Queenie Chan has finished THE DREAMING 2 and posts cool header art at her LJ:
The Dreaming (Book 2): Is finished. YAY!!! All 181 pages of it, plus a 3-page mini-manga at the end. Jesus, whatta heckuva month. It’s going to be out on November 22, and while I made the deadline, it was no fun experience since there was a major muck-up with my schedule. It turns out that the schedule laid out in my TOKYOPOP contract was wrong. In my contract, it said that everything was due on October 6th, but actually the due date was August 22nd. I found out after mid-July, and while having 6 weeks shaved off your schedule will kill most people, luckily I was a month ahead of schedule. That was what saved me, really – being 1 month ahead of schedule meaning that I had to work extra hard to fill in those 2 other weeks, but otherwise I made it. Now that it’s over, I can get back to bulletin-boarding and essay-writing, which I have really missed. I also got a new editor – Paul. Unfortunately, my former editor Carol is too busy to handle “The Dreaming” now. It’s a bit sad, but she was a good editor and I hope she’s coping well with her new workload.
Not meaning to throw stones in ponds I don’t swim in, but – did she say she had a signed contract that said Oct. 6th and she was forced to rush because T-pop made an error?
Doesn’t that sound like T-pop is making their problem her problem?
I’m confused…
Bill, I can’t speak for Queenie or this specific situation, but while TP is certainly in the error for messing up a schedule, there is–unfortunately–not much a publisher can do about it other than to tell the artist to work faster and harder (though, IMHO, we should recieve extra compensation for such errors to prevent future occurances). Once the book is solicited for sales for bookstores–no later than three months in advance, and often six months to a year in advance–there is absolutely no pulling back.
Unless you’d like to see book purchasers take back their orders, of course.
Sales can decrease dramatically if a book’s publication date has to be changed, no matter what the reasons for the push. It’s seen by the purchaser as a lack of confidence in the book if the publishers feel they need more time to work on it.
So while it’s a horrible thing for people like us–writers and artists who have to put up with the mistakes of other people just to keep our work on shelves–there’s nothing we or the publisher can truly do about it but put our shoulder to the wheel and grind away.
Rivkah thanks for the clarification. The book business is much like the DVD business I’m in – everything is geared toward filling a slot on a schedule. Once that’s decided and agreed upon – everyone schedules their work (and life) accordingly.
And while I don’t know the specifics of Queenie’s situation (or yours) I agree with you that if the publisher screws up (in a legal, binding document no less) they should pay a penalty of some sort. Especially if the artist/creator has to ‘hire out’ for certain tasks – toning, backgrounds, etc – in order to meet a schedule.
Queenie – I’m glad your book is coming out on schedule, and I’m sorry you had to bust ass because of someone else.
The Dreaming was so exciteing I can’t want to read vol. 2 of the dreaming!
The Dreaming was so exciteing I can’t want to read vol. 2 of the dreaming!
The Dreaming was so exciteing I can’t want to read vol. 2 of the dreaming!
It was an excellent book and made me think about what’s going on.
I love the dreaming! I read the first one four times and that was my least favorite out of book 1 and book 2. I’m dieing to read the third