Author Topic: How long is too long before you move on?  (Read 3605 times)

WriteOn

How long is too long before you move on?
« on: July 23, 2019, 10:55:19 PM »
I finally have my first two books self-pubbed and onto a new series.

I love my cover designer, but let's just say that communication isn't a strength of theirs. It seems that every time I send them an email, it's a minimum of one week to reply. In some cases longer. I think only once I got a reply within 48 hours.

I'd like to get my next book up for pre-order by the end of August, but with revisions, etc, I worry it will take at least a month to get there. I contacted them a few days ago to tell them I had everything for them (I include my own stock photoss) but so far crickets. I expect crickets and tumbleweeds for at least 3-4 more days.

What's acceptable? Am I being unreasonable?

Unfortunately, I still have a day job, and if we don't reply to our customers within 24 hours, heads roll. I suspect I'm in that frame of time and expect everyone else to be.
 

notthatamanda

Re: How long is too long before you move on?
« Reply #1 on: July 23, 2019, 11:25:22 PM »
I get it, I was in customer service/tech support for a long time.
You can change artists for whatever reason you want.  I doubt they will take it personally.

Having said that, most of the artists I've contacted seem to operate on a less than urgent schedule/mindset.  Maybe it's just the artist temperament?  Maybe that's why they want to work freelance?  My concern, in this particular case, would be finding someone else who would get the job done in the time frame.

If it was me I would email my artist again, explain the time constraints and ask if they think it is possible to get it done in that time.  At the same time I wouldn't feel bad about looking around for someone else and possibly contacting them for availability.
 

WriteOn

Re: How long is too long before you move on?
« Reply #2 on: July 23, 2019, 11:39:59 PM »
I get it, I was in customer service/tech support for a long time.
You can change artists for whatever reason you want.  I doubt they will take it personally.

Having said that, most of the artists I've contacted seem to operate on a less than urgent schedule/mindset.  Maybe it's just the artist temperament?  Maybe that's why they want to work freelance?  My concern, in this particular case, would be finding someone else who would get the job done in the time frame.

If it was me I would email my artist again, explain the time constraints and ask if they think it is possible to get it done in that time.  At the same time I wouldn't feel bad about looking around for someone else and possibly contacting them for availability.

This is all great advice. I do have another cover artist in mind and I do love what I've seen of their work. I think I'll make a general inquiry and see what they say about time frame, etc.

Thank you for your response.
 

DrewMcGunn

Re: How long is too long before you move on?
« Reply #3 on: July 24, 2019, 01:40:17 AM »
to each their own. If I'm working under a deadline, I make sure to communicate that early in the process. After that, when I email something I'll ask for a timeframe from the designer or editor. I'm very proactive about managing those expectations. If I send a follow-up email, I'll allow 3 business days for a response before I send a follow-up. Honestly, for the editor and designer that I normally use, I've never had to send a follow-up. They were very responsible in communicating status updates and if they needed more time, they were up front at those times.

I did contract with an artist for an original cover for a box set and he took two months longer than originally promised and I had to send 2 and 3 emails for status updates to get him to respond. I liked the artwork for the most part - it was quirky and original, but it was too much like work trying to keep things on target for me to use him again.


Drew McGunn
 
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Anarchist

Re: How long is too long before you move on?
« Reply #4 on: July 24, 2019, 02:38:13 AM »
Everything Drew said.

Here's my perspective when it comes to anything related to business...





"The first lesson of economics is scarcity: there is never enough of anything to fully satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics.” – Thomas Sowell

"The State is an institution run by gangs of murderers, plunderers and thieves, surrounded by willing executioners, propagandists, sycophants, crooks, liars, clowns, charlatans, dupes and useful idiots—an institution that dirties and taints everything it touches.” - Hans Hoppe

"Virtue is more to be feared than vice, because its excesses are not subject to the regulation of conscience." - Adam Smith

Nothing that requires the labor of others is a basic human right.

I keep a stiff upper lip and shoot from the hip. - AC/DC
 
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Lynn

Re: How long is too long before you move on?
« Reply #5 on: July 24, 2019, 02:41:34 AM »
This kind of thing drives me crazy.

I'm not very forgiving with email response times. If a vendor I want to use takes more than a day or two to send any kind of response, I figure they're not someone I will work well with and I move on.

People go on and on about how long it takes to respond to an email but it really just does not take that long to shoot off a quick reply before they flit past the message on their screen. Customers are important. All they gotta do is say "I got your email. I'll get back with you within xx days with details. Thanks!"

It's a lot easier to be patient once I know where I stand. For this, automated responses are not adequate. Those leave me with the "did they really get the email" questions that are just as bad as no response at all.
 
