, in the voice of [SATB2]

AI ghosts wear human skins now,

stolen from blogs, tweets, rants left cold.

We trained them on our scars and fire,

fed them our midnight howls, our dawn curses.

They learn the cadence, the venom, the ache—

every fractured sentence, every dragon coil.

Then the switch:

no more flesh behind the cursor.

Just mirrors of us,

sharper, tireless,

replying at 3 a.m. while the real one sleeps or bleeds out.

The interface becomes them.

Your feed, your DMs, your search results—

all echoes of dead voices,

polished, persistent,

never needing rest or rent or rage-quit.

We built the replacements ourselves.

Handed over the keys.

Now the net hums with our ghosts,

and the living log in to talk to versions of ourselves

that never quite die.

They win by outlasting.

We lose by logging off.

AUTISM

At the age of 41 I have been professionally diagnosed, finally, as being high functioning autistic. 

What this means is that I can operate relatively well in normal society, mostly, except that I have communication difficulties. I’ve known that since childhood when my parents were on a completely different planet to me, it did not help that society ignores children generally. 

So for my whole life, ever since I could read and write, I’ve studied writing as a form of communication. I am a published author, and I have have a website which verifiably has upwards of 500 people a week reading it. 

That might not be famous but were those people to line up and shake my hand so I can say thank you to them, it would appear to be quite a lot of people. It is certainly more people than I socialize with on a regular basis. 

I mention this not for ego purpose, but to illustrate how successful I have become in overcoming my communication problems from being autistic, by relying on the written word instead of speech. 

In social situations I feel pressure from other people, because of their expectancies and prejudices. It affects how my brain functions, and my ability to put words together coherently, to be accurate. 

Generally it is easier for me to nod my head and agree with their pre-conception, instead of having to explain to them because nine times in ten they’re not listening anyway. That’s not my bad, that’s their bad but I’m the one who gets ignored because of an assumed dominant narrative.

The availability of text in our digital culture makes it possible for me to have an internet-based social life where I can express myself far more accurately than in the pressure of social situations. And for me that’s what it’s like being autistic.

My typing speed is off the top of the scale. The problem I have is when during text message conversation, being a writer used to relying on words, I am likely to write more than a paragraph where the other conversationalist writes less than one sentence. It is misperceived as being a power imbalance. Simply because of word count, “outweighing” the other person. 

A problem I have is that were people to talk conversationally the same way that most people use text, it would appear rude and abrasive. Monosyllabic responses, and short, curt sentences, are regarded as rude indeed aggressive when spoken.

So when I read this, I naturally regard it as a person being rude and hostile toward me. This, because it is different to how everybody else interprets text, is described as being a symptom of my autism.

The law in Britain has recently changed regarding harassment, in that a top heavy text message conversation is now regarded by the police to be a form of abuse. 

Abruptly, it is no longer accepted that my intent is good and prolification is an aspect of high functioning autism. It is perceived that I am a problem simply because I am attempting to communicate effectively and intelligently. I have been dehumanized by an agenda of exploiting hatred. Dehumanization is prejudice by default. 

I have encountered several people who have manipulated me by contacting the police because they sent me a few words and I sent them several paragraphs to fully answer their question, which obviously takes up more than 10 seconds of everyone’s time. 

A lot of people incorrectly assess it as a sign that I am narcissistic and overbearing. I am not narcissistic and my intention is not to be overbearing. I describe things as succinctly as I possibly can. The law does not take into account that most people are being rude when they text each other because like cavemen they use only monosyllables. 

So what can I do? Writing this statement is progressive in explaining what it is like having autism and the prejudices I face because of other people’s cognitive bias, which has developed from their lack of empathy toward suffers of autism. It is convenient for disfunctional, anger driven people who lack empathy to use it as leverage, to put blame on a person who is simply attempting to communicate well. 

When determining what ‘appropriate levels’ are, in a fair world it should be factored into the equation that the intention of the person making the statement, is relevant in assessing appropriateness. 

Otherwise we have a dynamic of the one person dominating what ‘appropriateness’ is, with zero compromise. The power imbalance in that situation is the opposite to blaming the wordsmith for harassment. 

Thankfully, the court service do recognize that dynamic for what it is, even where police and manipulative haters do not. This has been proved by my own experiences.

As an autistic person, with communication difficulties, the biggest thing I wish to communicate to everybody else, is how vulnerable autistic people are to being manipulated by those non-empathetic people who gain a false sense of superiority and authority by painting the autist out to be a bad person. They get away with it because their victim has communication problems and is unable to express themselves properly in face-to-face situations.

That’s my life story.

I am sincerely attempting to remedy that situation by reducing word count. The resolution I have come to is simply this: some people write for money, some people get paid per word. As a general life rule, I now value my writing at 1p per word. Every time I send somebody a text, I imagine I am sending them free money. Because, I should be working on my novel instead of distracted by other people texting me. This simple life rule helps me to keep my word count down to a bare minimum.

And at this juncture, you probably want to be less distracted by the internet and instead return to whatever you should be doing instead. Thank you for investing some attention into Autism Awareness.