Got my 1st gig. Now what? Help!

Nazuba

Amber, I congratulate you on your first gig.
I have been working on sites like upwork since 2008. I don't mean to scare you or anything, but I think I should share some of my experiences.

Before upwork there were other sites like scriptlance (which is now owned by getafreelancer). Upwork and elance were one of the "better" ones since the client base and the worker base in general was a bit more capable. The sites were mostly populated by People from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh who can put bids as low as $1 or 50 cents per hour. My point is, most people who come to upwork have either migrated from there (the workers) or they have heard they can hire cheap labor on those sites. That mentality still rules most of those websites I'm afraid so please be careful.

Be very specific and clear about how many hours you think you will need to finish before you start and there will ofcourse be the hour logger software provided by upwork to log in your hours and that will lock the money the client owes you from the client's account.

Since this is a long project, you can get into a milestone type payment but upwork does not gurantee a payment of that sort like the logged hours. If you live in the USA better get into a proper legal contract so that they know they cant take you lightly. Most often than not, jobs that require long periods of time like yours can end up being left by the client and you become the ghost worker. Just be careful please.
All the best.

Lee White

@amberwingart Hey! Congrats on the job!

Here is what I recommend for ya:

Go watch the business videos. If you haven't done that, you need to.
Go buy a digital copy of the Graphic Arts Guild: Pricing and Ethical guidelines. Use their contracts.
Get a signed contract from your client (2 copies, one for you and one for them).
Get a payment advance. Typically this will be at least 1/3. If this is a private person (not a company), do not take less than this amount. If they don't want to pay this, walk away. A client who won't pay in the beginning is definitely not going to pay in the end.
Try to speed up and automate your process so you are quicker. One card every two days should be the goal. I've simplified my art somewhat over the years and just finished a 32 page picture book in 31 days. That's one finished image per day. This will make/save me thousands of dollars in a single year. Time is money, and if you are slow you will pay for it. So the question becomes how can you speed your process up? Think like the animation industry. Use backgrounds over and over and just paint the new stuff on top. Try to reuse imagery where you can. Build digital brushes that take the work out of image making, etc. Each person is different, but every pro needs to figure this out in their own way.
Get the second payment (of 1/3 the total bill) after you deliver sketches. Don't work on just one card at a time. Try to bring them all up at the same time. So submit all sketches, then get approval, then do the edits/revisions, then on to final paint. Get the last 1/3 payment at the delivery of final art.
See if you can use some of these as promotion throughout the year. It will build an audience for the project and keep you in the public eye. Many book illustrators fail AFTER their first book deal because no one sees them for a year while they work on the book!

That's it for now. Go kick some booty!! : )

amberwingart

@Lee-White You rock!!! Thank you SO SO much! I've been so scared about all of this that I've almost self sabotaged myself out of it. I have one more question though...

I didn't tell her that I'd be asking for any money up front because I was scared of losing the gig. How do I now come back to her and say that I want an advance? We have our first meeting on Thursday to go over the contracts. Should I wait until then to tell her or should I say something now? Or should I say that I require 1/3 down after the first set of 10 sketches are delivered and act like that's just normal?

amberwingart

Thank you so much @corykerr and @Nazuba for the input and advice!! I'm feeling so much pressure on this one that I already messed up by not telling the client I require a down payment :(. Now I'm not sure how to come back to her and ask for one without sounding unprofessional. We have our first art direction meeting on Thursday, where we're also going to go over the contract, so I was thinking I could say that I require 1/3 down after the first 10 sketches are delivered. That's the only way I can think to fix this... Do either of you have any suggestions?

Lee White

I would do it like this:

Take the contract to her and just go over all the details. Just bring the payment schedule up during that process. You will need to discuss rights, and dates, and all sorts of stuff. The payment schedule is just part of that. Try not to have anxiety around it. This is the normal way people get paid on long term contracts. If there is any reluctance on her part, explain that you need the advance to support doing the art. Otherwise how would artists pay rent and groceries if they didn't have money for a year! : )

Again, it IS a deal breaker if she doens't want to do it. Do not do a ton of work and expect to be paid later. That rarely ever works out in our favor. If she has questions, send her to me: l.white@leewhiteillustration.com. Id be happy to help out.

amberwingart

@Lee-White Thank you so much Lee!!! As you can probably tell, I'm a ball of nerves. The performance anxiety is bad enough, but this... lol

I'll go watch the business videos - I haven't seen those yet!

amberwingart

@Lee-White Sorry, last question! What do you think about giving her all of the rights? Do you think that's okay? She wants this to be a 'work for hire.'

corykerr

@amberwingart "...Now I'm not sure how to come back to her and ask for one without sounding unprofessional."

No prob, you're reviewing the contract and part of that should be the payment schedule. Next time, let the client know earlier, but it is still totally cool to bring it up now. It is a logical and normal term of the contract. Saying things like this, positively, "Great! I'm excited about this project and I'll get started as soon as I get that down payment," or something along those lines is a good way to remind them of the schedule. I'll echo what @Lee-White said again, no money up front is an absolute deal breaker.

"Sorry, last question! What do you think about giving her all of the rights? Do you think that's okay? She wants this to be a 'work for hire."

What is "okay" here is what you are comfortable with. I will say that "work for hire" or the "shop rule" only applies when you are on a full-time-with-benifits in-house employment situation. The reason for that is that as an independent contractor, you have extra expenses like self-employment tax, health care, equipment, etc, that don't come into play if you're working in an office as an employee. The potential residual income of the work is important. Now, there are times when a full-rights-buy-out feels right to me, but I charge more for that.

