Dear Anne,

upfront, this page for some reason doesn’t have a spell check and there may be many mistakes. But this is not a commercial book and English is not my first language.

Also upfront, Anne via her team may label me as crazy, or anything her team want to label me, with her silent permission.

I ask people to do your own homework.

I’ve written enough, too much. But I want to write this on a blog post.

It is not a consolation or excuse to say that I’ve written to hundreds of people. I’ve written hundreds, thousands of emails. It’s still hurtful to you personally and many others individually.

I never thought I’d become like this. I always liked to write, but not like this. It’s maybe receiving news of someone dying via email and it still makes me angry. But that’s not your fault or problem.

I have nothing to lose and that’s why I write so openly.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zUDJUkqMi4

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I was very touched by your initial support and confidence that I can do the book project. And it was my priority and I did and would have poured all my attention into it, with the help of people. I always loved and continue to love team work.

I have PTSD and the drinking still isn’t gone yet, but all that is no excuse for all the horrible emails.

You reached out in 2017 via Linkedin invitation. Again, in my drunken stupor I had my outburst. It was hard for me why you reached out so silently via a different platform. I would have wished that you would have just contacted me directly in an email to speak to me directly. Of course that’s risky and I understand your worry that you’d be met with another outburst email.

But having received the news of my brother’s death and in that single one loaded email that he was already cremated and high in debt was too devastating to deal with.

When I then have people reach out indirectly and not clear, and I don’t know what that means, I flipped out again. I needed DIRECT communications. I needed a chance, not eternal ghosting.

But I have accepted it and it is okay.

I want to apologise yet again for the bullsh!t I wrote and for so long. Believe me, you’re not the only one, but that’s no consolation or excuse.

Why I write is because of your book. I was very proud and felt privileged that you entrusted the book project to me. I am so sorry I didn’t continue or finish it. I took that project very serious and was very protective of it. Protective in the sense that I didn’t want anyone to mess it up, including myself.

But in hindsight, and I emailed that to you before, once you became aware of mistakes, especially the sheer volume of mistakes, you should have pulled the book off sales.

Your bookseller told me in November 2015 in Cologne that she just then sold the last book. I was happy, but remembering having an uneasy feeling in my stomach because I felt you, and now I as well, shortchanged your fans.

I also feel in hindsight that if my manager who was in charge of doing the book in the first place, messed it up so much, I would have needed to fire him. I understand he is at least two persons in one as your manager AND guitarist. You’d be firing two job descriptions in one.

But it makes me feel that you don’t care about your own work.

You are so used that people love your music/work/text that it doesn’t matter what happens with it. And I am not joking when I say that I’d love a €30 refund for the money I spent on the book that is full of mistakes.

Any product that has faults or flaws, especially the amount in your book, it should NOT have been sold.

I would even go further and challenge you to put a message on your website and all social media to ask your fans, who has your book WITHOUT at first saying why you ask, so as not to get fake replies. You should ask your fans to make a photo of your book and send it to you. And once you have evidence that they have your book, offer them two things:

  1. An apology.
  2. A full refund including postage. But not to ask them to donate to animal charity, but a full refund. If they decide to decline a refund, that’s their choice.

I know most of your fans will be forgiving and would not want a refund. But I feel you shortchanged your fans and betrayed them. Especially Germans love you so much, they must have felt so happy to hold your book in their hands, like I did. I was estatic and devoured every word! I think your manager wasn’t happy that I did indeed READ it, and not just looked at the pictures!

Many must have devoured the book, some texts with WRONG translation because the initial English text was also wrong. And they must have tried to figure out the meaning of the translation, not realising it’s wrong in the original. How confusing, but can be diverted by calling it “art”, right?

I have said it before, and I still mean it, no matter if you’d hate me or don’t give a sh!t about me, but I NEVER did your book for the sake of money or getting known. Remember when you asked me in December 2014 if it’s okay to announce to your fans that I will be working on a new book? And I declined. I really meant it when I said that it’s better to give your fans bite-sizes of info. Many just bought the last copies of the book in Cologne and the tour in general, they may have gotten upset spending money when an updated book would be coming out soon. I wanted the dust of their recent purchase to settle.

And you had the next tour coming up with the classical theme and other projects. I really felt that if you’d give your fans TOO MUCH info on upcoming projects at once, they’d get tired quick and forget.

But every 3 or 4 months another bite of info would keep fans interested and their eyes peeled on what’s next. Of course now it’s good you never mentioned, as I would have to apologise to everyone for not continuing on/finishing the book.

It was an absolute labour of love and also a way to grow with translation work and English, as well as distracting me from the sh!tty job I had. Of course once the book would have gone on sale I would have taken my cut, whatever pay there would have been. But that was not my motivation.

And I have to say, that this is why I am gobsmacked that you never gave me a chance anymore. I’ve had other friends who knew me for decades, they dropped me as well, even in the first year of my grief, because they couldn’t handle my trauma. And I’ve never ever thought I would be so abandoned by people I thought were friends. I feel like a criminal or someone with a terrible illness. Most people abandoned me early on, even before I spiralled into horrible emailing. Now I deserve it, but not then.

With you I’m not that dissappointed because we didn’t know each other long. But I never had bad intentions or would have taken advantage of you, and your book was like the apple of my eye that I poured my heart into.

I used to dog-sit a friend’s dog. I knew this friend since 30 years. I dog-sitted for her and her husband when they went on holiday. I sitted the dog even while he was deadly ill from vaccines, and I was working an exhausting job inbetween. These “friends” abandoned me pretty fast as well. And my last words to them, after also sending countless emails, was that I do not regret having looked after their dog for years and at times for 2 weeks at a time, even while he was sick. But I regret having done it for free.

