How much?

DDK

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I'm just curious to know how much an amatuer artist of some skill would charge for black & white images (similar to those found in a GURPS sourcebook) as a package deal.

Essentially, how much for say... 192 page book, one small image every second page, one large one every fourth or so a couple of page frame graphics, etc.

You know... just off the top of your head, nothing written in concrete and thrown off the edge of a pier, just a guesstimate.

Are royalty deals ever made, ie. you promise ten percent of all profit made? Who retains copyright? Who is willing to work for FREE? What levels of quality should I expect for what price ranges, etc.?
 

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Fourecks said:
I'm just curious to know how much an amatuer artist of some skill would charge for black & white images (similar to those found in a GURPS sourcebook) as a package deal.

Essentially, how much for say... 192 page book, one small image every second page, one large one every fourth or so a couple of page frame graphics, etc.

You know... just off the top of your head, nothing written in concrete and thrown off the edge of a pier, just a guesstimate.

Are royalty deals ever made, ie. you promise ten percent of all profit made? Who retains copyright? Who is willing to work for FREE? What levels of quality should I expect for what price ranges, etc.?

Well, first off, it's most likely that a 192 page sourcebook is going to rely on more than one artist, especially at the starting level. To be honest, the art director is dealing with unproven or possibly unreliable talent. However, having a single artist does have the advantage of keeping a unified look to the illustrations, rather than having a scattershot of styles seen in many gaming books.

As far as the going rate, my experience is limited, but B&W illustrations usually go for somewhere in the $30 to $15 range for entry level artists. Some companies offer different rates for different size pictures.

Different companies have different policies concerning copyright, royalties or whatever. Something I am seeing as far as copyrights go is that some companies state that the artist retains the copyright for the artwork, but the company retains the exclusive right to use the artwork for a gaming book for a period of several years or so.

As far as drawing for free? Um, you probably won't get too many takers there. Maybe if the art director knows somebody who's a drawing hobbyist, or the prime movers of the publishing companies do the illustrations themselves to keep costs down. EN World gets by with volunteer artwork because it is mostly a free service with relatively wide exposure.

Your best bet is to check the artist's submissions guidelines for different companies and see what they have to offer.
 

Fourecks said:
I'm just curious to know how much an amatuer artist of some skill would charge for black & white images (similar to those found in a GURPS sourcebook) as a package deal.

Just a small point -- as soon as an amateur artist gets paid, they're no longer an amateur artist.

It's kinda like the way the Olympics were before they started allowing the pros play the team sports.


Essentially, how much for say... 192 page book, one small image every second page, one large one every fourth or so a couple of page frame graphics, etc.

Seems like you might be making the equation more difficult than it needs to be. A small (say 1/4 page illo) every two pages, a 1/2 every fourth and a full page illo every 4th page almost sounds like an illustration on every page.

It might be easier to approach it from the POV of having a 1/4 every two pages -- that's 96 1/4 page illustrations. Call them art credits -- 1/2 page illustrations use 2 art credits, full page illos use 4 art credits.

That might make it simpler.


You know... just off the top of your head, nothing written in concrete and thrown off the edge of a pier, just a guesstimate.

A slightly low industry average is 25.00 a 1/4 page illustration. That would means you should budget 2400.00 for the interior art at the guestimate number of illustrations.

The lower you drop the payment, the lower the quality will become. You could also use some clever art director tricks to make the book look like it has more art: reuseable chapter heading art and illustrated borders/headers/footers. A smart artist would want more for an illustrations of that nature, too.

SJG used to (they may still do it) have the unpleasant practice of paying on final reproduced art size, not on assigned size. You could draw 20 1/2 page illustrations then get paid the equivalent for 20 1/4 page illustrations because they needed to reproduce them smaller.

I advise all artists and publishers to avoid that system.


Are royalty deals ever made, ie. you promise ten percent of all profit made? Who retains copyright? Who is willing to work for FREE? What levels of quality should I expect for what price ranges, etc.?

Royalty deals have, and can be made, but they have to be really well defined -- what constitutes profit can be really difficult for all parties to be satisfied with.

You get what you pay for -- if the publisher wants to obtain permanent copyright, he should be willing to pay for it.

Anyone willing to outright work for free is an idiot and undervalues their own work as well as the work other professional illustrators do in this industry. Exemptions are, of course, granted for charity and the like.

There was another thread -- either here or in another board on this forum last summer where a number of publishers just outright stated their pay rates. A good idea would be to find that thread and compare their products with their rates.

Hope this helps,

Richard Pace
Art-Golem
 

Re: Re: How much?

rpace said:
The lower you drop the payment, the lower the quality will become. You could also use some clever art director tricks to make the book look like it has more art: reuseable chapter heading art and illustrated borders/headers/footers. A smart artist would want more for an illustrations of that nature, too.
I wouldn't call that a trick I'd just call that basic layout design. Which, if you'll note, I vaguely mentioned in my original post.

rpace said:
SJG used to (they may still do it) have the unpleasant practice of paying on final reproduced art size, not on assigned size. You could draw 20 1/2 page illustrations then get paid the equivalent for 20 1/4 page illustrations because they needed to reproduce them smaller.

I advise all artists and publishers to avoid that system.
Hrm, I find it odd that people would charge based on how much space an illustration takes up on a page since, ultimately, such has little bearing on the work involved. I mean, if the dimensions are odd, like to take up a slim bar along the the side of the page or something, I can see it mattering, but otherwise, the size of the image, for publishing purposes, should have less relavance than the medium used to create it.

If I was going to make a book, then I'd be fully intending on resizing any image that I was going to use, and I would do it in any way I saw fit. Therefore, whether it took up half a page or a full-page, should not matter to the artist as he has no say in how I design the layout of my product.

rpace said:
Royalty deals have, and can be made, but they have to be really well defined -- what constitutes profit can be really difficult for all parties to be satisfied with.
Hmm... don't suppose you know of any example contracts or approximate percentages involved?

rpace said:
There was another thread -- either here or in another board on this forum last summer where a number of publishers just outright stated their pay rates. A good idea would be to find that thread and compare their products with their rates.
Ack! I'd have to pay for the privaledge of the search function...

rpace said:
Richard Pace
Are you RPace from Greytalk?
 

Well, layout elements to reduce the blandness of all text pages could also be called tricks.
;-)

Sorry, I've not done any royalty contracts in the RPG industry. Video games and comics are the only location I've encountered percentage contracts and they really wouldn't apply to this field.

Sorry -- I guess you could try to restart the thread about rates.

I guess a side effect of the for-pay archives will be a repetition of subjects over time.

Yup-- that's me -- old time Greyhawk-type-person.

~Richard Pace
Art-Golem
 

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