Cartoon by Dave Walker. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.
It's an old joke - 'I love the sound of deadlines as they whoosh by ...'
I've got one project that has been doomed before it started.
Tuesday - message from client: I've got a copy edit, usual rate, deadline 3-4 weeks.
My reply: I'm a bit busy for the next couple of weeks so 4 weeks would be better, say 23rd June?
Client: great, I'll get it into the post.
Wednesday: message from client: just heard that the typesetter will be going away on 23rd June for 5 weeks. Could you forward the chapters as and when you complete them?
My reply: I don't like doing things in bits like this but I will have a look when I get the project. I expect that if he is going away for 5 weeks he will be very busy and it might be best to wait rather than to rush it and make mistakes. I won't be able to look at this closely for a few days anyway as I am quite busy at the moment.
Thursday: message from client: I appreciate what you are saying but please do try if you can. By the way I am going away on 9th June for 2 weeks so I won't be able to forward anything to him after that date.
Me (to the cat, obviously): huh? so my 4 week deadline has been reduced to 2 without having even received the project.
What she really should have said: I'm going on holiday (ha, lucky me) so I'd really appreciate it if you could magically have all of this done in a week (approx. 60 hours) so I can get it to the typesetter and it will be finished when I get back. Cheers.
2 comments:
Yes, it's that unspoken word 'magically' again, isn't it?
'Feeding chapters through' is something I'm increasingly asked to do and it is SUCH a mistake on the part of publishers. So often something in chapter 20 will throw up a query re something in chapter 2. It's a sausage-machine approach and it's not a good way to treat a book!
I am a bit of a one for deadlines ie I only work efficiently when one is approaching. I negotiate long periods for bits of writing and then nearly always end up writing them in the few days before.
But yes editing without the full work available does not seem the thing at all.
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