Resources for freelance artists
Business contracts and other resources for freelancers
What you need to know before opening your door:
1. Copyright laws. The principles are simple but largely misunderstood. Not understanding the principles of copyright laws will end up losing you money and respect. The GAG handbook has some great information about copyright laws, and will also come in very handy for a lot of other information.
More after the sponsored links...
2. Contracts. Get the GAG handbook and read those contracts. Figure out what the different parts mean and use them for your contracts. If you can afford it, get a lawyer to review your contracts to make sure you will get what you want. And remember, if people don’t pay, you’re basically out of luck (I’ve had problems getting paid for work that the client said he loved, and just about all freelancers I know have had problems collecting.). The point is, try to get payments at different points during a project, such as at every delivery or review date. And put that in your contract so that they know what to expect and you know if they’re flaking out.
3. Pricing. Get the GAG book for this too, and ask your peers (see the societies listing) when you have questions. And remember, if you under price, you’ll still get something in your portfolio (as long as you understood the copyright laws going into it). But when you do under price, you are undercutting all of us. Do us all a favor and price your time, education, overhead and creative juices for what they are worth (more than an hourly wage).
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Software review for Digital Artists Adobe Photoshop is a pixel based program that you're probably quite familiar with. If you work in a lab, you may have their free version. It's NOT the same. The money you spend upgrading to the full version will pay off in time and frustration as soon as you learn to use the layers. Adobe Illustrator 10.0 is a vector based program, and you will want to get this (or Corel) when you're ready to start creating your own digital illustrations. Photoshop is great for pushing those pixels around, but when you want to draw, you need a vector based program and a watcom tablet (below). There seems to be a 50/50 split between illustrators using Illustrator and illustrators using Corel 11. Here's the Corel Draw review link. It seems that Corel takes longer to learn, but there are some awesome things you can do with it that are less fluid with Illustrator. I love Illustrator, but I'm actually thinking of switching over. A wacom tablet is the best investment that I have made for peripheral hardware. Do you ever think about how differently you communicated with people before you had a computer? After you get a tablet, you'll feel the same way about drawing. I have a link below to the 9x12. That's huge. I have the 6x8, and it's a really nice size - you can see those through the link below as well. |
4. Promotion. Self promotion isn't easy, but it's necessary. The best book I've read that really gets you thinking in the right direction about self promotion is Starting Your Career as a Freelance Illustrator or Graphic Designer. What it taught me is that I already have potential clients at my fingertips.
Opening your business
A lot of illustrators work up to going into their own business, as I have myself. Deciding when to break away from your day job and go into business for yourself full time is very difficult. The book Starting Your Career as a Freelance Illustrator or Graphic Designer is a great book to have along the way (and it’s not very expensive – I got it on sale from Amazon for $14). It discusses how to make that decision, and all the steps you need to follow afterwards to make sure your business is a success. This is the best book purchase (or business purchase) I have made.
Another book along the same lines is The Business Side of Creativity: The Complete Guide for Running a Graphic Design or Communications Business. This book also leads you through the beginnings of negotiating, writing contracts, etc. It also has a section called “fatal errors” which is very useful.
The GAG Handbook of Pricing and Ethical Guidelines is the book to get for pricing information and as a starter for your legal forms. It’s easy to think you can go without paperwork at first, but you will regret it. As a supplement to this (or a less expensive alternative), get the Graphic Designer’s Guide to Pricing, Estimating and Budgeting.
• *Recently, I made a bid to a customer who had never worked with an illustrator before. He called me a week later and told me that he had bought the The GAG Handbook of Pricing and Ethical Guidelines to get a better sense of what to expect from me, and I got the project. I did not mention to him that I had designed my contract after one of the sample contracts in the GAG book, but that coincidence made me pretty happy.
The hard part of bidding is that customers are usually just as confused as you are about what to expect in terms of payment and usage rights. The customers that have not worked with illustrators before are surprised that they can’t use the illustration for whatever they want, whenever they want – since they did commission the work. And the customers who have worked with illustrators before do not always have your best interests in mind when you negotiate.
The easiest thing to do to make sure you are paid reasonably and your customer is happy and returns to you, is to use a table like the one listed in Starting Your Career as a Freelance Illustrator or Graphic Designer, to figure out your expenses. Then go to the GAG handbook to figure out what is generally charged for that type of work (not they are not giving price recommendations, since that is price fixing – the key phrase that keeps all of us from discussing our rates openly with each other, to a large extent).
Once you have figured out what is standard for the type of work you are doing and the usage it will receive, and the amount of money you need to make to keep your business going, you will have a pretty good idea of a range that you need to quote your client. And you can back up your quote with the figures from the GAG book and the phrase “business overhead.”