And it is unfortunate that you don’t take anything I say regarding your book serious and wouldn’t even offer a refund to your fans.

You are used to people staying with you or coming back to you. You drop people and relationships like hot potatoes once you don’t need or like them anymore. But you can’t handle when people would do that to you.

You ghost them forever as if they never existed.

I know you ARE a good person and you care. But maybe one day you will have a moment where you try to imagine how it is to be dropped by many people at once, AT ONCE! And that even before I flipped out so much in mails. I flipped out so much ALSO, not only, but also because everyone dropped me.

Just because you had a loved one die and everything became weird and then you went completely mental. NO support. No-one giving me the assurance that I won’t be left alone. I had “friends” preach at me saying that everyone has their burden to carry, and those words came within the first months after I received the news that my brother was dead and gone since weeks without us knowing.

And then you get bullied and targeted at work and you feel like an alien in a twillight zone, the floor under your feet completely gone, and you keep falling inside a bottomless pit. No, all this doesn’t excuse my drunken emails. But I needed DIRECT communication and assurance once in a while. I needed a chance!

It is NORMAL that people withdraw for a while, but I felt and still feel like I’m a criminal who also has leprosy.

—-

“Notes Taken Traces Left”

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I know that it is hard for you when other artist get established in the UK, like the amazing Kae Tempest. You hinted at that. And I understand in your genre, you are VERY unique and there is no-one who does what you do, in the way you do it. And I understand you have a tough exteriour but are very meek and gentle inside. I understand this is all good for “showbiz”, especially in the hardcore electronics music. And I know you “softened” your image and art. Both forms incredible in their own way.

And I know artists would do anything to work with you. I never dreamt in a million years to 1. meet you and 2. work on your book. It was dream come true that I haven’t even dreamt! I loved that it came so organic, and that’s how all my friendships and projects come. I never push for anything, never even ask people to follow me on YouTube or to subscribe or to like or anything like that. I like REAL followers who WANT to follow, not because I beg them.

And to finish this too long of a post, I really would ask you to consider apologising to your fans and arrange a refund.

If I buy a book or any product and it has faults in/on it, I’d send it back for either a new product or a full refund. And your book is no different. I’ve had products from eBay and did a reclaimation if it didn’t fit the item description. Your book has been THE worst faulty item I’ve ever ordered. And I’m sorry to say it that blunt! And it took me all these years, grief, pain, trauma and my own wrong actions to come to that realisation AND tell you that!

You said once to me that “this time” you want your legacy to be done properly when we talked about the book. I only now understand that you may have meant that this is not the first time that your work got messed up and you didn’t watch over your own work. It happened also with your website launch that went live full of mistakes. I was so hurt and angry because I begged for weeks to get access to it to look out for mistakes, but I just got acces the afternoon before the launch while at work, home by 10pm. Website launch next morning 9am.

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Mid 2015 new website launch.

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I watched an interview today with the amazing singer Jessie J. She recently fired her manager, NOT because he wasn’t good, but because she felt that he “didn’t get it”.

She talks about it in 36:06.

I mention this because she’s an artist who doesn’t accept anything that is not what she wants.

And this is not about making mistakes, as we all fnck up. But with a book project that is in print forever AND sold for MONEY, to muck it up THAT much is unbelievable and unacceptable. It shows SO MUCH disrespect for your work as well as to your fans, and it feels like you yourself don’t respect your own work.

And in those days I was very different, when someone treated me bad or patronised me like your manager did, because he was p!ssed off that I saw all his mistakes, I brushed it off like raindrops. I didn’t let it get to me. I was very long suffering before my brother died, too much, so much so I let people step all over me, especially at work and “friends” use me. Now I wouldn’t. The bullying at work has made me thin skinned.

And that you accepted YOUR book to get so fncked up AND THEN even continue selling it flawed to your LOYAL fans who paid MONEY for it, many who have sh!tty low-wage jobs like I had, that’s quite a thing, Anne.

And I find what Jessie J says further in 42:52 “… I need my team to reflect that.” To have people on your team with such disregard to QUALITY and CORRECT text is beyond me. But it may be because you yourself have no regard for your own work?

And as you will ghost me forever, I have no fear of telling you this, because no-one else will. Most people kiss up and will never tell you what they really think. That unfortunately comes with the territory of being an artist. And I’m sorry about that, I don’t envy you in that regard. I want to KNOW and HAVE friends whom I know love ME for me, who tell me when I have spinach between my teeth, and love me not for my art or fame. And I will always be regretful and sorry for all the sh!t emails.

And I am also glad to speak freely while NOT drunk (!) and not care anymore.

Best wishes and good health.

Petra K.

Update 09.10.2022, as I was accepted into Anne’s Facebook group today, and then posted the open letter there, I was immediately blocked, which is understandable and I expected that. I just want to say that just in case Anne or anyone will portray me as the bad or crazy person, I’ve emailed Anne many times, I emailed people many times when I was drunk in trauma. Anne never responded in 7 years. I need to tell my story, and whatever Anne or her band, friends, fans etc. make of it or tell of me, it doesn’t matter. When you are treated like an outcast because you’re traumatised from early on, then I question a lot.

Anne is fine, she’s always moved on from situations. And I will also move on, but I need to tell my own story as well.

With the book being full of mistakes, the English lyrics and consequently the German translation, all these mistakes are also scattered all over the Internet, on Lyric websites. And I will not retrieve anymore in silence, no matter if I turn the whole of Anne’s fanbase against me. I survived enough and made too many mistakes myself to be silent anymore. Best wishes.