Your Complete Publisher Specializing in Unabridged Works

I read several self-help gurus pontificate about how nothing gets done without a time limit. I am not so sure myself but everything we do at PHP has a time limit. Sometimes we go over that limit due to interesting reasons, but once we do, another time limit is established.

Which leads me to today’s topic – time management. 

I have found, time is hard thing to control among writers and writing. You set a date only to discover the writer hasn’t finished or wants to make changes and other such reasons before I get it to edit. Then, once we hit the initial editing phase, the document, manuscript, or potential eBook often comes to a standstill.

Why? Because I find things. That’s what editors do. I find grammatical errors, structural errors, formatting issues, illustration issues, etc. These have nothing to do with what is often found inside the story itself. Plot holes, unneeded prose, rewrites, etc. 

All of this takes time. Often enough time is not what the author or client has. It takes a dedicated amount of time for someone who has a manuscript they want published to accomplish. Let me repeat, it takes commitment. Once we establish a publication date, we move heaven and earth to hit it. We also market the new eBook to the publication date.

All of this requires hard core time management. Which is often where my editor duties require me to “push” our authors a bit. In reality I push, nag, soothe, curse, praise and cajole a whole host of authors to find it within themselves to commit to completing the required edits until we have something I can polish into a publishable eBook.

With freelance clients, it is often the same except I find it behooves me to include them inside the editing process. When we first started taking clients, I did all the edits myself then sent the client the finalized version for review. Only this didn’t work. The client would see what they asked for and not like it. 

It would be exactly what we agreed to but again, they wouldn’t care for it. Which left us with a choice. Do we come down hard and require payment for that exact thing the client contracted us for, or do we work with the client to produce an eBook they genuinely want to claim as their own?

We chose the latter. Which changed the timelines quite a bit. No eBook I have worked on has ever looked like the original manuscript I was sent. Why? The authors, once the editing begins, often see where they want to add or subtract things which have nothing to do with the original. Also, I find things which need to be eliminated, corrected, or cut and pasted into new positions. 

I include the clients now in the editing process so they can see the way their work transitions from rough draft to polished completion. A position I find comfortable as each time I send the PDF to the client with the changes and updates, they often find they want to add or subtract or eliminate things on their own.

It is a lengthy process this way, but we end up with happy clients who possess an eBook they are proud of. Which once again requires time management and commitment.  

Does this mean we allow a work to be continuously changed with no thought to an end date? No, often I find that three times is enough, and we base our prices now on such concepts. If a potential eBook needs more than we often must add to the price tag. If it requires less, than we subtract from the price. We do neither until we have discussed the new price with the client and changed our contract to match.

See, our work is time based which means we must maintain a strict control over our time management. If we promise someone a final edition on a certain date, we must meet it. If we can’t it needs to be for only one reason – we are waiting for input from the client. 

We manage all our time around our clients and our publication dates. It is the only way to operate a publishing business otherwise you will find yourself going through a million revisions and never publishing a thing. Nor will you keep clients if you can’t get it done on time. Lose your clients and your income drops drastically.

Not something any of us want.

I’m Ross, The Editor-in-Chief at the Pyrateheart Press and I’m out.