Recently I got an email that grabbed my attention. No, it wasn’t an ad for Viagra, or a letter from my Dad or an offer from Marvel to write Ghost Rider. In fact, the bulk of it was your standard fan letter concerning Robot 13. What made me take notice, however, was the opening. This person, who loved reading about Robot 13, asked the following question: “Are you guys still in business?”

Today’s lesson is short and sweet: Time IS Your Enemy.

In the publishing world, there are many reasons why something might be late. Often, something in the production flow holds a book up- the writer is late with a script, the artist is late penciling or inking, the colorist is taking too long or the lettering has issues. If you are doing everything (or at least most things) yourself, then you have your own schedule to blame. By that I mean- when you have a team working on a book, you can hope if 1 person has personal issues, the rest of the team is ready to pick up the slack. If you can’t pencil a book because you are up all night with your daughter who’s puking her Lucky Charms all over your Converse, then the rest of your comic chores are behind as well.

It might be a holdup in editorial or proofreading- quite often, “creative differences” is cited, but that’s just code for “stubbornness” 99 out of 100 times. To be fair- when I say people are being stubborn, that’s not the same as me saying they are wrong to do so. What those clashes do, however, is eat up time and time is always the enemy.

Say you do have the “perfect” team and you are always on or ahead of schedule- printers can throw another wrench into the machine. Setting up the files, making and shipping proofs and a host of other pre-press steps can have their glitches. Once the presses are rolling, they can break down, misprint or just take more time than expected. And remember- your job is only the most important thing to YOU. Unless you are dropping 6 figures or more on printing, you aren’t likely to be in the printer’s top 50 clients, so your job may get delayed based on their priorities…

Shipping can delay things too- whether you are shipping something overnight via UPS or are accounting for 5 weeks to get something on a boat from China, there can be problems. Trucks can break down, customs can hold shipments, deliveries can go to the wrong address… basically if it CAN happen, it MAY happen and there is no guarantee that anyone can make that will 1000% get everything to you on time.

If that’s not enough- once you have your books, you have to get them to stores. That in and of itself can be a hassle- not so much on the stores part, but usually you have to ship via the least expensive and therefore slowest method… guess what that can do? If you guessed “cause an unexpected delay,” then you are a winner!

Here’s the problem with knowing all that- in the end, if you are your own publisher, then it’s your fault when something doesn’t arrive on time and nobody cares why you were late. If you are a little late, most times people will complain. If you are very late, you could lose orders or face returns and now you are stuck with books that you might not be able to sell. And, if any of those delays are compounded by printing mistakes or books being damaged (even slightly) then you may have a riot on your hands.

Or, worse yet, nobody will care because they will have written you and your book off.

While there are many factors which can cause this problem, there is only 1 way to fix it and that is to add extra time to your schedule. How much will depend on how many of those factors you want to account for, but if you don’t do that you are set up for failure. At this point, I could give you stacks of anecdotes about missing deadlines- even issue 2 of Robot 13 was delayed for almost 3 weeks between Customs and Chinese New Year shipping delays- but I won’t. Bottom line is most people don’t work far enough ahead and have books in hand before their release dates to keep on schedule. If Image can make a career of doing that, why can’t you, right?

Well- if you wake up tomorrow and you are Todd McFarlane, then go for it. But even Todd has been burned by late shipments, and 10 to 1 he does everything he can to avoid delays or missed ship dates.

That’s it. Get your crap out on time or else.

*NOTE: In an effort for full disclosure, this column was 10 days late in being posted. My dog ate the original and I had to re-type it. I swear. Go ask my Mom.

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