Hello Fair Readers,

Today, I have a little story to tell you.

This is the story of an author and her long-standing partnership with her publisher.

Over the years, Sally Author worked her heart out for this publisher.  She worked through power outages, birthday parties, and bouts of flu.  She sacrificed date nights, weekends, appointments, and other opportunities in order to meet the publisher’s deadlines.

Each time Sally submitted her work to her editor, the editor always requested “a few little changes”.

Now these “little changes” often required scores, sometimes hundreds of hours of work, but Sally was committed to doing a good job.  She didn’t want to be blacklisted in the publishing industry as “hard to work with”.  And she wanted to maintain a good relationship with her publisher, because after all, they were partners.

So she poured in more effort, more long hours, sacrificed more personal time.

From a business perspective, when Sally compared the hours she worked to the payment she received from her publisher, she knew she was earning minimum wage–sometimes less than that.  But this work was her passion.  Her calling.  And she truly respected the publishing house.

Besides, their partnership, their work together to do something great and truly make a difference, was part of the payment.

Then one day, the publisher came to Sally with a new request.  “We love working with you, and we want you to pioneer this new project for us” the editor said.

Joy!  A chance to continue her work with the publisher!

So Sally canceled all her plans, planted herself in her chair, and for weeks plowed through the massive research needed to prepare for the project.  Of course, none of this work was paid work, but hey!  She had a partnership with a publisher she respected!  She had an exciting new project!

At the end of these weeks, she had also had detailed outlines and a thorough proposal, and she was ready to go.

Then the publisher reviewed her proposal.

Silence.

Sally Author fretted, until an e-mail arrived from her editor:  “We’ve put your project on hold.  We’ll get back to you in a few months.  Stay tuned.”

Well!  She’d obviously worried for nothing.  They were partners, after all.  Not only that, they shared a mutual faith.  She might even consider them friends.  And with the recession, who could blame the publishing house for being cautious?  If there was any problem with her proposal, if they need her to rework it or wanted her to go a different direction, her editor would have told her.

Meanwhile she was excited about the other project she already had with this publisher.  Her editor often mentioned the great reader feedback they received, and she felt proud of all she’d accomplished.

Several months later, her editor e-mailed, asking for a conference call. Sally couldn’t wait.  This was it!  She was certain this was the green light for the new project.

But she was wrong.

“We’ve changed our minds,” said the editor. “We’ve given someone else the new project. In fact, they’re already half done with it.  Oh, and we’ve been delighted with your work, but we’re deleting your current project from our backlist, and we also won’t be working with you in the future.”

Sally’s stomach twisted tighter than a New York pretzel.   WHAT had gone so terribly wrong?

The editor continued, “But we did love your work.  And we’ll recommend you to other publishers.  May God richly bless you.”

Click.

Sally sat in her worn out office chair, stunned and disoriented.  Nothing was as it seemed.  The publisher wasn’t her friend.  Her editor wasn’t honest.  And the publishing relationship she’d sacrificed so much for was gone.  Just like that.

—–

Authors, does this story sound familiar? I don’t blame you if you’re shuddering in horror at this point.  We’ve all heard stories about publishers reneging on deals, breaking authors’ trust and hearts in the process.

But this particular story is a little different, because it’s not an author’s story.  It’s PulsePoint Design’s story.  Go back through the tale above, and replace the words editor and publisher with “design client”.  Now replace the word “Sally” with “web designer”.

In our line of work, clients are like our publishing house.  We, like authors, work our hardest to make each project better than the last.  And we pour our very best into building and strengthening long-term partnerships with our “publishers”.

The sad thing is, authors who would be horrified and devastated if their publishing house treated them in the manner I described above, treat their design teams in the same way.

So with this post, I’d like to make a few suggestions about how to handle a break up with your design firm:

 1.) Remember the “Changing Horses” Principle.  To avoid conflict, it may seem easier to dump your design partner and find someone else, but easy isn’t always smart.  As Abe Lincoln once said, “don’t change horses mid-stream”.  You may get swept away by the current and realize too late how foolish your choice was.  Instead, try sharing your concerns with your designer(s).  Ask for a different price, request a new direction, communicate.  Just as Sally would have done her best to accommodate her publisher’s request, so most design teams I know will do their utmost to meet their client’s needs.

2.)  Don’t Lie.  If you’re leaving because you’re not happy with the work, say so!  If your publisher dumped you because of something you did, wouldn’t you want to know, so you could improve?  By choosing the path of least resistance and not being honest with your design team, you not only rob them of the truth, you also rob them of the chance to grow.

3.) Don’t Morph.   If you’re a Christian author, try to behave like one during the break-up process.  That means abstaining from fake Christian platitudes, nastiness, bullying (or sending in a spouse to do the bullying for you), screaming on your design firm’s answering machine, slandering, hacking into your design firm’s server, and other classy behaviors.

4.)  Don’t Gloat.  I realize this may be asking a lot, but when you’ve dumped your firm and launched out with a new company, try to be considerate in your announcements.  Using the analogy above, imagine if your former publisher sent out press releases far and wide, talking about how wonderful it was to work with another author in your place.   Imagine the humiliation you’d feel.  The defeat.    Now think about what it does to your former design firm when you boast on every writing loop and Yahoo group about your “new and improved” design.

Just a few weeks ago, we declined a design client and the sizeable fee that came with her project when we realized she was an active client of a design firm we respect.   Instead, we urged her to talk to her designer and to work out their differences.

When we do take on a re-design client, we try to be careful about how we announce their new site.  We’re careful with our verbiage when comparing before and afters, and we do our best to be as respectful as we can of the efforts of the past designer.

We do this because we firmly believe you reap what you sow.  If you sow disrespect and pain, it’s going to come back to you.  If you believe your mission is God inspired, but you build your personal kingdom on the broken backs of others, that kingdom is destined for collapse.

We hope clients of every design firm will take this advice to heart, and do to others as they’d like others to do to them.

Have a great weekend, and as always:

Sell your work…not your soul

Posted on June 4th, 2009 by admin
Filed under: Web Wisdom | 1 Comment »