“What contract should I use when hiring an illustrator?”

Q –

Hi Angela,

Sorry to see that your sailing adventure had to become a camping adventure, but it sounds like you created a good substitute vacation experience.

The recent article on copyright in WritersWeekly was timely for my situation. Do you know of a standard form I could use to address the problem of hiring a contractor to create content (diagrams) that I plan to use in my book? I suspect this must be a common situation and I’d like to avoid having to “re-invent the wheel,” if possible.

Thanks for any help or guidance you can provide.

Best,
David

A –

You can request a work-for-hire agreement so you will own all rights to the content from now on. You won’t want to have a time-limit on how long you can use the items, nor do you want to have to pay someone else a percentage of all your book sales. This type of agreement is typically more expensive because the illustrator/photographer can’t sell the items to anyone else in the future.

A sample work-for-hire contract is here:
http://www.copylaw.com/forms/Workhire.html

Another option is to simply request non-exclusive rights. With that, you or the illustrator can use the image(s) in any way either of you wants to without one owing the other one any future compensation for doing so.

Angela

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“What contract should I use when hiring an illustrator?”

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Writing FAST: How to Write Anything with Lightning Speed

A systematic approach to writing that generates better quality quickly!

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One Response to "“What contract should I use when hiring an illustrator?”"

“What contract should I use when hiring an illustrator?”

So, You Wanna Be a Ghostwriter - How To Make Money Writing Without a Byline

Writing FAST: How to Write Anything with Lightning Speed

A systematic approach to writing that generates better quality quickly!

Chock full of ideas, tips, techniques and inspiration, this down-to-earth book is easy to read, and even easier to apply. Let author Jeff Bollow take you through a process that brings your ideas to the page faster, more powerfully and easier than ever before.

TRAVEL WRITING 2.0: Earning Money from your Travels in the New Media Landscape - SECOND EDITION

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