Ep 2

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 Welcome back to our business chats on our podcast. We've got more good questions. Shall I read the first one out? So it is about, it's from a Drawberry studio who says, How do you handle deadlines when managing multiple projects at once? And I said, please let me know when you find out.

Me too. Yeah. Don't take on too many. For a start, figure out do you want to do them all at once, because the B word, illustrator's burnout. Yeah, you can do, you can really stretch yourself too thin. And if you are doing too many, you might be charging too low. That's my first thought, but you know, cause you probably can only do two or three.

I couldn't do more than that over a period of time. I don't like to have too many lined up partly because picture books take ages. So if I had a lot lined up, that's years of [00:01:00] my life planned out. So I never signed those four book deals and things anymore. Cause it's just feels just, you're just mapping your life out too far in advance.

Um, Yeah, just don't take on too much work. But usually, I've found, in publishing anyway, if I get offered a job but I'm really busy, but I really want to do it, I'll just tell them I'm busy and then they'll have a little meeting and come back and say, What about next year? When is your next slot? We'll book you in for that.

So it's always worth, instead of just fitting yourself around the project and killing yourself and working all hours and not speaking to the publisher about it, it's much better to tell them what the situation is and see if they can work with you. It's such a genteel world, the world of publishing, isn't it?

It's like, well, let's have a look at it next year, my dear. I'm just imagining design groups going, we have a client, we need to do this now. There are times where it's time sensitive and they really need it now. Yeah. But in those situations, I say, if you really need it, if I really want to do it and they really need it now, but I'm busy, then I say, it's going to cost a lot more [00:02:00] because I'm going to have to upset a few other people and I'll do that, but I need a whole lot more money.

So it's, a really good way of getting a bit more money. When I was at college, they called that a headless chicken fee. Yes. If you've got to go like, oh, I'm getting it done, you can, but it'll cost you. Yeah. Yeah. Rush fees, always, always a part. And the advertising industry always know about rush fees because they're always coming last minute with newspaper deadlines.

And this has to be in the press by Thursday, blah, blah, blah. But I think books as well, it sounds like you really need to be in the zone. You can't just be doing multiple things as a picture book illustrator because it's such a unique form of creation. that you, you've got to live and breathe it and that alone, it would be so false in a way, if you had other stuff on top and you were mentally swapping between your creative brains.

There are people who do that, who take on a lot of projects and seem to work very quickly and be able to switch between projects. It's definitely not the way that I work. I can't do that. I'm really invested in my picture book for that period of time. Really invested. I don't [00:03:00] really want to be working on anything else while I'm doing it.

Although, with some publishers there can be really big gaps, so you're handing your roughs, and you might wait six weeks for your feedback. So then it's handy to have another publisher at the same time, because in those six weeks you can be doing roughs for somebody else. That's what I was thinking in terms of longer projects, like design based projects, you could, you could schedule the feedback waiting time and you can give them the feedback waiting time so that you can fit in other projects.

I think the biggest thing is scheduling, isn't it? And having, I mean, I didn't really realize early illustrator activity where someone gives you a job and you think, Yeah, I'll do it and you don't even think you can give them dates for roughs and for delivery of final artwork, but there are loads of micro stages in between that as an illustrator.

You need to schedule so you don't waste a week while you thought they would come back with revisions in a day. , but they don't come back for two weeks. You can't actually afford two weeks downtime. Mm-Hmm. because your client's late and [00:04:00] they still want you to keep to the same deadline. So taking control of the schedules yourself is a really good way.

Do you give them a schedule for when you want to hear back from them? Yeah, I do now. Mm-Hmm. , because I just think. If they've given me a deadline, I can tell them this is the way I can deliver the work you want on time, but you have to promise me you give me full feedback, all collated into one document without messing me around and calling me a couple of days later with three more editions.

