@peteolczyk said in Business advise needed, reg estimate to illustrate:

I don’t know if I can add much to this thread, but I’ve been told, from various sources, not to give away rights to an illustration. I’ve been given a template of a standard contract which is a five year licence only. I don’t know if anyone can elaborate on this but I’m assuming selling the rights completely would come at an absolute premium.

That’s the theory, but the reality is a lot more complicated. Editorial illustration is normally a rights only, but rights are calculated based on scope of use (digital vs print vs how many copies are distributed) rather than time, or sometimes on both time and scope. In publishing there’s a lot of different rights: foreign rights, merchandising, film and television, etc... and these are normally listed in a contract together with the terms specific to each. That said, those are premium contracts.

Many solid and remunerative jobs are only possible on a “work-for-hire” agreement, where you give up all rights - for example educational publishers almost exclusively work that way: so basically if you insist on a rights-only agreement you’re not an interesting partner for them.

I hear from my agent that many small trade publishers are starting to work the same way, and I’ve been offered those type of contracts for trade as well...

I’m coming in very late on this discussion, though I think all the advice and process you followed is spot on.

When a request comes in asking for a quote and with no details, my experience is that it rarely comes to anything. It’s already a good sign that they followed up, because normally as soon as you respond with all the questions that need to be answered before you can advance an estimate, they never respond.

The wording on the response e-mail suggests that this is a self-publishing author. Even if your research revealed a small publisher, it’s likely that they only publish books by one author, who happens to be the founder
There are a few “publishers” like that - sometimes they actually have a small list and work with different illustrators or maybe two or three authors, but in general the setup here seems to be that of a self-publishing author.

What is not clear from this e-mail is exactly how many illustrations she’s talking about (3 to 5 in total for a 100-page book seems very very weird) and wether she expects you to do the entire book layout? That’s not an illustrator’s job, it’s a book designer’s job. That’s a different skillset and profession, and needs to be priced separately. Or you make it clear that you’re only doing the illustrations and not the book design (which most self-publishing people don’t even realize they need...).

Even after the responses there are still so many questions and red-flags, I would be careful about taking this on at this point, regardless of the budget (which is very low, especially if she expects you to do the book design - but that’s a different discussion...).

An old video by Will Terry (sorry, can’t search for the link right now) said something along the lines that it’s always better for the client to “come out” first with their budget and term proposal (terms refers to both money, payment schedule, royalties vs no royalties and any other consideration relating to money and time).
Following that advice, I’ve always answered to requests like these with a non-committal “it depends”, and asking for their preferred way of working and budget.

I’m sure there are plenty exception, but in my experience it’s always the publisher that advances a proposal anyhow: budget, timelines and manuscript. And then you negotiate on either of the first two (more often on both....).

@Annemieke Twitter can be very confusing. I highly recommend a free Twitter dashboard called TweeDeck - it really helps make sense of the conversations going on. I cannot say I‘m very active on Twitter (it‘s always in my bucket list), but it‘s where most of the publishing world lives, so I‘m always aspiring at making sense of it (though nowadays maybe LinkedIn is taking on a more prominent role than it used to have). Anyhow, I follow #PBChat, #picturebookportfolio, #kidlitart and a few others. On TweetDeck, you can set up any stream and take a look at it. If you like what you see, you keep it, interact or post. If not, you delete it and move on. I cannot make any sense of the standard feed and I never look at it. I only look through the TweetDeck dashboard.

@Nyrryl-Cadiz Hi! Yes, I haven't been around in a while! No, it's been a while since I've done any social media challenge. I have too much work going on (a good place to be!). But I do need to find time to work on some personal pieces and new promos... maybe next year.

Hallo Kristin!
Like you, I don‘t work in ink, so Inktober - as awesome as it is - has never had much appeal for me. I did it once a couple of years ago and used it to work on a project - a short graphic story I wanted to see in the world. I‘m happy I did it and it thought me a few things. For social media, I‘ve been creating my own challenges or joining others that are more aligned with the type of work I do. Here are two to check out: Colour Collective (spelled the British way) is taking place every Friday (submission at 7:30 GMT @clr_collective #colour_collective). It‘s a challenge based on a color, given out every week on Twitter. It‘s very active on Twitter, but you can use the handle on other channels too. Another one that I‘ve been thinking of doing now and then is Animal Alphabets (@animalalphabets), also on Twitter.
Both run continually, so it‘s a good „filler“ that whips up some social media interest without being a month-long committment.
But then, you can create your own challenge, as big or as small as it suits you! Doing 3 portfolio-level illustrations and documenting your process may be more useful for you and still give you some new followers!

Oh wow! I've started this thread more than two years ago and it has suddenly resurrected! Well, and update is sorely needed. Since February 2017 I've been commissioned to illustrate countless children of all colors and nationalities: white, black, asian, latino and any combination thereof. I've been asked to create "ethnically ambiguous characters" - which seems to have become a bit of a seeked-for skill. So - back to code green. Own voices is still a thing and integrity and honesty in depicting the world a worthy ideal. But illustrators are not banned from depicting ethnicities that are not their own: quite the contrary. So keep putting multi-ethnic characters in your portfolio - there's a high demand for that.

@irina

@irina said in Agent or no agent. How to get work and what's your dayjob:

Thank you muchly again. One more thing

Is it customary for agents to help you develop your work? Like offering constructive feedback or telling you what they find is a stregth in your work and what you need to develop? Is there any help with growth in that sense?

It´s not common for agents to do that. That´s what I understand from listening and talking to other artists as well as my own experience. They may point out illustration styles that sell well (my agent does - though mostly I don’t know what to make with the information), but will not offer feedback. Indeed, my agent is so careful to avoid expressing any comment on my work, that I almost think there is some taboo there....

@chip-valecek It will be amazing in your way!

@chip-valecek Sounds familiar