PNEUMA BOOKS ARTICLE:
MAKING WORK FOR HIRE WORK FOR YOU!

It worked—the designer you hired crafted a killer cover for your beloved book, and you can’t wait to kick off your marketing efforts with this spanking new image. You just know this cover is going to help you sell more books. Best of all, the designer you hired agreed to a “Work for Hire” contract. This is great! It means you have full access to all the artwork the designer created for your book cover. So, now your head is spinning with plans to use the image of your cover on postcards, sell sheets, promotional flyers, and the like.

“Work for Hire” by definition is a contractual situation whereby the artist you contract agrees to give up all or most of their rights of ownership on the artwork they created to you! You are then free to use this art in whatever future uses you may have—later editions of the book, brochures, ads, websites, etc. In contrast, with a “Rights Protected” agreement, the artist retains the rights to the artwork and sells the “Usage Rights” to you for an agreed amount of time, type of use, and/or quantity of uses. This latter arrangement is one not usually preferred by publishers because it may limit the usage of the book cover image created by the artist, thus preventing the publisher from creating future editions or reprints of the book and any marketing materials utilizing that original image or even parts of it.

But, you hired a great designer under the preferred “Work for Hire” agreement, and now you’ve got a great cover. The next logical step is to create some marketing materials with your new images, right? You figure you can just get the files from your designer and save some money by putting together your own sales material. The question is… “Why?” Or a more stimulating question might be: “Would you make your own suit to go to a sales meeting if you aren’t a tailor?”

I am not trying to be flip. Instead, maybe I can be a voice of reason. Here’s why: Often, the first thing any book reviewer, retail or specialty market book buyer, curriculum adoption personnel, acquisitions librarian, or book distributor sees is your marketing material. Before your book is in hand, they review your promotional collateral. Therefore, the presentation of your book and the message communicated by your promotional material is a critical factor in influencing those reviewing and buying decisions.

All book industry professionals want to be assured that your book will be a top-notch, commercial product with professional marketing power behind it. Unless you are a marketing and design professional (in which case you probably wouldn’t have hired a designer to do your book cover), homemade postcards, flyers, and websites are not going to foster that image, and these professionals may incorrectly assess the quality of your book based solely upon the quality of your marketing materials. In other words, if your promotional materials look homemade, they’ll think your book is too.

Our book development, design, and marketing firm primarily services small to mid-size presses and self-publishers. We understand limited budgets. We understand that publishers must make wise decisions about the marketing dollars they have available. But we also understand the opinion many book industry professionals have regarding do-it-yourself-publishers -- and it’s not always a positive one. The book industry’s biggest criticism of self-publishing is that the quality of book development and marketing is not on the same level as professional publishers. This is the primary reason the publishing industry often scoffs at self-publishing.

It pains us to see some of the homemade marketing materials and websites created after much creative and deliberate care has gone into the design of a book. It concerns us that these materials might be inhibiting the sales potential of an otherwise well-developed and well-designed book. We want our clients to have success at every opportunity.

If your marketing budget is tight, discuss this up front with your book cover and interior designer. Inform them that you plan to use the imagery they create for marketing materials. Perhaps you can work out a fee arrangement for the book cover or interior AND the marketing materials. In our business, it is a relatively simple process for us to create the marketing message and materials once we have created the initial design and layout for the cover or interior. In fact, we encourage this arrangement. We feel it is in the best interest of the publisher’s marketing campaign to have all of the marketing collateral created by one design team. Then the message and materials are consistent with the book image, and they are executed with the same level of professional commercial development. This is good for your image. This will impress prospective book industry reviewers and buyers. This will exceed expectations and enable you to compete with the big boys.

Utilizing a “Work for Hire” agreement can be beneficial for a publisher because you won’t have to pay for the use of the book imagery over and over each and every time you use it. But someone has to create the layout to implement that imagery into marketing materials. Why not the original designer? The designer will benefit from the additional production business, and you’ll benefit greatly from the professional result. Ultimately, your professionally designed book marketing materials will open up doors that may remain closed to you otherwise.

©2003 Brian Taylor. All Rights Reserved. Please feel free to copy this article with appropriate credit, link, and contact info to Brian Taylor at Pneuma Books. Email Pneuma Books for more info or call 410-287-3120

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DISCLAIMER: This information is the opinion of Pneuma Books and is presented as informational purposes only. It is not meant to replace the advice of legal, financial, or other professional counsel. Individuals should consult an attorney, accountant, and additional publishing consultants for specific applications to their individual publishing or writing ventures. Individuals should always gather and consider more than one source of information in order to make well-informed decisions.

Pneuma Books is not a Publisher, Subsidy Publisher or Vanity Press.
Pneuma Books is a Book Producer. Pneuma Books does not issue ISBNs.

PNEUMA BOOKS ARTICLE: MAKING WORK FOR HIRE WORK FOR YOU!

PNEUMA BOOKS ARTICLE:
MAKING WORK FOR HIRE WORK FOR YOU!