Just to prove that it's not all fun and games, I spent most of yesterday emailing a number of artists and asking about "that piece that was due today." Nearly none of them were done...or even particularly close to being done in a few cases.
I love artists, I really do...Some days it’s just harder to remember why.
Many artists don't understand book publishing schedules and it’s no wonder. In magazine or newspaper publishing, if a job is due at 3:00pm Thursday then it gets done by 3:00pm Thursday. Period. If not, the story runs without the art, you never get another job from that AD, and it’s likely that you don't get much work from anyone that knows that AD. In book publishing...well, we have these odd cumulative deadlines. Three times a year I need to get four month’s worth of covers designed and ready for meetings, a black and white catalog, a color presentation, proofing deadlines, more meetings...all leading up to the actual printed book. I often hear artists complain, “I was working like crazy to meet the deadline and now, suddenly, there is tons time in the schedule!?” More often then not, missing that first deadline has caused some quiet havoc behind the scenes. It means that the AD has found a way to make-do for a while with a sketch or a shot of the painting in-progress, or they begged the patience of various Sales and Marketing peoples, or were willing to stay up very late the night before a deadline trying to wrestle out a quick design. None of this is seen by the artist so it seems that the first deadline was rather arbitrary. But those deadlines really were there for the good of the book, not to mention the mental health of the art director. (Artists - You want the books sporting your artwork to do well. If a book does well, the company will want to try and copy that success, which includes working with that cover artist again.)
If artwork is going to be late, communicating with the AD is key. We may have lots of time in the schedule and we may not. If asked, there may be easy ways to work it out so that both the AD and the artist is happy. Tom O’Brien created the artwork for our Starscape edition of Prince Umbra. In the middle he got a call from Time Magazine to do a cover. He asked if there was any way that he could squeeze an extra week from us. (Mind you, he did stress that he was prepared too turn Time down so that he could meet his prior commitment to us.) We had the time. He did both covers. Everyone was happy.
I should say that there are many reasons a cover can be late that is not the artist's fault. I screw up, the editor might not be forthcoming with information at the time I need it, a book is added to the schedule late, etc., but since yesterday was “Prod the Artist Day”....