Hi.
not sure if this belongs in this forum…
Illustrator here. This is my 3rd career, so even though I'm 46, I only started professionally working on this field last year.
I'm a freelancer and right now I make 400-500 USD an average of (25 hrs a week). This is not my only client. I manage cause my sons' fathers pays a generous amount each month. I'm slowly raising the amount.
Ok. I have a client. Independent book publisher. Lovely, young fun, and knowledgable people. Pays reasonably well and on time. I NEED regular clients instead of searching for different projects/clients all the time, so this client is important to me. The problem is… sometimes they take *A MONTH*, usually more than 2 weeks, for any kind of feedback.
Personal life is really demanding now, so time management is a must. The fact that I NEVER know when their feedback (and thus more work) will come in REALLY messes up my schedule. I mean, there will be 2 weeks of radio silence… so I accept another small client (cause I need to make money) and then their feedback comes in and I'm burdened with two projects at the same time.
I have asked twice for this to improve. No real change. I just finished a project for them and I have been waiting for almost 3 weeks for final approval/payment. This means I won't get the 500 USD I'm owed this month, so now I have to work on other fast/urgent projects to get income. They seem to want to start another project after this. How do I tell them, professionally and politely that their timing needs to improve?
Thanks.