You’re too expensive, Sarah.

I've done LOADS of book covers - here are a few!

Here’s how a conversation went last week about a new book cover. I’m posting it because it’s not the first of its type, and its tone bothered me.

It’s a neat encapsulation of the kind of conversation I’m having more and more, but I wonder if you, as reader, also see the client’s emphasis on me charging too much, rather than the client offering too little.

Friendly and professional, it’s message beneath the words that I’m concerned about.

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I was taught from the very beginning that the client approaches the illustrator (or photographer, or designer), outlines what they would like doing, and asks for a quote or estimate. The artist then generates a proposed figure, often with a scope of work and terms, which the client may accept, reject, or negotiate on.

I don’t remember me ever telling my builder what he should charge for the job I’ve asked him to do, told my accountancy firm they should actually halve their bill, nor listened to an estimate from my car mechanic and told him that no, actually £200 is all I’ve got, so.

But almost thirty years into this industry, am I out of date with this line of thinking?

In this climate is it a case of ‘take anything going’ and I should be grateful?

Are the days of determining your own fees gone, or am I right to adhere to a career-long policy of curating my own fee structure?

Could an AI system make this cover for zero pence instead, and should I therefore just be happy I was approached?

I want to know what you think!

The conversation is lightly edited for anonymity and brevity (and none of the books in the picture above are related to this conversation, to be clear).

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Client:

We’d like you to do this book cover. You’ve already worked on some covers for this author.
We will have a think about what the cover art should include but perhaps this brief summary already gives you some ideas. As the book is publishing in June we’d like to send you the art brief in early December and have the artwork for January 2023: you can let us know what is possible on your end. We can offer a fee of £500.

I look forward to hearing from you and hope that we will have the opportunity to work together.

Note that there’s no mention of whether that £500 is expected to cover a buy-out, any particular set of usages or geographical applications— so it can’t be assessed as appropriate or not by the artist.

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Me:

Thanks very much for emailing. Nice to hear from you! I apologise for the delay as I was travelling for much of Wednesday and all day yesterday.

The book sounds wonderful and it would be great to keep the continuity by working on the cover for this author. I really enjoyed illustrating their previous books.

My fees for book covers however are much higher than the one you propose, particularly for a wraparound. Industry standard rates have admittedly not kept pace with inflation terribly well, but still sit around the £1000-£2000 mark and for the US, in the region of $2000-$4500.

Let me know if your fee is a suggested ‘starter for ten’ on which we can negotiate, or whether that is all you have available for this. I would love to do it!

All the best, Sarah.

Sounds positive and flexible — doesn’t it? Hm, maybe not!

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         Client:

We appreciate that you charge a higher rate and we are sorry but we cannot match this.

Thanks for getting back to me so swiftly and again, thank you for creating fantastic covers for [publisher’s name].

I charge a higher rate than — than what? Their other artists? Than what they’re used to paying? Higher than the amount they think is fair? 
OK; a little context might be required.

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Me:

Thanks for the reply!

Just to give context for my email, [publisher] paid $3000 for their cover for [title of book by the same author] in 2018, and the bill for title modifications to the cover for [another book by the same author] was £100 in 2019. It was the same for similar title modifications to turn the cover of [book] into [different edition].

So £500 for a full wraparound cover is not an appropriate fee, and although I’m fully aware that someone else (perhaps, but not necessarily, a less experienced illustrator) might eagerly take this on, I’m almost thirty years into the industry and know how long a good wraparound cover takes, and I also know the experience and expertise I bring to my covers.

I do understand that you are a smaller-sized publisher, and I’m sorry it didn’t work out on this one, as I feel quite strongly about cover continuity for author series and presumably this one will look completely different.

But I feel more strongly about fees being structured properly, and I always take the trouble to expand upon a fee if it is ever rejected, so my clients know I’m coming from a place of careful consideration and experience, not greed or arbitrary figures.

Thank you for reading!

With this reply I realised I’d leapt into defending my perfectly fair and appropriate fees (which I don’t need to) while also being rather firm in my stance. (The urge to defend or explain one’s fees is often something that needs to be kept in check!)

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Client:

[. . . . . .]

And that’s where it ended. Fair enough, as there’s not a lot more for the client to say.

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But I’m interested to know what you think. This upcoming 30-year anniversary has had me reviewing a LOT of practises and habits, and there are more articles about these coming up.

Because if I’m to spend another decade or two at the coalface, there are things that need reviewing, dismantling and, as a result, rebuilding, revamping or rejecting. And those things, along with the unavoidable creative review and reflection, will shape what the next chapter of this long and busy career looks like.

A Cautionary Tale...from myself, almost 20 years ago!

I've done a fair bit of digital archiving and backing up recently, and I found this article I wrote for the AOI in 2003. The incident it refers to happened a year or so before, even so; the fee will make your eyes water!