Don't let the anxiety get the best of you, you have landed the gig, the rest of this is just learning what you're willing to do and what is a deal breaker.

amberwingart

@corykerr Phew (deep breath)...lol. Thank you Cory! It'd be so great if there was a coaching section here at SVS for newbie's who just land a gig and are terrified. I'll bet that'd be really popular! lol

I can't seem to find the contracts section of the Graphic Arts Guild book/download, so I'm just going to use another illustrator's contract template I found online. Hopefully that'll be okay. It seems like it covers most everything. And I'm copying all of this to keep in a file that I can easily access.

Thank you again so much for the help and moral support - this is a huge step for me!

Lee White

@amberwingart here is the download of the contracts and all the other info: https://graphicartistsguild.org/handbook/cat/digital

corykerr

@Lee-White There's a download!? I hand typed it from the book. Learn something new every day

Lee White

@corykerr yep! they made it easy for us! : )

QuietYell

@amberwingart Regarding the link @Lee-White gave: If you were only wanting to purchase one of the books, the specific digital book with the link to the downloadable contracts is "Business Practice Essentials for Graphic Artists" (it is in the Appendix of the book), but it might be beneficial for you to get all 3 books if you can.

They also have some articles on their site regarding contracts in their Tools/Resources section:

https://graphicartistsguild.org/tools_resources/browse

(They have 3 pages of article listings in the pagination below the list - I missed that at first)

amberwingart

@Lee-White Thank you!! I'm working on the contract right now, but it brought up yet another question...is the illustrator responsible for the photography of the pieces if it's done in traditional media? Is there any extra charge to the client if we are?

amberwingart

This post is deleted!

Lee White

@amberwingart typically artists in the past have sent the original art to the publisher. It was their responsibility to scan it and make sure it is color correct. Sadly, this task is being shifted to the illustrator with many companies requiring you to send digital files. We do not get compensation for this.

It's so lame that this cost has been shifted to the illustrator. Make no mistake, this part of a job is a REALLY BIG DEAL. If you don't know how to handle this yet, you might want to think about it before agreeing to the job. If you paint small, you can scan on a simple flat bed scanner. But then you will need to adjust and touch up the image and get it ready for print. This is one of the main reasons for going digital (in my opinion). Your speed and ability to give print ready files goes up exponentially when working digitally.

It's a lot of stuff to think about and you are definitely getting a "trial by fire" on this one. You may lose money and time on taking a job this big and not have all the steps, etc. figured out. Be careful!

amberwingart

@Lee-White Wow, that's a bum deal on the photography! Thankfully I happen to have invested in some good photography equipment and lighting a couple of months ago. But she hasn't gotten back to me on the contract, so I'm pretty sure she won't go for anything but a work for hire, which I just don't feel comfortable with, so I don't think I'll be doing the job, which is a bummer. But at least this has really opened my eyes to what I haven't known and all of the important details of the business side! I've only watched the 3rd video of the business vids so far, but it's been really helpful. Do you know of someone who does business coaching for illustrators who I can run my contract by? I think I got scared and went overeboard and asked for too much...

QuietYell

@Lee-White Out of curiosity, do you not include itemization of or a "not included in quote cost" portion for 3rd party costs (e.g. scanning, stock photos/textures, printing/hosting/etc. costs, shipping/transfer costs, etc.) & incidental expenses (e.g. travel, hotel, food, etc.) as part of your quote & contract? (This has been important for advertising/design, web development, consultation & other work I have done) Or are you saying that even if attempted to include such, publishers will reject those?

amberwingart

@QuietYell There's a provision in the Graphic Artists Guild contract that covers that also, so I'm curious as well if that section would be rejected by publishers...

amberwingart

HOLY MOLE!! Thank you @Lee-White for your business videos and your advice - they just saved what I thought was an unsave-able negotiation. I watched your video 3 and I screen capped a few things you had up so that I could educate the client on things like work for hire, buy out of rights, typical pricing, length of time it takes an illustrator to create a piece, etc. And then I encouraged her to do a little research herself and to look at other illustrators on Upwork, where she hired me. I told her that she could definitely get someone for cheaper, but she'll have to make some concessions somewhere, with style, time, etc. and most likely they won't have the knowledge of the tarot, animal symbolism & astrology that I have, which means she'll have to give them a lot more direction, rather than getting ideas. Watching the video really helped me to feel confident about what I was saying to her, which helped her calm down.

At first she was clearly really upset, but after I talked with her she said she understood and she started asking me about other ways to pay me, like getting shares in her business or collaborating on the project, with me getting a percentage of the profits in return for a lower pay, and with us sharing copyrights (I'll have to ask about that). I said I'd definitely be interested in that, as long as I get attribution.

Speaking of attribution, she apologized profusely for the portion of her contract that said that she'd take credit for creating it and she said that she didn't know it was in there (I don't believe that, because a few seconds later she was talking about how celebrities have tarot card sets that only have their name on them and not the artist's, but whatever, I told her I wouldn't do that and she agreed).

SO, the train is back on track. I'm thinking of offering her exclusive unlimited worldwide rights for the original $10,5007, plus me getting 25% of the profits from the sale of the tarot, app & merchandise. Or is that too much? I don't know what percentage I should ask for...

There's no guarantee she'll accept, since the contract isn't signed yet, but she's going to come up with some proposals for me and we're going to talk again on Monday. THANK YOU @Lee-White AND SVS!!!