Advice: Resale Royalties?

[riskyy.livejournal.com]

Hi A_B!

I'm looking for some advice on resale royalties. On Thursday, October 13th, I was contacted by someone through Freelanced.com who was looking for some artwork to be done for their business that is just starting up. They wanted a character designed as well as a logo of said character, so I am in the process of actually finishing up the logo today. I did, however, forget to discuss resale royalties with the client when he originally contacted me. I've never done work like this before (the only thing I've ever done is commissions on FA and DA - never commercial artwork) so I completely forgot about resale royalties and such. The character/logo is going to mainly be used for t-shirts and possibly brochures and flyers, things of that nature. (the business organizes off-road/motocross events)

How would I go about the whole resale royalties thing? Any help or advice at all would be wonderful, as I'm pretty clueless about such things D:

Thank you in advance!

Edit: I have finished the logo itself and I sent him an e-mail asking exactly what he was intending to use the logo on (t-shirts, flyers, etc) and asked for a few examples of said things, hopefully that's a good way to ease into the discussion of resale royalties and such? The client is very easy to work with so far and communication has been good, I'm just hoping he's willing to work with me as far as resale royalty percentages go. He was actually kind of reluctant to pay by the hour because he worried that it would take me something like 20 hours to finish the artwork. So I'm really overall nervous about even diving in to the discussion of royalties and such. =[

Comments

[claytronic.livejournal.com]

Hey. I know this probably isn't the same guy you're dealing with, but I think it's worth posting.
http://artists-beware.livejournal.com/508136.html

I don't know anything about royalties n whatnot.. but I know someone else here would be able to help you there.

[riskyy.livejournal.com]

Oh wow D: Thats a nightmare-ish client to deal with @__@ thankfully this guy is really understanding and whatnot. He's been great to work with and I'm glad to say the link you posted definitely isn't the guy I'm working with xD

Thank you for showing me this though!

[fiawol.livejournal.com]

No business wants to deal with the bookeeping of tracking sales for royalty payments unless you are working with them from the ground up to design every single thing that will identify their business (and most times not even then). Just treat it as a commercial sale, and charge 2-3 times (or more) whatever the same commission would run to a private individual. You especially cannot talk about getting royalties on sales after you have already drawn the artwork without having such a mention in your contract/terms of service already. You should not turn in ANY commercial work to the commissioner without having a signed contract with the person in charge (handing over your rights to them so they can legally print/put it on t-shirts), or without pre-payment of all your fees. Chalk it up to a learning experience, and remember to charge more in the future for any work you do where someone else will be making money off it. You probably should start to frequest forums like http://conceptart.org/ rather than artists-beware if you plan to go ahead with your commercial art career. Good luck with your work!

[riskyy.livejournal.com]

Ahh okay this is very helpful! Thank you so much! =D
I'll just use this time around as learning experience and keep in mind all of these things in the future. =]

[venti-mocha.livejournal.com]

Normally, you wouldn't be getting royalties for something like this. Instead what you'll be selling is the art plus all rights to it's future use. While some here might suggest really jacking up the price, two to three times what you'd charge for a regular commission of the same complexity is probably fair. You will need to draw up a simple document signing off on the republication rights and such. There are no doubt sample forms to fill in on the net if you Google for them. They'll need that should they wish to trademark the logo.

[riskyy.livejournal.com]

Ohh okay that's perfect! Exactly what I needed to know! Thank you so much!