Question Regarding Contract With an Agent

[Lynniesketches]

Hello everyone,

I was in the initial stage of signing with a literary agent, who just sent me a contract to review. As I went over the contract, there was a section for me to fill out a list of items that I would like to exclude from my “Illustrator’s Work.” Items excluded from the “Illustrator’s Work” are not sold, negotiated, nor managed by the agency and, therefore, the agency does not receive a commission for them.

I am pretty new to this, so I would like to ask your opinions about the types of work I can put here. This might be varied from person to person, but I am happy to see a variety of answers before actually conducting my own list and send it to my agent for a final review. Thank you so much.

[NessIllustration]

@Lynniesketches This depends and would be very personal to your preferences. For instance, maybe you wish to develop some work for licensing (pattern designs, florals, etc) but you think a licensing agent might be better suited to sell those, or you want to sell them yourself without the commission because you already have the connections.

[Melanie Ortins]

That depends on what you personally want to exclude but I can share what I wrote when I signed with my agency. Since my agent primarily focuses on children's publishing and doesn't have many connections outside of that, I excluded everything unrelated to children's publishing. I also listed specific examples for other areas I want to work in, such as sale of prints and original work, as well as pattern design and art licensing. Hope this helps!

[Lynniesketches]

@NessIllustration Thank you for your reply. Very appreciate it!

@Melanie-Ortins Thank you. That's very helpful! I think I had seen your post asking about East West Literary, did you end up signing with them? If you did, how was your experience with them so far, if you don't mind sharing? They reached out to me as well, and I'm currently reviewing their contract.

[Melanie Ortins]

@Lynniesketches Haha, I was wondering if it was them because the phrasing you mentioned sounded like the same contract. Yeah I signed with them honestly I've talked to Deborah on the phone and Ana over email and they both seem super nice but nothing much has happened with them yet (it's been a few months). They're currently updating their website which is somewhat outdated so I think they're waiting to have that up and running before they do any serious promotion. But it should be up soon now so I wouldn't worry much in your case. I've also talked to a few other artists that Deborah represents and they seem to love her!

[Lynniesketches]

@Melanie-Ortins Thank you for the insight! Looking forward to seeing how things go in the future.