It has to come in one round, all put together, and then we will be able to meet the deadline. So I think being proactive, writing them a schedule, A, it makes you look professional. Quite often, private clients are quite shocked by that. But in a good way, . Yeah. This all comes from years of experience, doesn't it?

You ended up having to write those guidelines because of being left in that position loads of times. And when you've been through it a few times, you think, right, okay, I've got to organize this now I'm gonna make a document that sets some B Exactly. Sets boundaries. Yeah. And also when I worked, there was one design agency I used to work a lot with and they became really good friends like Bella and Julia at Origin.[00:05:00] 

and Bella would run the schedules for multiple different jobs, and she would show me the schedules, and it was a revelation. I was like, Oh, okay. I could do this, couldn't I? And she said, you mean you don't do it? I was like, no, no, I just kind of draw till I think I'm ready and then hand it over. She was like, no, you know, we're brethren.

Design and illustration are associated, really associated in terms of client management and client delivery. And because as illustrators, You often have the, the, um, the, I can't think of the word, the art director looks after you. They tell you what their schedules are and you just think, okay, I'll do the drawing and hand it over and you deal with the client.

But when you go out and deal with a client on your own, you have to adopt all the stuff that the design agencies use to manage the client. Otherwise it just becomes chaotic and you get endless revisions. But adding, Other jobs on top of it, having multiple jobs really complicates it. So you, you do have to write a schedule for everything and then know that you can maybe squeeze in a couple of other little jobs on top of it, but whatever you do, do it in a way that you [00:06:00] avoid burnout and headless chickenry and charge for it.

I mean, if you can avoid it and say to someone, I've got a lot of stuff on other projects on at the moment, but if you really need me to do it and you really need me to do it now, then it will be almost double rates. or whatever it takes to manage that job, because you'll probably be working till midnight, you know, doing one in the evening and one in the day.

But what I wish I understood was Katie's use of Trello and things like that, because that's when I think you can really write functional schedules for two or three different clients simultaneously. Yeah. And I get to a point because of the, when the job's confirmed, he gets moved into like the jobs board for that month.

And he gets to a point where I look at the jobs board, I'm like, that's enough jobs for that month. And I've got a banner on my website that says, you know, like now booking for The month that I'm booking for. So at the moment it says November because we're recording this in October. Now November is getting quite full and I want to take December pretty much off.

So I'll be changing it to, you know, booking for January 2025. And that really helps because it's the first boundary that I've set. And if a client gets in touch and they're [00:07:00] like, we need this next week. I'm like, well, firstly, you haven't respected my boundary that I've set. You failed the first test.

Congratulations. But then, you know, I can talk to them and if it sounds really exciting and they've got a good budget, you know, maybe, but I always feel like the, the boundaries that you set, if they start trampling, trampling on them at an early stage, that's a really good red flag. And it's worth paying attention to that sort of thing, but like, yeah, try as much as I can to book stuff in advance, even though they're events, so it's like, it's a day, so they're booked into my calendar.

That really helps. Um, the further in advance, the better, because I really struggle, I really struggle with like projects where it's like the Roths at this stage and then we're going to do this stage and then we need feedback. Cause yeah, there's so much client management. Like you say, you've got to kind of discipline the client and be like, if you don't give me feedback on this day, I can't make that deadline work.

So you've got like, I will need the feedback in one email because that's another thing. If they start adding it in the email thread, I'm like, I'm going to miss one email and then you're going to come back to me and I'm going to have to redo it again and then export it again. So it's really, I don't like projects like that.

How long are your, your encounters per client? How long are your dates with them [00:08:00] on average? Sometimes people get in touch a year in advance, which is amazing. Wow. And then when they get booked in, most of the time it's in two weeks time, which I really, I try so hard to get away from it, but I think events, cause they're like, we're organizing the event, blah, blah.

And then they have a meeting and the CEO is like, I've just seen this thing called graphic recording. Could we get an illustrator? And they're like, yes, I found Katie Chapel. And then they're like, we need you in two weeks time. And it's two weeks is the absolute minimum because we've got, I'm very strict about them signing a contract now.

