I told a client today that if he kept bugging me, I was going to FIRE him as a client and leave him and his error-ridden book dangling. I told another client, with FOUR edits that no, we couldn't--and wouldn't--make them today.
You know the coffee mug--I had one for years--that said, "lack of planning on your part doesn't create an emergency on my part"? Man, I am up to THERE with that crap.
First, a guy that allegedly "paid" his buddy, who has a degree in English Lit, to proofread his book. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiight. Now that the book is published--in print and in digital, mind you--he's got 117 edits that he's GOTTA HAVE, right away. I warned him that we had, inhouse, over 1,000 EDITS, from clients, all who need them urgently, etc. I warned him that that many edits meant not a minute less than 6 hours, per edition (PDF, ePUB, MOBI), because now, they are separated. It's not like when we first gave him the PDF, and he could have done them, then,
relatively quickly and we would then have had the edited material in the exports from INDD. Today, I get an "urgent" email from him, with him telling me that he doesn't "like this position I'm in." Really? No S**T! Well, guess what--I don't like somehow being responsiblee for authors that don't proofread their stuff, before they publish it, either. I told him if he bothers me again, I'm firing him as a client.
THEN, a second client called.
Spoiler:
You all remember, how my poor guys worked 36 straight hours, to get these two "urgent" books done, last month, right? We gave them the finals (v5's) a skoosh over two weeks ago. (And their "editors' could NEVER get the proof forms right, either, causing us endless amounts of extra work to do the revisions.) Well, here we are, two weeks later, and guess what? They JUST loaded the MOBI file for one of them to the KDP, and lo--they got a message that it had X typos. Well, some weren't; but 4 were. And now, they want those 4 edits--today. Because, of course, it's important.
I told her the same thing--I have people already working 50+ hours in a week. I'm working more thn 60 each week. I don't have ANYONE that has a spare half-hour (that's what it takes, when you build in the MOBI-building/testing time, with the KDP upload, to test fonts), that isn't already committed to the 1,000 edits ahead of her in the queue.
I told her, from my standpoint, we'd killed ourselves, over their last urgent deadline, and here the books weren't yet published, weeks later. She told me, "well, we MISSED THE MOON."
(No. I didn't make that up).
So, of course, I look at the lunar calendar, and sho'nuff, the next full moon is the 3rd--two days from now.
Did anyone think to upload the MOBI files we gave them, any time in the last two weeks???? Noooooo, of course not. So, they JUST did it, and now--here we are again, with
another emergency.
I told her that we'd try to get them done this week, and that was the best I could promise. What really killed me is that she kept insisting that I ask "someone" here, some employee, or something, that "surely, something can be worked out." Well, sadly, no, it can't. We're slammed, and it's FIFO here. Not to mention, we DID put them ahead, and I nearly killed my guys, working them like that, and...for what?
I told her, no, there isn't anyone here, and NO, I won't ask them. We have a firm policy about FIFO, and I'm not going to disadvantage all the other folks, all politely waiting their turn, in the queue, just because nobody at her end thought that they should upload the books to the KDP ahead of time--which, BTW, I'd STRONGLY recommended to them, before. And more importantly, we're BEHIND. I don't have anyone that is lollygagging around here, FFS.
Man,
I am SO angry today I could probably chew up cement and not notice. This nonsense, that we're somehow RESPONSIBLE for compensating for people who don't proofread books that they are publishing, for people that don't think to upload a book AHEAD OF TIME--wow, such advance planning!--and that it's our job to "fix" these issues, or that somehow, WE are letting them down....
Hitch