# what percentage of royalties should go to the illustrator?



## Jan Hurst-Nicholson (Aug 25, 2010)

I am intending to e-publish my children's books that are now out of print. The mainstream publisher gave me royalties of 10% and the illustrator 8%.
What do you think is a fair % to pay the illustrator for the e-book version? Are there any guidelines? 
Thanks


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

The illustrator owns the copyright to his or her illustrations -- so you have to negotiate.  There are some who are worth much more than the author (and the truth is, on many picture books, the illustrator did a LOT more work than the author).  Some will sell out for an up front fee.  I think most go 50-50 unless one side is more famous than the other.  

Camille


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## kcmay (Jul 14, 2010)

I have NO idea! Interesting question though. If the illustrator previously got 80% of what the writer got, then maybe splitting the royalty ~55-45 would work.


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## Guest (Jan 11, 2011)

Jan Hurst-Nicholson said:


> I am intending to e-publish my children's books that are now out of print. The mainstream publisher gave me royalties of 10% and the illustrator 8%.
> What do you think is a fair % to pay the illustrator for the e-book version? Are there any guidelines?
> Thanks


If this is a pre-existing contract that the illustrator already agreed to, then there is no reason to change the percentage. Remember, as the publisher all that "extra" money you think you are getting actually needs to be consumed to absorb all the normal publisher costs. Even if you are now getting 70% from Amazon for the digital, _don't make the mistake of thinking of that as a 70% royalty_. It is in effect your gross profit. You still need to assume business expenses (web hosting, administrative, accounting, legal, formatting, marketing, etc) which all would have previously been handled by your publisher. If you must go with a royalty payment, I see no reason to offer more than the 8% the print publisher offered.

Further, keep in mind that if you pay royalties you will be on the hook to issue a 1099 to the recipient at the end of the year to report royalty payments to the IRS.

Honestly? I would ask the artist how much to just buy him/her out for a flat fee. Just contact the artist and say "Look, I'm going to self-publish the book on Kindle and would like to continue using the same art. I have no idea how many copies will sell, and neither of us probably wants to deal with the accounting. How much of a user fee would you charge me to use the art for the digital format?" Even if they ask for a couple of hundred dollars, it might in the long run still be cheaper than royalties and it will definately be less headache.


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## Jan Hurst-Nicholson (Aug 25, 2010)

Thanks for the advice.  
I am in South Africa and the illustrator is in Australia and I'm going to be using a US writer's account to get round the mine-field of tax.
The illustrator has done two of the books in the series that were published, and I have a third one still in manuscript form which I would like her to illustrate. She is happy to go with my decision. As I will be doing the work of uploading and marketing I will have to take this into account when deciding percentages. I don't want to pay a flat fee as I'm not sure how much to pay, and I'm not sure if I will get it back through sales.  
I suppose we could work out a figure for the first book and see how that goes. Then we could re-negotiate for the next book.


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## Guest (Jan 13, 2011)

Jan Hurst-Nicholson said:


> As I will be doing the work of uploading and marketing I will have to take this into account when deciding percentages. I don't want to pay a flat fee as I'm not sure how much to pay, and I'm not sure if I will get it back through sales.


If you aren't sure whether or not you would make the money back, then frankly this is all the more reason why you have a moral obligation to pay the artist up front. It doesn't matter if you offer her 50% if you think there is a chance sales would be zero. 50% of zero is still zero.

As a publisher (which is what you are going to become) you have the responsibility of absorbing all costs associated with a book. If you are thinking about paying royalties to mitigate your loses at the expense of the artist, consider this a virtual hand slapping.

The most valuable business advice I ever got was from my old Kirby vacuum distributor: Pay your people first, your bills second, and yourself last. If you do this, your business will never be in trouble. This also forces you to actually develop a business plan and consider a real business budget. If you can only afford to pay $10 or $20 an illustrated page, then be honest with the artist up front and tell her that. But if you are concerned that you won't get sales and therefore want to pay a royalty, as yourself how you as an artist would feel if you did fifty or a hundred hours of illustration for a publisher, only to get paid $20 for the entire job because the book only sold 50 copies over a period of six months.