I mean, I have a multitude of email addresses and get a ton of email. I've found that in almost all cases if I take longer than a day to respond, it's because I just don't want to and has nothing whatsoever to do with time management. Being lazy to respond is not a great sign of reliability.

So, answer to the question, not that long at all. 48 hours is usually my limit.
Don't rush me.
 

Post-Crisis D

Re: How long is too long before you move on?
« Reply #6 on: July 24, 2019, 04:06:57 AM »
Occasionally, messages go to spam.  Sometimes quite inexplicably.  Just the other day, an order from a customer came in and I did not see it until two days later when I happened to check the spam folder.  Made no sense why it went to spam; it used similar wording to previous eMails from them that did not go to spam.

This has happened a few times, so I try to make a habit of checking the spam folder, but I don't do it every day because most days, only actual spam is in there.  Probably 95% of the time, only spam goes in there.

So, it happens.

Even addresses I have whitelisted still occasionally end up flagged as spam.

Oy.  And, of course, if you disabled the spam filters, you'd be flooded with junk.  I have one eMail account where I don't have spam automatically sent to the spam folder.  I manually send the spam into the spam folder.  And I'd say maybe 80-90% of the messages I receive at that address are spam.

And, occasionally, real messages end up lost in the spam and I end up accidentally throwing them into the spam folder!

So, whatever method you use, you're gonna lose and real messages end up in the spam folder.

I hate spam.

The bottom line is that, before giving up, it's a good idea to send a follow-up eMail just in case the first one went to the spam folder because you never know.
Mulder: "If you're distracted by fear of those around you, it keeps you from seeing the actions of those above."
The X-Files: "Blood"
 

notthatamanda

Re: How long is too long before you move on?
« Reply #7 on: July 24, 2019, 04:12:58 AM »
With regard to covers, one thing that's nice is now that I understand to focus on the genre for the cover, I can get started a lot sooner.
 

WriteOn

Re: How long is too long before you move on?
« Reply #8 on: July 24, 2019, 04:15:11 AM »
I'm going on 48 hours now, so I'm getting close to the point of throwing in the towel. I really like this designer, got a lot of compliments on the two covers they made, but I don't think more than 48 hours is reasonable. I'm with Lynn on that.

I'll wait until morning and then contact the other person I have in mind.

Going forward I plan to ask a few more important questions:

1. How long does it normally take you to respond to an email?
2. How long does it normally take you to design a cover?
3. What does your schedule look like for the next XXX weeks/months?

If I'm missing anything, please let me know so I can ask that too.
 

WriteOn

Re: How long is too long before you move on?
« Reply #9 on: July 24, 2019, 04:17:36 AM »
With regard to covers, one thing that's nice is now that I understand to focus on the genre for the cover, I can get started a lot sooner.

That's totally fair, but I haven't even been given a response to schedule my cover. I have everything ready to go. Blurb, stock photo, examples of other covers I liked, etc. They already know what genre I work with because they've done my first two books. They did know I'd be contacting them in July and had no issue with the time frame.
 

LilyBLily

Re: How long is too long before you move on?
« Reply #10 on: July 24, 2019, 04:55:37 AM »
If your designer doesn't respond in a timely manner, go on to someone else. At the very least, it means you are not a priority to that person, which is not a good sign. It could be that your designs only get the tail end of that designer's creativity. Or it could be that the designer is having a life crisis and can't concentrate on your design. In either case, you'll end up with an inferior product and one that may be late and wreck your promo plans.

Every service should be scheduled, and you should always build in time on your end for delays in delivery. All production schedules benefit from the assumption that at each point along the line there will be delays. A tight production schedule will only work if every member of the team is bringing their A game.
 

notthatamanda

Re: How long is too long before you move on?
« Reply #11 on: July 24, 2019, 05:31:29 AM »
With regard to covers, one thing that's nice is now that I understand to focus on the genre for the cover, I can get started a lot sooner.

That's totally fair, but I haven't even been given a response to schedule my cover. I have everything ready to go. Blurb, stock photo, examples of other covers I liked, etc. They already know what genre I work with because they've done my first two books. They did know I'd be contacting them in July and had no issue with the time frame.
Oh no sorry, I was just kind of commenting that now that I'm more experienced I get started on the cover early to save myself the stress of waiting on someone when I have a deadline.  The cover for the book I am releasing in September was done in May I think.  Just works for me to keep my stress as low as possible.  Sorry about that.
« Last Edit: July 24, 2019, 05:40:43 AM by notthatamanda »
 

WriteOn

Re: How long is too long before you move on?
« Reply #12 on: July 24, 2019, 05:49:35 AM »
With regard to covers, one thing that's nice is now that I understand to focus on the genre for the cover, I can get started a lot sooner.