Cause then that just confirms they're definitely going ahead. And if they don't go ahead, they still have to pay. Like It's not my problem if they have a change of plan. And then, you know, we've got to get all the information about the event. I've got to book travel or, you know, set up the links to the online event.

And yeah, in my experience, anything less than two weeks is horrible because they can't get stuff turned around fast enough and it's a mess and they don't mean it. And I'm like, if they're thinking about it less than two weeks in advance, You know, I'm glad you found me now, but next event, call me. That's a bit like maps where people say in April, Oh, I'm thinking we need a map for the new tourist season.

So [00:09:00] when does it, when does tourist season begin? April the 1st, that will be for next year, but not this year. But when you're working with your clients, how long are you with them on a project? A day or a week or? I'm there with them probably a week plus. A week or two before we'll have a meeting to talk about their event and then I'm with them at the event and then And how long's the event?

Like a day, two days, an hour, depends. They're all different. And then after that, sometimes there's tweaks to do. And I say, you know, please allow me four working days, I don't work Fridays, to do the edits. And that's when things can get a bit tricky. If I've got, I'm fully in events all week and then another client from two weeks ago is like, I've got some changes now.

That's when I'm like, Oh my God. And that's when it gets tricky. That's not nice. Cause I have to stay up late or get up at five in the morning to do them. So I try not to do that. Yeah. But mostly the job usually lasts, say a day and then, so you've got your, your run up and then your couple of weeks after we'll chat and then yeah, send the things in like, how was it for [00:10:00] you?

Okay. Some feedback. But the, and the information's really complex, isn't it? Do you find if someone's talking to you from two weeks ago about some in depth, in depth aspect of the, the, the talk they gave you like, Oh, what was that stuff again about? Yeah, they were like, could you change this point? And I'm like, looking at my illustration, playing Where's Wally on your own illustration.

I'm going to change something, but I don't know where it is. But it's really complicated, isn't it? It's either sciences or businesses. It's really esoteric material, which you must understand in the moment as you're working on it because they've briefed you on it. Yeah. And you're in, in the conference and you get it all and you know what you're doing.

And then two weeks later, don't you, hasn't your brain chucked it all out by then and you can't remember? I do ask, I mean, if you can, the best way for me to get feedback is on like a PDF. If they can circle the things you want changed, cause then that really helps them know exactly what they mean, especially when I've drawn the same thing twice or like a similar point.

Yeah. But yeah, just training your clients to be better clients. And yeah, the visual feedback makes such a difference. If people verbally describe a [00:11:00] point in a picture that's wrong, without you being able to see what they want or where they want it moved to or replaced with, it's really impossible.

They're just words. It's so different to the world of publishing because if, if I've worked with a publisher who don't get back to me for months on end, I, I just end up deciding I'll leave the publisher. So, I very rarely leave a publisher and move to a new publisher, it's a rare thing, now, but early days, when I was trying to find the right publisher, Um, you know, you'd have a, you'd have an experience making a book with a publisher, they would take ages to get back to you, and then the list of changes were, seemed unreasonable and difficult and, and then you do them all and then they'd say I preferred it before or and now we've thought of this.

Oh no. Yeah, but we're in the world of publishing. It's very difficult. Yeah, they can do that. It's very difficult to Shout at them. Yeah, it's you can't really get them to agree to come back to you within a week You could ask them to but [00:12:00] they might not But you're in a contract now, and making that book is a long term project.

So what I've done over the years is, every time I've worked with a publisher like that, I've realised it's an in house systems thing, and there's nothing much I can do about it. Something's happening, usually the staff are unhappy there, people keep leaving, that's why they take ages to get back to you, there's some kind of system thing going on, and so I leave, and I find a new publisher.

