@sunny_che3secake's post on Artfol
So I need some advice.
(Specifically if anyone's familiar with selling art and commissions and stuff)
A friend of mine wants me to make him a piece of art to put on a shirt and sell it for his business. He said 20 to 50 upfront for the art depending on the quality. Everyone seems to think that I should've asked for a percent of his profits off the shirts that sell. The thing is another friend of mine asked and he said since he's just buying the rights to the art and I'm not working on multiple design with him he really only needs to pay me once.
The problem here is I've never done anything like this before so I'm honestly ok with him selling my art without giving me profit cause idk my art isn't that amazing and who knows how many shirts will even sell. I really don't mind it at all. But idk should I ask for a portion of the profit and if he says no again should I not give him my art?
It doesn't really seem that serious to me tbh but everyone thinks I made the wrong choice and my brothers getting my dad involved cause I'm "not managing this money correctly" and I just wanna get some opinions on this cause it's just seeming a lot bigger than it should be since I'm not a professional or anything Apr 27, 2023
(Specifically if anyone's familiar with selling art and commissions and stuff)
A friend of mine wants me to make him a piece of art to put on a shirt and sell it for his business. He said 20 to 50 upfront for the art depending on the quality. Everyone seems to think that I should've asked for a percent of his profits off the shirts that sell. The thing is another friend of mine asked and he said since he's just buying the rights to the art and I'm not working on multiple design with him he really only needs to pay me once.
The problem here is I've never done anything like this before so I'm honestly ok with him selling my art without giving me profit cause idk my art isn't that amazing and who knows how many shirts will even sell. I really don't mind it at all. But idk should I ask for a portion of the profit and if he says no again should I not give him my art?
It doesn't really seem that serious to me tbh but everyone thinks I made the wrong choice and my brothers getting my dad involved cause I'm "not managing this money correctly" and I just wanna get some opinions on this cause it's just seeming a lot bigger than it should be since I'm not a professional or anything Apr 27, 2023
Comments
You don't have to ask for a percentage of the sales of those shirts, but you should charge more. There is the price of the artwork which is whatever you wanna charge for, and then an extra commercial use license fee. This will mean that the artwork will belong to the commissioner and they will be able to reproduce said artwork for their own profit. So just charge more. Percentage of sales can be a headache to keep track off so just charge a bit extra for a commercial license fee.
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Percentage of sales is tricky because it can be that there are no sales and who keeps mentally track of that? You.
I had a t-shirt deal with an indie podcast once and when I had contact them to ask for my percentage of the sales a few times we just agreed that they can pay me a one-and-done deal because their profits had improved overall (which had nothing to do with my design and everything to do with their patreon), and so now they could actually afford it, and a one-and-done deal was honestly way less trouble for everyone involved.
I understand there are different ways of doing this but I decided that for me a little percentage of 1 or 2 of 3 shirts sold is just not worth the mental burden. It was a fun cool project for a podcast I listened to at the time and I was ready to move on.
They directed part of their profits and all of their donations from Twitch to a homeless youth centre anyways, so there was this charity element to it, too, and what we agreed on felt right to me for many reasons.
Mostly: the t-shirts weren't doing super well anyways, and they had other designs coming up, so they were moving on, too.
The logo was used on many Twitch streams and I saw it on a few Youtube videos, too, which was honestly a fun new experience for me: Hey, I made that!
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I had a t-shirt deal with an indie podcast once and when I had contact them to ask for my percentage of the sales a few times we just agreed that they can pay me a one-and-done deal because their profits had improved overall (which had nothing to do with my design and everything to do with their patreon), and so now they could actually afford it, and a one-and-done deal was honestly way less trouble for everyone involved.
I understand there are different ways of doing this but I decided that for me a little percentage of 1 or 2 of 3 shirts sold is just not worth the mental burden. It was a fun cool project for a podcast I listened to at the time and I was ready to move on.
They directed part of their profits and all of their donations from Twitch to a homeless youth centre anyways, so there was this charity element to it, too, and what we agreed on felt right to me for many reasons.
Mostly: the t-shirts weren't doing super well anyways, and they had other designs coming up, so they were moving on, too.
The logo was used on many Twitch streams and I saw it on a few Youtube videos, too, which was honestly a fun new experience for me: Hey, I made that!
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Nah if your work is made for commercial purposes they’d need to pay a royalty (percentage) unless the money upfront is WAY higher
They’re not just buying rights from the art (in which case they’d need to pay royalty), they’re also paying for the labour of making the work.
Def do NOT give the art unless it’s the payment you want!
They’re not just buying rights from the art (in which case they’d need to pay royalty), they’re also paying for the labour of making the work.
Def do NOT give the art unless it’s the payment you want!
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I would ask for either a higher price than i usually would for a piece like that or a percentage of sales because they will be making money off of your art
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