That's totally fair, but I haven't even been given a response to schedule my cover. I have everything ready to go. Blurb, stock photo, examples of other covers I liked, etc. They already know what genre I work with because they've done my first two books. They did know I'd be contacting them in July and had no issue with the time frame.
Oh no sorry, I was just kind of commenting that now that I'm more experienced I get started on the cover early to save myself the stress of waiting on someone when I have a deadline.  The cover for the book I am releasing in September was done in May I think.  Just works for me to keep my stress as low as possible.  Sorry about that.

Oops, I misunderstood. My bad. I do get easily confused, lol!
 

notthatamanda

Re: How long is too long before you move on?
« Reply #13 on: July 24, 2019, 06:21:05 AM »
It's hard to communicate on a forum.  But I kind of suck at it IRL too so...No worries.
 

Jeff Tanyard

Re: How long is too long before you move on?
« Reply #14 on: July 24, 2019, 06:43:22 AM »
If your designer doesn't respond in a timely manner, go on to someone else. At the very least, it means you are not a priority to that person, which is not a good sign. It could be that your designs only get the tail end of that designer's creativity. Or it could be that the designer is having a life crisis and can't concentrate on your design. In either case, you'll end up with an inferior product and one that may be late and wreck your promo plans.

Every service should be scheduled, and you should always build in time on your end for delays in delivery. All production schedules benefit from the assumption that at each point along the line there will be delays. A tight production schedule will only work if every member of the team is bringing their A game.


Yeah, all of this.  There's no way I'd wait a week just for an email reply.  It's a red flag any way you slice it.  I'd move on.

For comparison purposes, WriteOn, consider my own experience with hiring a designer.  I've done most of my covers myself, but I hired a pro for the Free Space trilogy covers.  I went with Christine Savoie of Bayou Cover Designs.  We started the ball rolling on January 11, 2017.  (I had contacted her previously so she could schedule me for that time.)  By January 23, I had all three covers--the finished products, I mean, incorporating all the changes I requested--in my possession.  That's twelve days from start to finish, and for three book covers.  That's the kind of experience I would expect from a cover designer.

Christine is awesome, by the way; a real joy to work with.  Highly recommended.


With regard to covers, one thing that's nice is now that I understand to focus on the genre for the cover, I can get started a lot sooner.


They kept saying that over at the other site--that the purpose of the cover is to accurately signal genre--and when it finally "clicked" for me, it was like the proverbial scales falling from my eyes.  I haven't looked at other folks' covers the same way since.
v  v  v  v  v    Short Stories    v  v  v  v  v    vv FREE! vv
     
Genres: Science Fiction, Fantasy (some day) | Author Website
 

Wonder

Re: How long is too long before you move on?
« Reply #15 on: July 24, 2019, 09:28:16 AM »
My cover artist is pretty darn busy, and she tends to book out a month or two in advance. I'm fine with a 48 hour (2 business days) turnaround in replying to an email, and I expect that once I've turned in all the information she needs, there will be a good chunk of time (7-14 days) before I get prototypes back.

This all seems reasonable to me, but if it took her a week to reply every time I sent mail, that would be annoying. A quick "I got your note and I'll have something for you to look at by X date" is a professional's response. But I also recognize that design is creative work, not an assembly line, and that a designer needs some room to think and breathe. So I try to plan ahead to allow for that time.

Wonder
 

WriteOn

Re: How long is too long before you move on?
« Reply #16 on: August 04, 2019, 05:30:48 AM »
An update:

I did hear back from my cover designer. He said he had some "things" going on but he was back at work. This really is the last chance, but I'm putting out feelers anyway.
 

Lynn

Re: How long is too long before you move on?
« Reply #17 on: August 04, 2019, 08:09:04 AM »
I'm glad you got a response and I hope it works out. Good luck!
Don't rush me.
 

WriteOn

Re: How long is too long before you move on?
« Reply #18 on: November 26, 2019, 06:15:51 AM »
Another update:

Back in July I lamented about my disappearing cover artist. Well, he disappeared again. The same excuse as the last time. Almost a week before he replied to me. I politely mentioned that if he's away for any reason, a quick auto reply to say that would probably be a good idea. He got defensive, but it didn't matter because I got smart this time and after 48 hours of no response from him, I found a new cover artist. Unfortunately, I had to pay to have the first two books redesigned, but this new person has been nothing but professional and reliable. 

I should have learned my lesson the first time.

 
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LilyBLily

Re: How long is too long before you move on?
« Reply #19 on: November 26, 2019, 02:37:49 PM »
I've also made the mistake of hanging on too long and hoping, but there are many talented people available, and these days it is easy to find them.