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## Steph H (Oct 28, 2008)

A couple of other things I'd think you'd want to consider --

1. How well did the book sell when it was in print?
2. How well will the illustrations and the rest of the book translate to Kindle?

If it sold well previously while in print, then perhaps you try to work out a deal of a partial lower fee up front plus royalties on sales.  If it didn't, then I'd have to agree with those who say you should pay her upfront rather than her having to rely on a pittance in royalties.

As to the second point, will much or any of the work have to be re-done to simplify it for Kindle? Keep in mind that pictures -- digital or illustrative -- can be restrictive on a Kindle and so may need some simplification to be usable on Kindle. That could mean almost a whole new job as opposed to just getting the rights to the ebook version.


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## Jan Hurst-Nicholson (Aug 25, 2010)

Perhaps I didn't explain fully. 

The illustrator is a friend and the illustrations were done in 1996 and the books have been out of print for many years with neither of us earning anything from them at present. She will not have to do any work as I will be organising the scanning of the book and the uploading. We will both be happy if we can make even a little money from the books as anything is better than nothing. The only reason I am using Kindle is because it won't cost me anything. I just wondered if there was any norm for payment for the illustrator as I want to be fair.
As a BTW - the illustrator was able to use the illustrations to make greeting cards using the title of the book, but not the characters' names. As the author I did not receive any share of the profits from these. This is normal practice.

(Doesn't Suze Orman advocate 'pay yourself first'? )


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

Because it's a children's book and the division of the work is 50-50, I'd say that perhaps the best thing to do is just split all proceeds with the illustrator 50-50.

That way, if you make $10, you both have $5.

And if you make $5,000, you both end up with $2,500.

However, since payments are going into only one bank account (yours) you will want to be sure to document carefully what proceeds are going to your illustrator.

Might be best to talk to your accountant, if you have one, on how to document this, because I believe all of the income may show up on your 1099-MISC from Amazon, unless I'm mistaken...

So yeah, talk to an expert. You don't want the IRS taxing you on $5,000 (for example) if you're only keeping $2,500 for yourself...


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## daringnovelist (Apr 3, 2010)

Jan Hurst-Nicholson said:


> (Doesn't Suze Orman advocate 'pay yourself first'? )


Suze Orman is a PERSONAL financial planner. She is NOT a business person and does not even pretend to give advice on how to run a start up. Her advice has to do with how you manage your income and debt in a wage or salary situation.

Business deals are a great way to lose friends, and in that way, I suppose it's better to keep it as simple as you can at least with the old books. Split the proceeds. Be prepared that the taxes and paperwork among three countries is going to be a nightmare.

For any new work, I agree with Julie - you pay the illustrator what you can afford as an advance against royalties.

Camille


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## marcenegro (Aug 5, 2021)

daringnovelist said:


> The illustrator owns the copyright to his or her illustrations -- so you have to negotiate. There are some who are worth much more than the author (and the truth is, on many picture books, the illustrator did a LOT more work than the author). Some will sell out for an up front fee. I think most go 50-50 unless one side is more famous than the other.
> 
> Camille


I am curious about the following scenario. If I wired the illustrator to drawing my story, paid a very decent price due the arts, which were based the character I have created, I still need to pay royalties later on, of course, but how much should be in this scenario? Any suggestions? 

Regards


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## Jan Hurst-Nicholson (Aug 25, 2010)

You don't have to pay royalties if you pay the illustrator an agreed straight fee. I've worked with illustrators from big publishing houses that prefer a straight fee as they never know how a book is going to sell. I've also worked with an illustrator who accepted royalties. Since self-publishing I've paid a straight fee for book covers and illustrations for my children's books as children's books are not an easy sell.


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## David VanDyke (Jan 3, 2014)

You have to pay whatever you agreed to pay, in writing, beforehand. If you didn't get a contract in writing beforehand, well...oops.

So, if your got this all done and paid a flat fee and it was all in writing, you don't owe the illustrator anything, even if it sells a million.

Now, the illustrator my well ask a lot money more for the sequel...


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## BilboMaggins (Aug 8, 2021)

What software are you going to use to create the book? Kindle-Create?
Are you going to do Amazon eBook and Amazon Paperback?
If you're also doing paperback, are you going to use the new Amazon color choice "Standard color interior" or "Premium color interior"?


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