Do You Have a Slushpile?

In the event that I have a client who a publisher wants to illustrate an existing picture book text, I get an email in my inbox. The first thing I'm doing is alerting the creator, of course. We have an offer. Do you like this manuscript? Would you like me to negotiate? Here's how I think I can improve this. Do you have a bottom line? What schedule can you make? They're asking for art quickly. Can you do that? If not, what can you do? Those kinds of questions. And then I'm the one going back to the publisher and negotiating and keeping my client in the loop about what I'm getting and what I'm not