Missed deadlines can be disastrous

  • By: admin | Date: Feb 26 2016

While my husband would claim I’m neurotic about quite a lot, the thing that drives me crazy the most is lateness. I’m often ridiculously early and I go into a near panic when I’m late. If I were a writer, I like to think I’d deliver all my manuscripts early. Maybe I would, maybe I wouldn’t, who knows. Sometimes lateness is unavoidable—accidents happen, people die, natural disasters take out power, and so on. And I’ll be realistic—writing is a creative process and sometimes the words just don’t come in time. George R.R. Martin recently announced that he’d missed his deadline, and that he’d disappointed his agents and editors, and countless other people. But deadlines are there for a reason and publication schedules are built around those deadlines. A late manuscript can mean you lose an editing stage, your pub date, sales and marketing support, or even your contract. Think about that last one. It really does happen. I don’t think GRRM has to worry about that, but it can happen to other, mere mortal writers.

When a manuscript is delivered late, there can be lots of problems. If you’re lucky, your editor will work overtime to get her edits in on time and she’ll save the day. If you deliver too late for that, sometimes publishers will be able to make up the lost time by taking out an editing stage—maybe the manuscript doesn’t get copy edited or maybe you don’t get proofs. Or maybe the publisher will be able to pull the book from the schedule and move it to later in the year. Let me tell you, most publishers will look a lot more kindly on having to move a book when they know far in advance that it has to be done. When you’re on a tight production schedule and the publisher finds out a week before you have to deliver that the manuscript is going to be late, your publisher isn’t going to be happy.

On top of your publisher not being happy about this book, it might make your editor think twice about wanting future books from you. And if they do want future books, they might be hesitant to schedule the book on a tight production schedule. They might be hesitant to schedule the book at all until they have a full manuscript in hand. If your book can’t be scheduled, it likely means a large gap in between release dates. Depending on the genre and whether the book is part of a series, a large gap could be disastrous for sales. If sales aren’t good, that’s just one more reason why your editor won’t want more books.

The bottom line is please, please, please, let your agent and editor know as soon as you do that you’re going to miss a deadline. Also think about what deadlines are realistic for you. Just because some writers can pen a publishable book in three months, doesn’t mean you can do that. Everyone writes at their own speed, but it’s up to you to know that speed and communicate it to your agent and editor when deadlines are first set.

3 responses to “Missed deadlines can be disastrous”

  1. Avatar Elissa says:

    I’m not yet published, but I confess I’m terrified of missing a deadline. I tell myself to calm down. I haven’t finished my WiP or secured an agent’s representation, much less signed a contract and been given any deadlines. But throughout my life, I’ve either handed in work early or late, almost never right on time, and so I worry.

    I think once I get an agent (being optimistic about that part) and she sells my book (more optimism) I’ll ask her to please give me pretend deadlines that are earlier than whatever the publisher wants. For instance, say the deadline in the contract is November first. I want my agent to tell me, “The contract says November first, but the editor will need it no later than the second week of October. I’m going to ask that you have it ready for me to look over by September 30.”

    If I’m in my normal working mode, I’ll get it to my agent mid-September, but if my mind goes into panic mode and freezes up, I have two “deadlines” I can miss before the real, drop-dead deadline.

  2. Avatar Janet Reid says:

    I concur with this most heartily!

  3. Avatar Hollie says:

    I hate, being late, I’m usually early when I go to the hairdressers.

    It’s the one thing I hated everytime I was sick, when I was doing my degree. Having to arrange new deadlines, usually I would make myself worse getting things done before the final dates.

    I’m not sure how to go about setting a working schedule for a ms, this one has gone from a fun challenge, to therapy to a serious working project, including huge learning curve. I suspected it’s one more thing on the list of things still to learn about myself as an author.