Where Do You Fit In The Picture Book Landscape?
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if it's with a traditional publisher (real company) then go with the advance.
Sure. No argument there.
When working with an author, flat fee is not out of the question.
Oh, nothing is ever "out of the question". I think that EVERY project should be approached on a case-by-case basis. Every clients needs and every illustrator's needs are different.
My issue with Will's position/advice in the podcast is that he presented getting paid by self-publishers as: "Your options are royalties or flat fee. Pick one. But royalties are out, so it's gotta' be a flat fee."
And I continue to say NOPE! As creative business people who understand licensing intellectual property we have more options than just that simple binary (see my post above)
We elaborate more in the podcast on both of those points.
Great. Nuance is important in this case.
Will actually has a story of a flat fee he negotiated with a traditional publisher that worked out massively in his favor.
With a "traditional publisher"? Didn't we establish earlier that traditional publishers should do the advance against royalties?
Regardless, I love me a good anecdote! I look forward to hearing Will's experience. Can't imagine how it would be better than what I am proposing, but I'm always open to learning new things!
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@carlianne It seems a lot of us ask this question of "where does my art fit in" . It might be a fun idea to start a thread where we all just post links to our work and we can comment what comes to mind in terms of the market we see that art fitting into.
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@davidhohn To clarify, I would always have picked a royalty situation with a publisher, but Will threw that out the window with this story!
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@griffin great idea!
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@lee-white Hang on let's actually clarify this -- so you are saying that based on this mysterious, yet compelling, story from Will, that YOU personally would not want a royalty arrangement with a traditional publisher from now on, but would prefer a flat fee?
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Lee White SVS Team SVS Instructor Pro SVS OG last edited by Lee White 18 Feb 2022, 23:04 18 Feb 2022, 22:53
@davidhohn It's tricky, but if I can get 2x the advance with a flat fee AND i don't think the book has huge commercial viability, then it's definitely worth looking into. If I'm doing an "artsy" book that I know might have a dedicated, but small buying audience, I'm open to discussing it.
I can say this with certainty- If I did a flat fee that was 2x my advance on my books, it would have paid more on EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM vs. the advance model. But I haven't had a breakout book that made a lot of income past the advance like your Xmas book did. So that might change my opinion.
From where I stand, the advance vs. royalties is only a great theory. "If the book makes money, we all make money". But that isn't really the norm I'm thinking. I bet MOST books never even earn back the advance. I've never had advance vs royalty pay that much in all the books I've done.
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@davidhohn does this mean that even if I’m just starting out and I want to be an author&illustrator that getting an agent should be priority number 1?
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@griffin In my experience priority 1 should be mastering your craft of writing and illustrating picture books. Create a TON of dummies! Build a killer portfolio of work!
-- But I assume you are already focused on that --
With a body of publish-able book dummies in hand, if your business plan involves getting published by any of the big 6 publishers or their respective imprints, then, yes, I think you are going to need an agent to assist you in getting your dummies in front of editors.
There are a number of smaller publishers that remain open to unagented book dummy submissions. The advances are going to be smaller, and the promotional budgets will be as well. But they are often a bit "hungrier" for unrecognized talent and willing to take a risk on unproved author/illustrators.
As I write this I can imagine someone mis-reading this to think "I should get an agent! ANY AGENT!" (I made that same mistake just out of school)
No, do NOT get just any agent. Research the agents you submit to, or those that contact you. Make sure you like the kind of projects they get their other clients. Make sure you "fit" personality-wise, working method-wise, communication-wise.
I have no illusions about how difficult it is to verify all that before you partner with an agent. But ideally it will alert you to red flags right at the start.
And agents are great about discussing their profession and what to look for. Any SCBWI event will have a session about agents. Just the other day I saw a highly educational discussion happening on twitter in association with #Pitchwars
I did a quick search and came across this initial thread. Feel free to follow this rabbit hole all the way down:
https://twitter.com/ChelseaBigBang/status/1494009022802014208 -
@lee-white said in Where Do You Fit In The Picture Book Landscape?:
@davidhohn It's tricky, but if I can get 2x the advance with a flat fee AND i don't think the book has huge commercial viability, then it's definitely worth looking into. If I'm doing an "artsy" book that I know might have a dedicated, but small buying audience, I'm open to discussing it.
