@lee-white Definitely listen again.
To be clear, neither you nor Jake said the words that a flat fee was a good idea. That was Will's recommendation.
And he says it multiple times in this podcast (I haven't checked out the set of videos he mentions but we can reasonably assume that is the recommendation there as well)
It's just that neither you or Jake pushed back on that idea, or clarified (what might be) Will's meaning. Hence my post above.
Now, to further clarify, many of the options for working with a self published author COULD be mixed up in flat fee vs. royalty.
Not entirely sure what you mean here.
But I'll clarify on my end.
What I've outlined in my two options are neither a "Traditional Royalty"
Traditional Royalties = Tracking each book sale and return and then calculating 6% of the cover price of each book sold and issuing a check every six months
And neither of the two options are a "Traditional Flat Fee"
Flat Fee = A single, one-time payment to use the images in all the ways outlined in the contract. For a picture book that "Grant of Rights" will likely be the publisher's ability to reproduce the images in book form only for as long as the book is in print and for sale.
I'm advocating a hybrid of the two. A MUCH simpler payment system for the self-publisher that still allows the illustrator to participate in the ongoing sales, and potential financial success, of a picture book created for a self publisher or very small publisher.
ANd the reasoning there would be that self published books typically don't make money.
I agree with you there. But then you know that most trade picture books with large publishers typically don't generate royalties either. But of course some do! The same is still possible for a self-published book. My position is that illustrators need to prepare for success!
Picking a high royalty with a low advance is foolish there. With self publishing I recommend illustrators assume that the advance is all they will ever see.
I agree. Illustrators should prepare for the possibility that the book won't sell well.
And if you think of that single payment as the only money the illustrator will ever see, then you can see how Will landed on his recommendation of a "Flat Fee" right?
Trouble is, as soon as you use that term "Flat Fee"(it has a specific meaning in our industry) the illustrator is needlessly cutting themselves off from future payments.
There's no need to do that when a simple limit on the Grant of Rights in the form of:
a. allow the publisher to sell a certain number of copies
or
b. allow the publisher to sell as many copies as they can for a limited amount of time
will solve the problem so efficiently!