I've posted it here as it made me laugh - at my belligerent, horrified self - but it was a reminder that I still think illustrators need to be bloody careful. This could have happened today - companies will still royally try it on, more often than not these days in the form of a 'competition' in exchange for 'exposure' or those special shiny social media coins - you know, the ones you can't spend in shops! At least I was offered fifty quid! (oof).

I also chuckled at the mention of a faxed brief - I loved my fax machine. Getting one, in 1996, meant I was finally 'on the radar.'

Finally I was tempted to name Company X. But the professional in me still says no. I might be tempted to yield, however, if enough people ask...

Enjoy.

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A cautionary tale to warn the unwary illustrator: Sarah Coleman reveals how even an experienced illustrator can strike a bad deal.

This is the tale of a momentary lapse of reason, a failure to apply the Golden Rules of Illustrating and the burning cheeks that followed.

I'd worked for Company X before, a creative and enthusiastic team with an approach to briefing that wasn't my usual:

      "Here's the theme, do what you like, no real rush, ideas finished or half-developed, invoice us for whatever you think is appropriate when you send the work in. We may or may not pick out bits we want to use and if we do, we'll pay you again to publish it."

With an almost entirely editorial/design background, I was used to a faxed brief (sometimes, if I'm lucky, treated to an art director's 'helpful' sketch at the bottom), a pretty tight spec and a quick deadline. So this was bliss.

I knew that the fee for any use of the work was bad - £50, to be exact. I also knew that this was a company with a turnover of millions. But somehow, the client filtering software in my head had managed to overlook these things. Now don't get me wrong. I knew what I was doing. This was the same Sarah who

was neck-deep in a fierce court battle involving hundreds of thousands of pounds and winning. This was the Sarah who threatened to turn down years of work with a major magazine group unless they deleted the copyright section of their contract: they deleted it. The one who refused a fabulous wrap-around book cover because they just weren't paying enough. But my enthusiasm, and my belief that the exposure would give my portfolio a turbo-injection meant I was able to start work, fully aware that we'd signed no contract. I can even say I was probably a bit flattered by their requests for so much work. (Oh! The shame!)

Now a lot of the work, though well received, was never used. But I wasn't prepared for that which was to show up in every branch up and down the country, flying off the shelves before my very eyes as I went shopping. 

It turned up on my own Christmas presents, wrapped by an unsuspecting friend. 

My students told me they'd seen their mums stockpiling my 'Best Wishes' paper. 

At a quid a sheet, I began to get miffed about imaginary royalties, and much time was spent gently kicking my own shins that I had failed to negotiate some modest royalty or at least a worthy publication fee. I soothed myself with thoughts of how nice it looked in my folio and of how a momentary lapse of reason wouldn't confuse my business head again.

So by the time sample copies of a brand new gift wrap dropped through the door almost a year and a half later, I had long decided I wouldn't work for the company again. The note accompanying the samples asked me to submit 'my invoice for the £50 publication fee.' The horror of what I'd done - or not

done - rendered me incapable of acting on the invoice for several weeks. I almost wrote it off, fearing that my foolishness in not doing things properly would be best kept unacknowledged by both me and the company concerned.

But a quick check in the middle of the night confirmed what I had thought: no contract, no fee agreed, so still open for negotiation - right? Five minutes on the phone to the AOI and I was sufficiently galvanised. They might have stuck it on the shelves already, but there wasn't a thing to say what I could expect to be paid for it.

I was surprisingly anxious about calling the company, but wasn't surprised to learn that the girl I'd worked with was only too aware of how bad the publication fee was.

The designer was helpful but ultimately handcuffed by a fee structure clearly never influenced by anyone involved in the creative side of things.Royalties were completely out of the question. The four-figure sum I quoted as a second-best option was equally hopeless. Eventually, the fee paid for the original A3 board of ideas was doubled retrospectively with the £50 publication fee on top. I explained that although I had loved the organic and relaxed way I had been asked to work, their publication payment was appallingly low. 

In response the designer explained that Company X did appreciate that after a while 'developing illustrators' became 'priced out of their market and moved on to bigger and better things' - which burned a little, having spent the best part of a decade earning a living as an illustrator - but I understood the sub-text: you might be too posh for us now, but there are many more who'll think this is a great deal.

The invoice was re-submitted with a prominently-positioned reminder that the copyright stayed mine and any secondary or future uses were subject to separate and further negotiation. Meanwhile, the burning face is subsiding. You, Company X and I are the only people who know about this, and I'm using home-made paper to wrap my presents this year. 

You of course can get a nice sheet of funky gift wrap from any branch of Company X for a pound. Don't buy it. The real cost to illustrators could be far higher.

~ This article first appeared in the Association of Illustrators Magazine in 2003. ~