Royalty fee?

[Annie N.]

Hello, long time lurker here...^^;,

I was wondering if anyone who has had more experience than I on this subject can help me answer this question. I was recently hired by a client to come up with an original character(s) for his website. Normally, I pay a flat rate however, he might have future plans to distribute the picture in the form of merchandise.

My question is, how I might approach this in terms of payment? Whenever this has happened in the past, it was always payed in non-money form (webspace, merchandise, etc.). Should I charge an extra sum of money in a single payment, or perhaps a percentage of each item sold (although that might be difficult to keep track of over an amount time). I'd appreciate it so much if anyone could help me, Thanks!

[Irate Customer]

I am not an expert on this, but it is my belief that if these are your ideas, and hence creations, you should request a small percentage of the proceeds. That's just my 2 cents.

Irate

[egerie]

If that project seems like it's going to take big proportions, I *HIGHLY* recommend getting a lawyer who knows their way around copyrights, owning, TM, reproduction rights, etc. If you don't want to pay for this, you might want to make some research on illustrator's guilds, graphic designer handbooks and such.

I don't mean to sound alarming but being shafted on that is not pleasant :)

[Lok1728]

Regarding royalty fees, a good resource for information on this is by purchasing the The 10th Edition of Graphic Artists Guild Handbook: Pricing & Ethical Guidelines,

You can purchase this through amazon.com or directly from GAG at www.gag.org (they have info on their site but forums are being restructured at the moment..)

I highly recommend this as it pertains to legal information regarding royalty's and pricing guides for artists and the like.

I bought the book a year ago and its been a valuable resource.
Good luck!

[pconsidine]

DEFINITELY get the GAG book. For anyone in this business, it's a critical resource.

And DEFINITELY make sure you get a piece of any additional products based on your work. As the creator of a character, you have control over exactly what rights you are selling and it should be explicitly stated in your contract that additional uses of your character must be negotiated separately (if they are not going to be covered in that contract). Licensing of an artist's creations is one of the absolute best sources of income there is (you get paid over and over for work you've already done. How can you beat that?) and you should be sure you get what you deserve.

If the guy who's hiring you doesn't like it, DON'T DO THE DEAL! This is one of the most common ways for people to try to put one over on artists and we've got to stand firm.

Good luck!