Marketing yourself
After you have a good grip on business, and especially on copyright laws and rights – I cannot stress enough how important those are – it’s time to look for clients! Again, the book Starting Your Career as a Freelance Illustrator or Graphic Designer is a great book to read to get a good feeling for where to look for clients and what to do with them. For some more concrete self promotion ideas, read the Graphic Designer’s Guide to Creative Marketing: Finding & Keeping Your Best Clients.
A an even more concrete “call this phone number” type of book is Artist’s & Graphic Designer’s Market and their Children’s Market. These books come out every year, and have thousands of contacts. They separate the buyers into category, and reference the type of illustrations they buy in the back so that you can look up buyers of “wildlife art” who also buy “children’s book illustrations” and find your self a great niche. Then the book gives you the number of artists that send their portfolio to that company, the amount the company pays for each illustration, who they prefer to work with, and their phone number and email address!
Business plan
It is a good idea to have a business plan. This will help you to focus yourself and stay on track.
There are groups like ‘lawyers for artists’ who donate their time to help artists get their business plans, contracts and other documents right. Check with your local small business alliance to find out where the volunteer lawyers in your community are. In my city they offer classes on writing your business plan, for an extremely low fee.
Don’t waste their time or yours with simple questions. Do your research before you get help, so that you know what you want. This research and self-reflection takes a lot of time and effort, but setting up a business takes time and effort.
A good start would be to go to the library and read the legal forms in the GAG handbook.
Business finances
It’s a good idea to figure out what you are in for financially. Start off by making a chart of monthly expenses (overhead) and one-time expenses (set-up costs) that you will have, consider that you will have to spend about ¼ of your time or more doing self promotion when you start out, and add in a salary you can live with. Also consider that it can take clients several months to pay, especially if you get projects with universities. Also figure in that you may have several months without projects. By moving your numbers around, you should get a feeling for how much money you need to save up to start out and how much you need to charge your clients. Different illustrators have different comfort levels, but it’s a good rule of thumb to always have at least a 3-month cushion in the month (and 1-2 years is an ideal cushion). The more the better, especially at first.
Contracts
I recently attended a seminar led by a copyright lawyer, and it was eye opening. A few things he said that were good food for thought:
1. Don’t ever do work for hire unless you’re desperate. You lose all rights to your work (including the right to put it in your portfolio). This is a common theme reiterated in the GAG handbook.
2. Don’t ever sell ‘ownership’ of your work. Instead, sell permission to print your illustration here, or permission to display your illustration there. That’s how you can earn income continually from each piece, and support your other art habits or support yourself during lean times.
When you get your first project, do not let your client pressure you into giving a number while you are sitting with them. But it’s a good idea to figure out what you will charge in advance and have some numbers sitting in front of you. Ask your client what they will use the illustration for. If they don’t know (I know it’s surprising, but sometimes they don’t know), then say something like “for an illustration of this complexity, my estimate is X dollars.
This is where the understanding of copyright laws will help you.
Negotiating
If they say, “My god, I can only pay Y,” you’re still OK. Really think about whether it’s worth it – do they really undervalue your time or are they just on a limited budget – and think about what you are willing to do. Remember, you can tell them you’ll work up a new estimate and fax it to them. Come back with something like “Oh, that is my price for publishing it 6 times. If you only want one time printing rights, and only for this one journal, I can make a more simple illustration for closer to Y.”
What are you doing here? You are using copyright laws to your advantage. If they want to be able to print it all they like for six months, they’ll have to pay more. And you’re trying to look like you’re not desperate, but still get the job. It makes you look professional while giving them what they want and what they can afford.
This bit of negotiating savvy is the most important business know-how I have learned.
Read about copyright laws before you send off your first contract. The best source for your initial business documents is GAG Handbook of Pricing and Ethical Guidelines. If you don’t want to spend money on a book, try the GAG website at www.gag.org,
http://freeagent.com or http://www.allbusiness.com.
The best resource is to go to the source. United States Copyright Offices: http://lcweb.loc.gov/copyright/.
Another very interesting thing to know about copyrights is that you do own copyright of anything illustrations you make (as long as you did not do it as work for hire). Why register? Because, you cannot sue for damages unless you have registered your work. That’s important. So if you think there is a likeliness of someone stealing your work for an ad, web site or anything else, get it registered. The URL above is the place to start for that.
The turnaround time for getting your work registered with the copyright office is 1-2 months, but if you are trying to recover damages, the registration can be effective on the date you send out your forms (depending on the circumstances).
Fine art calendars
Linking information
Title: Medical Illustration
URL: http://biomedical-illustration.com
Description: Information for scientific illustrators, medical illustrators, graphic designers that specialize in medical content, and those who hire them.
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