[Hitch]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

That's a function of the business you are in and the clients you deal with. It does not come as a surprise.

MWAHAHAHAHA. Suffice to say, after 30 years of dealing with other development and construction professionals, lo, buddy, this came as one HELL of a surprise to me. Honestly...in hindsight, I'm boggled at the idea that I was ever this naive. If you'd asked anyone I knew, prior to this, if I were a naive person, they'd laugh in your face. Now...I wonder.

For the most part, I was happy there. The big part was figuring out my boss was a stress puppy, who needed to be in a nervous tizzy to function. If there was nothing to be nervous about he'd unconsciously create something so he could behave in his accustomed manner.

Ah, an adrenalin junkie. Never met a crises s/he couldn't love or fabricate. No crisis too big or small! (I know the type well. Had a boss that I mostly adored, was this way for literally DECADES. If things were going along too smoothly, well, bygod, he'd find a disaster to scream at us about.)

But he wasn't technical, knew he wasn't technical, and relied on me for that. (Indeed, I once threw him out of the computer room because machines misbehaved in his presence. "But I just wanted to ask..." "If you stay here, something will fail. I'll come see you!") When he had a technical need, he assumed I would do the research, and present him with specs for what he needed to buy, at the best price that would do the job. He didn't try to second guess me. His sole concern was getting the President of the company to approve the budget.) I also ghost wrote some of his correspondence because her thought my English skills were better than his.


Like I said, ignorance and wishful thinking.

OMG, you're as bad as I. I've chased folks out of the room with something similar. "If you stay in here, the computer will crash." On the other hand, though, I have a magic way of making scanners misbehave. Don't have any idea what it is. It's like inverse-pheromones or something. Ha!

And beyond that, even if you do the work, success is unlikely.

Yes. THAT is the unblinking, unvarnished, and unpalatable truth. The part that they don't want to hear. And, crap, here's the dreadful part about it: we, at my company--we don't care. We're not inspecting their book for grammar, punctuation, or good/crappy story. We is just de book-builders, mon. I admit though, that wince-worthy covers and the like usually prompt me to say "hey, did you see that free cover-making tool over at....?" or the like. Obviously, the more they write and sell, the better it is for us, so, it's also true that we WANT them to be outrageously successful.

I tell folks about stats I saw from the ABA back before the Internet Ate the World, and all publishing was traditional and print. There were over 50,000 titles a year, nearly a thousand a week, being published in the US. Who would buy and read them all? Most were not bought and read. The failed to find an audience, died on the shelves, and got returned for credit and remaindered. The publishers were all betting enough titles would sell to cover the losses on the ones that tanked, and make them enough money to remain in business.

And that, push comes to shove, IS the business model of publishing. Nobody--not even the best editors at Random House--picks a winner each time. And if that were the model, all those much-beloved but low-selling novels of "literature" as opposed to genre would die a sad and quiet death, for no one would publish them.

Now we have the Internet and self-publishing, and it's more like a thousand new books a day. The same question and answer above applies, but the bar has been enormously raised. You must write an excellent book. You must do a lot of work to get it into a decent form for self publishing. You must do an enormous amount of work to promote yourself and your work, and let the audience that might be interestrd know you exist.

But most of all, you need a benevolent deity to work a miracle for you and give you a giant economy sized helping of luck. You will not be lucky.

But frightening away some clients with such a checklist might be a feature, as they are likely the ones that will be the most trouble.

Hmmmm. That's an idea, that is. I have the lists ready-to-go; I stopped handing them out when they unambiguously scared off the clientele. Hell, maybe I'll post them on the homepage of the website (which I just spent THOUSANDS <gasp> rebuilding, to be friendly, mind you).

I don't think there is a reasonable way to say it. All you can do is continually reiterate than this is your business, you are at any time working on multiple projects, and you don't have time to handhold and be instantly available to all clients, all the time. At some point, you simply have to say "This is the tenth email you've sent me today about stuff you should have found out before you contacted me. I don't have time. If you keep this up I'll tell you to find another service and stop working for you."

Yeah, you are likely right. One clear symptom of the situation in which I find myself now is that I am less likely to tell a client to bugger off than I was in my prior life. I think that this is due to having employees that rely upon me to pay their bills; keep their homes, eat, etc. I used to be perfectly content to read a client the riot act; now I'm far more reticent to do so.

The real trick is getting a feel from the initial contact which folks will be problems, and responding "I'm sorry but I'm fully committed, and can't take on new clients at this time." I'd also keep a list of major problem children to say that to if they come back for another project.
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Dennis

Well, THAT I have absolutely developed radar for. It's what happens after they accept the quote that seems to be problematic. But even just chatting about this has given me some ideas, to try to head this off at the pass. I appreciate that you were here to bounce things off of. I genuinely do.

Hitch