I don’t care how organized you are or how many deadlines you’ve never missed, at some point in your career, you will need an extension. Like death and taxes, it’s a truism of life. Honestly, I hope you face this at some point in your publishing journey. It usually means you have a busy, active career with many books and this is the one that just needs an assist.
Life happens and no matter how hard we plan, things surprise us. It could be a wedding, a funeral, or a pandemic. Whatever it is it’s impacting your ability to meet your deadline. It might even be the book–no matter how hard you’re working this one is a slog. That is fine too.
Requests for extensions shouldn’t be scary and they don’t brand you as someone who can’t meet their obligations. I don’t think a month goes by when someone at BookEnds isn’t requesting an extension. Editors are used to them and managing them is usually quite easy. Now of course you don’t want to be that author who needs one for every book, but every once in a while, that’s just fine.
Let your agent know and have a plan. It’s easiest for everyone if you know exactly how long you’ll need and, of course, stick to that. One extension is easy to ask for. Two or three gets to be tricky.
And then breathe your sigh of relief and finish that book. I’m sure it’s going to be great!
Thanks so much for coming to the blog. Please don’t forget to like and share this post. We value feedback and questions from readers, so feel free to leave a comment below! Lastly, subscribe to our YouTube channel for even more publishing insights and advice, and follow us on our socials to see what we’re up to. Twitter | Instagram | Illustrator Instagram | Facebook | TikTok
I don’t care how organized you are or how many deadlines you’ve never missed, at some point in your career, you will need an extension. Like death and taxes, it’s a truism of life. Honestly, I hope you face this at some point in your publishing journey. It usually means you have a busy, active career with many books and this is the one that just needs an assist.
Life happens and no matter how hard we plan, things surprise us. It could be a wedding, a funeral, or a pandemic. Whatever it is it’s impacting your ability to meet your deadline. It might even be the book–no matter how hard you’re working this one is a slog. That is fine too.
Requests for extensions shouldn’t be scary and they don’t brand you as someone who can’t meet their obligations. I don’t think a month goes by when someone at BookEnds isn’t requesting an extension. Editors are used to them and managing them is usually quite easy. Now of course you don’t want to be that author who needs one for every book, but every once in a while, that’s just fine.
Let your agent know and have a plan. It’s easiest for everyone if you know exactly how long you’ll need and, of course, stick to that. One extension is easy to ask for. Two or three gets to be tricky.
And then breathe your sigh of relief and finish that book. I’m sure it’s going to be great!
Thanks so much for coming to the blog. Please don’t forget to like and share this post. We value feedback and questions from readers, so feel free to leave a comment below! Lastly, subscribe to our YouTube channel for even more publishing insights and advice, and follow us on our socials to see what we’re up to.
Twitter | Instagram | Illustrator Instagram | Facebook | TikTok
Share this:
Like this: