Cartoonists and Artists: How do you deal with lotsa orders?

[lonigan]

I’m a casual seller: I keep my gig low key so I have time for work and assessment, and so I don’t feel overwhelmed. I had 9 orders to do in seven days, which would’ve been easy if I had the free time to accompany it. I almost died trying to get them done, staying up til 3am with work in the morning.



When I see the top-rated seller artists with 20 in queue and a three day est delivery, I think, "you organised b*****d, you! How are you alive?"



Tell me your stories, fellow cartoonists, artists, and doodlers of the like. Ever been swamped? And more importantly, how did you survive?

[itsyourthing]

Only create gigs that you can produce in a time-frame that you know you will ALWAYS be able to spend.



Feast or famine is the only law of any freelance or creative worker. 🙂

[hellographic]

Coffee, my friend.

[Guest matt_garry]

I do not draw but I feel the same with my music gigs. I think the secret is comfort zones I will take 1/3 of jobs I know are a little extra work for the money either because I am less experience in the style or the customer is particularly hard to deal with… and the other jobs I will make sure to be very familiar with the style so I can bang them out quick:) And yess coffeee or better yet the latest sugary energy concoction 🙂

[sher1972]

I Have a 14 day turnaround time on my illustration gig and I ask that people don’t order more than three in one day if they have a bunch they need done. The 14 day thing came about after a few different lead times were experimented with and I’m comfortable here. I’ve seen some who have 25 or more days to complete, and if they have 20 or more in their queue, then they’re essentially doing one job a day as an average. I have had some people ignore my request and order 10 or more all on the same day, and yes, then I was busting butt to get them all done (that was when I only had a 4 day turnaround time), and that’s when I started changing my lead time to something I can do casually and enjoy the jobs instead of panicking on a daily basis.

[Guest gamersuscentral]

I felt like that last week and I had to change my gig from 1 day to 2 days. Then I switched it back once the weekend was over.

[Guest gamersuscentral]

I felt like that last week and I had to change my gig from 1 day to 2 days. Then I switched it back once the weekend was over.

[pkscomix]

The turnaround time for most of my gigs is 7 days. Right now since I only have 1 or 2 gigs in queue at a time I can get the gigs done before then. I keep those times for my gigs incase I do have a lot of orders all at once.

[ynneblack]

Well, since I offer realistic pictures, I tried to add longer time (25 days), and some people still didn’t understand… well, they were like, “do it till the end of week” without paying extra to make it quick, they just demanded … so I always suspend my gig when I’m overhelmed. :C