O-KAY! Now we are getting into a valuable conversation. That (in my experience) rarely happens in a public forum like this.
But let's reset and regroup a bit before we start digging into the overgrown rose garden that is the state of picture book publishing. (you know; looks pretty, smells good, but is all tangled up and will make you bleed unexpectedly)
For those reading along this all could get confusing pretty quick. So I want to clarify our current* positions.
*Note: Those positions are subject to change. I know this is the internet but there's no need to die on any of these molehills.
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I started my participation in this thread by taking issue with Will Terry's blanket assertion on the 3PP podcast that: Self publishers should only offer a flat fee to the illustrators they work with. The binary options Will believes are available are either "Advance Against Royalties" or " A One Time Flat Fee"
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I articulated why I don't believe that a flat fee is the only option for a picture book contract with a self-publishers.
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I then went on to list two ways to structure a contract with a self-publisher so that the illustrator has an ongoing connection to a book that continues to sell, and how the illustrator should participate in the profits resulting from those sales.
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You initially responded to say that none of you would ever say that a flat fee for a picture book was a good idea. And if it came across that way it wasn't intended.
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You followed up by letting us know that you guys discussed the question of picture book flat fees on a podcast recording and that a flat fee is not out of the question.
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You followed that up by mentioning a story Will told. A story compelling enough to convinced you to rethink your stance on flat fees for picture books, and perhaps royalties were not something you would want when doing picture books.
Do I have this correct?
Not trying to trick or trap you. Just want to make sure I'm following your line of thinking, and that I understand what you've written.Because if I've got this right -- you've gotta' admit -- that's quite the position reversal.
Once we've established your position, then let's dig into what you wrote above. It's super interesting. I would have loved to read a discussion like this when I was starting out!
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@griffin I would really like this. Right now....I'm reluctant to sign up for SVS classes due to the fact I'm not sure Children's books are for me....I'm just not sure I fit that genre at all.
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@carlianne me too
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clearly if you guys want to add a little more "and sometimes we argue" to the podcast you know who to invite
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@carlianne we should have sold tickets for this one
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Downsides of the Flat Fee project continued:
Stories like this are one of the reasons I'll always advocate for a "Ongoing Revenue" based payment rather than a "Flat Fee"
TLDR:
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Stan Weston creates GIJoe in 1964.
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Takes prototype of his action figure to Hasbro
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Hasbro likes it and offers Weston a payment per figure sold or $75,000 flat fee.
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Weston negotiates up slightly to a $100,000 flat fee. (Roughly $1 million in 2022)
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Since 1964 GIJoe has acquired a value of (via Hollywood Reporter) $100 million. Doing some rough math, a 5% per-figure-sold royalty would have resulted in $5 million. Which is likely why . . .
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Weston attempted to sue Hasbro to regain IP ownership just before death at 82.
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Thank you @davidhohn and @Lee-White for this insightful discussion!
Recently just finished reading Real Artists Don’t Starve by Jeff Goins, which he emphasized the Rule of Ownership with the below example.
In 1962, Jim Henson did a series of commercials for Purina Dog Chow and designed a couple puppets, one of which being “Rowlf the dog”.
Henson billed the studio $1,500 for the costs of making the puppets, which Purina offered Henson $100,000 to buy the rights to Rowlf completely. Henson’s agent jumped at the offer; however, Henson refused the offer believing Rowlf had more potential.
A year later, The Jimmy Dean Show gave Rowlf a ten minute segment during each show, which ran until 1966.
In 1976, Henson pitched this crazy idea for a show called Sesame Street, which included none other than the famous Rowlf alongside our green friend, Kermit!
Then in 2000, a German firm buys Muppets for $680 million! The Henson family purchased the Muppets back for $89 million.
Lesson? Maybe think twice before jumping on an offer to sale your characters and/or IP. You never know what’s in store!