Got my 1st gig. Now what? Help!
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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.
SVS Faculty Instructor
www.leewhiteillustration.com -
@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!
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@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.'
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@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.
see my things! --> www.corykerr.com
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@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!
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@amberwingart here is the download of the contracts and all the other info: https://graphicartistsguild.org/handbook/cat/digital
SVS Faculty Instructor
www.leewhiteillustration.com -
@Lee-White There's a download!? I hand typed it from the book. Learn something new every day
see my things! --> www.corykerr.com
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@corykerr yep! they made it easy for us! : )
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@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)
Scott Monaco | QuietYell.com
IG/FB/LI: @QuietYell
IG-2: @QuietYellSketches
TW/PIN/BEH/DEVART: @ScottMonaco
SCBWI: http://bit.ly/1r8Dmqr -
@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?
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@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!
SVS Faculty Instructor
www.leewhiteillustration.com -
@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...
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@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?
Scott Monaco | QuietYell.com
IG/FB/LI: @QuietYell
IG-2: @QuietYellSketches
TW/PIN/BEH/DEVART: @ScottMonaco
SCBWI: http://bit.ly/1r8Dmqr -
@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...
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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!!!
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@amberwingart Really pleased for you, that - hopefully - you will be able to turn what was a difficult situation, into something that works out well for you both! Your last conversation sounds like it was difficult but that you made a lot of progress...great to hear that Lee's business courses were so helpful.
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@Dulcie Thank you!! I really doubt she'll go for it, but honestly it doesn't even matter - what matters is that I felt really good being able to explain to her what I learned from Lee's course and being able to explain why I thought the work was worth what I'm asking. Being able to take a screen shot of Lee's course and explain to her all of the steps in between our art direction meeting and getting the finished illustration done was really helpful for her. She didn't realize how much work goes into each illustration. She thought it was just 2-3 hours of work for each one.
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@amberwingart Do you have any updates for us? I'm really interested in hearing about what happened!