So, and then, I've, then you land on your feet with one you like, and then you just cling to them forever, you're like, I am never leaving you. I love it. It's so like marriage and relationships. I think Helen talks about publishing. No, I think that, when you said that thing about they want changes or they have other ideas afterwards, I'm just, inside my brain I'm screaming, because that's the bit.

I dislike most of all. So I put that in the contract. And in fact, in the business course, we talk a lot about writing contracts and schedules and how to kind of put the client through the sheep dip, you know, cause you've just got to keep [00:13:00] moving the gates correctly. That's the way they would treat their clients.

So I'm not, this isn't anything sort of untoward, but you've got to get sign off at every stage. So there's no backtracking. when they make revisions, all the revisions are written and they're not phone calls because then you can point back to what they asked you to do. And if they get to a second or third stage and say they want to, uh, to revert, you can show that you, they've guided you through these stages.

They've signed off at every stage. I make sure they give me an email that says, okay, we're happy with revisions too. We've signed off here. I keep that email and then go on to the next one, shut the gate behind them. So there's no backtracking and lead them right towards the sheet, dip through out at the end of the, there's the artwork.

I think that AOI template, the one that's like acceptance of commission says, if they haven't said anything within seven days of you submitting the artwork, then it's okay. You could not hold a publisher to that. You just could not, you couldn't. Yeah. I mean, if people are, then. [00:14:00] And then I'm amazed and I want to hear about it, but I, because the world of publishing is like, you're a little team, you're your editor, you're your designer and the illustrator, and you're working as a team and you're giving each other creative feedback and you couldn't make the book without the three of you working together in a really creative, trustful, happy way.

And so when that is not going right, When all of that is going wrong, I, I do talk to them about it, but even after I've talked about it, if it's still going wrong, then I just feel like the only way to sort this out is actually to move on and find another team where that happens. It's like looking for the right chemistry.

It is. It's like a marriage. It's looking for the right chemistry and a publisher that you can talk to and just say, you're driving me mad with this. I don't agree with you. And you go, yeah, you're right. Yeah, I am driving you mad. You're driving me mad. And then you get over it and you can carry on. That's when it's really working.

Um, It must be because it's a, it's such a longer process to do a book, that there's a perception, there's time [00:15:00] to move back and forwards and do a little dance and double check. But I think with design work and with graphic recording, it's so time sensitive, isn't it? Everything has to be optimized in terms of schedule.

So everyone knows that you've got to get through to the end as easily as possible. I'm also wondering about the world of, like, I'm in one very particular area of publishing. I am, I am making a picture book, writing it and illustrating it, and we're all working towards this being the best picture book that we can make it be.

What, but if you're working for an educational publisher, maybe you're making books for schools or something like that. I've never done that kind of job. I'd be really interested to hear from people whether they, Have the kind of contract you have where you ask for a feedback within a week. And then after that, there are no changes.

I actually don't know. I've not done those sort of jobs. It must be, I would imagine that's how it works. I mean, I worked with Usborne on a children's encyclopedia and there was so much material to work through, even more than editorial, [00:16:00] even more than design, because it was a bit like old fashioned encyclopedias.

You've got maybe 20 or 30 single images per page. They find all the research. They send all the picture research to you. You interpret it. Um, and you go, yeah, the feedback stage. I think we almost did the whole book. in roughs before we got the sign off for each rough and going on to final artwork. So I think they're, they're probably a little bit more utilitarian.

You know, it's more like a machine in that kind of educational nonfiction area. But then again, beautiful nonfiction books. They're probably closer to the picture book where it's, it's like giving birth. You can't do it quickly. Yeah. But I bet there's a whole world of publishing where you are more like a, it's, you're more like a jobbing illustrator.

And I imagine in that, with those kind of books, maybe you can be. Okay, do you think that answers everything today? Yeah, I think that wraps that one up nicely. Okay, we're not good at saying goodbye. We're just gonna [00:17:00] close the door behind us.

Bye bye. See you on the next podcast. Bye.