Wednesday, November 9, 2011

11-9-11 Causes of My Homelessness #4

Before I go into this subject matter, I MUST be very clear that the people I am indirectly referring to in this posting probably would not be reading this post.  In addition, since this is a very small amount of people that I am referring to, it in NO way reflects on the many people that work with me and my business.  I have worked extremely hard with my authors and artist to build a relationship that I pray that it is long lasting and I sincerely hope becomes profitable for all of them on their individual projects and as owners of Creative House Press.  Now with that being said, I must outline the fourth of five reasons why I am currently homeless.
The human Ego is a very treacherous thing that pushes us to become the best at many things on many levels.  But, it is that Ego that has lead us to become so self absorbed and to only think of ourselves.
I work with a variety of people from a wide range of backgrounds, sexuality, creativeness, etc.  Each one has a dream to create something and then to share it with the world.  It is my job to take that item and to help create it in a form that can be shared with others.  I work with a variety of people to help create that item.  The most important aspect is that I work with the artist or author to create their work.  It is that working relationship that sets me apart from traditional publishing houses, especially since I don’t charge for that service.  I know how critical it is for them to be a part of the journey.  So when I work with an author or an artist that begins o dictate to me every little detail of the project, regardless of what I know will or will not work, I find it a bit frustrating.  When I remind them that they are not paying me, usually they get the message and re-group how they are approaching the project.
What really gets me is when you are working on a project and the author or artist does not give their input or ideas, not because they don’t have any to give, but because they don’t want to spend the time or energy to create the perfect book.  Instead, they lead you along making you think everything is perfect when it is not.  They don’t promote their book and in fact will talk bad about it, but fail to advise the publisher of what’s wrong.  They don’t have the time or energy.  Ok, I’m confused.  You have the time and energy to talk bad about your book, but not the time or energy to let the publisher know there are issues.  How can the publisher fix anything if they are unaware of any issues.  In fact, the author or artist approved the book, so why would there be issues.  This happened with two books which caused me to lose thousands of dollars in sales.  The only way I found out about there being issues was when I confronted the author or artist about the lack of promotion.  Then the truth came out, but by then the damage was done to the book and to my company.
The other aspect I love is when an author or artist is extremely late in delivering their book.  Then once delivered, makes changes after it’s gone to press, not once, but several times.  These constant changing costs a lot of money to re-set and re-load the book to the printers and to the eBook system.  In addition, the delays cut into a sales period or cause it to be delayed by months or years.  When projections are made for sales and expenditures based on a book being available, it creates chaos and financial disaster when that book is delayed.  This too has happened to me on a few occasions which caused me to lose thousands in sales.
Finally, as I briefly mentioned earlier, there is that one or two authors who Ego’s are so huge that they choose to ignore you and do as they please with absolutely no regard as to what it may cost the publisher.  This too has cost me to lose sales income.
Between the three items mentioned above, I have determined that I lost over $50,000 in sales and $15,000 in cash.  For my small business, that’s huge.  It is large enough of a lost that I seriously have to determine a way to recover that, either through a law suit, or personal arrangements with the author or artist.  As you can guess, personal settlement is not happening, thus leaving me to file a law suit.  Lucky for them, I’m so broke; I can’t afford to hire a lawyer.  So the rich get richer and the poorer get poorer.
Life goes on…I go on.

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