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Hitch · 08-01-2018, 04:12 PM

I swear...

On occasion, as I guess is to be expected, we have people that simply decide not to go through with projects. They abandon them. They never pay the invoice, don't show up for production, etc.

But what slays me is, this seems to happen to almost EVERY Yahoo.com prospective client. Because we have endless issues with Yahoo, and their spam filters not allowing our production emails through, I created a VERY short PDF, "How to whitelist our email address at Yahoo.com" instruction set.

It's 14 "pages," but each page is a full-page screenshot, with typically a one-line instruction, e.g., "Hover over settings, you'll see the Dropdown menu that you see here." That sort of thing.

Almost 100% of our Yahoo.com contract acceptees simply disappear, after we send them this email, with that PDF. Let's say...98%.

I mean. WHAT the frack is wrong with them? This is so simple that a moron could do it. These are LITERALLY click by click instructions, showing WHERE to click, what to type, etc.

I HATE YAHOO.COM. (And AOL, Hotmail, MSN...)

I am so sick of people, I cannot tell you. Today has been one of those "if it can go wrong, it will go wrong" days, and this past 10 days has been a horror show, with one person after another showing up, getting a quote and disappearing, apparently believing that we'd charge $10, or something.

GOD. A colleague of mine, at a different (but similar) shop, who does primarily high-end print layout, had this conversation with a prospective client, on her online chat:

Spoiler:

This is pretty much what my days are like, too. I had a trade-pubbed author in this week, complaining about how he "just" wanted to give a copy of his printed book on X to "someone" and get back a finished set of eBooks. This means, for those who haven't done it, scanning, OCR, proofing, clean-up, more proofing, exporting to Word, more clean-up, exporting to HTML nad making ebooks. His complaint? He'd had it done on his last two books, and couldn't find anyone who would do it for a "reasonable" price. (Reasonable, no doubt, meaning, they pay HIM for the privilege, I'm sure.) Total disregard for the literally dozens of hours of labor involved, if he wants a decent product. I nearly sent him to $1 Scanning. I mean, hey, you want cheap, right?

It never ends.

Hitch aka

08-01-2018, 04:12 PM	#32318
Hitch Bookmaker & Cat Slave Posts: 11,503 Karma: 158448243 Join Date: Apr 2010 Location: Phoenix, AZ Device: K2, iPad, KFire, PPW, Voyage, NookColor. 2 Droid, Oasis, Boox Note2	I HATE YAHOO.COM I swear... On occasion, as I guess is to be expected, we have people that simply decide not to go through with projects. They abandon them. They never pay the invoice, don't show up for production, etc. But what slays me is, this seems to happen to almost EVERY Yahoo.com prospective client. Because we have endless issues with Yahoo, and their spam filters not allowing our production emails through, I created a VERY short PDF, "How to whitelist our email address at Yahoo.com" instruction set. It's 14 "pages," but each page is a full-page screenshot, with typically a one-line instruction, e.g., "Hover over settings, you'll see the Dropdown menu that you see here." That sort of thing. Almost 100% of our Yahoo.com contract acceptees simply disappear, after we send them this email, with that PDF. Let's say...98%. I mean. WHAT the frack is wrong with them? This is so simple that a moron could do it. These are LITERALLY click by click instructions, showing WHERE to click, what to type, etc. I HATE YAHOO.COM. (And AOL, Hotmail, MSN...) I am so sick of people, I cannot tell you. Today has been one of those "if it can go wrong, it will go wrong" days, and this past 10 days has been a horror show, with one person after another showing up, getting a quote and disappearing, apparently believing that we'd charge $10, or something. GOD. A colleague of mine, at a different (but similar) shop, who does primarily high-end print layout, had this conversation with a prospective client, on her online chat: Spoiler: CSA: IngramSpark won't accept my book cover. They say the spine needs to be wider. M: OK, we can help with that. Please send me the cover file. CSA: What file? M: The file you uploaded to IngramSpark. CSA: I don't know where it is. The guy who made the cover won't talk to me anymore. I'm not good with computers. Here's my login information to IS. M: Thank you for the login information, but I need the file. CSA: You can get it from IS. M: No, I can't pull files from their system, only upload files to their system. CSA: Can't you just log in and find out what's wrong? M: We know what's wrong. The spine needs adjustment. If you want me to fix the file, I need to have the file. CSA: This is ridiculous. I'll go to 99 Designs instead. M: Um…I'm pretty sure they'll need the file also. CSA: I'll tell them to log in to my account at IS to get it. M: OK. This is pretty much what my days are like, too. I had a trade-pubbed author in this week, complaining about how he "just" wanted to give a copy of his printed book on X to "someone" and get back a finished set of eBooks. This means, for those who haven't done it, scanning, OCR, proofing, clean-up, more proofing, exporting to Word, more clean-up, exporting to HTML nad making ebooks. His complaint? He'd had it done on his last two books, and couldn't find anyone who would do it for a "reasonable" price. (Reasonable, no doubt, meaning, they pay HIM for the privilege, I'm sure.) Total disregard for the literally dozens of hours of labor involved, if he wants a decent product. I nearly sent him to $1 Scanning. I mean, hey, you want cheap, right? It never ends. Hitch aka