Whatever Their Scheme, It Should Remain A Dream

I design book covers. I was just starting out when a client contacted me to do a bundle of five covers. Needless to say, I jumped on it.

Well, I shouldn’t have. The first red flag came when they negotiated my fare down to only 10% of what I would have originally charged. I should have declined them then and there, but I was new at this and needed the money.

Red flag number two?

Me: “So, what are the titles of the books?”

Client: “I haven’t picked yet. But start putting something together in the meantime.”

Red flag number three:

Me: “What are the plots?”

The client listed five generic plots that sounded like recaps of recent rom-coms.

These covers were for romance novels. The client had a few ideas for the layout they wanted — bulky, messy ideas — and I couldn’t talk them out of them. The big idea was that even though these were romance novels, they shouldn’t feature people. Just… “schemes.”

No, I don’t know what that means, either.

After seven revisions:

Me: “How does this cover look to you?”

Client: “The plot of my book is about schemes. You need to put more schemes on the cover.”

Me: “But no people?”

Client: “No people. Absolutely not.”

Me: “What kind of schemes are in the book?”

Client: “Perfume.”

Me: “…Perfume is a scheme?”

Client: “Of course!”

I put a perfume bottle on the cover.

Client: “What are you doing? I said more schemes! How dim are you?”

Finally, I broke off the relationship. I told them that, clearly, I wasn’t doing the job they wanted, and I wasn’t interested in continuing to do the work.

Two months later:

Client: “So, what — you’re not going to do this design for me anymore?”

If that’s their idea of “trying to get someone back,” I doubt their romance novels are going to be any good.