Dear Art Directors! Thank you so much for all the helpful answers. I have a book cover licensing question! I licensed a cover piece to a different company for an audiobook version. While I only gave them the type-less art I created, I noticed they ended up using the full cover from the original publisher. I don't know if a separate agreement is usually reached between publishers concerning the in-house designer's work. Is this something I should bring up with the designer? Thank you!
This area of licensing is called âSub-Rightsâ and itâs a very standard part of publishing. The publisher who initially buys the manuscript and releases the book has a contract for a certain amount of rights from the author. Usually itâs for certain formats (Hardcover, paperback, ebook, digital audio, physical audio, large print, etc) and certain languages/territories. If another publisher wants to bring out that same book in a different format or region or language, they have to contract that with the author (if the author retained those rights) or with the originating publisher (if the publisher, say, bought world rights). Either way, thereâs no point in re-editing the book from scratch, you want the version the originating publisher finished. But to do that you need to pay for the work that publisher did.Â
If you want to use the same cover, you need to pay for that too. If it has art on it from a freelance artist then you have to go back to the original art contract and see what the AD licensed. If the originating publisher bought all the book usage from the artist then the 2nd publisher pays the first publisher. But if the 1st publisher didnât license the art for, say, other languages or formats, then the 2nd publisher is directed back to the artist to negotiate a re-use fee with them directly.
Once that is done, however, they usually are still going to use the files from the 1st publisher because the design and type and final color correction is part of those files. They were really only renegotiating the USAGE from the freelance artist, not the actual file. But they usually take the file too, just in case they need it.
In MOST cases the 2nd publisher has already talked to the 1st publisher and that is how they knew to contact you to reuse the art. They would have checked to see if the 1st publisher licensed the rights. Sometimes thereâs something shady going on, with very small publishers or some foreign countries, but I wouldnât expect the artist to be policing that. If a 2nd publisher comes to you looking to relicense art, theyâre usually legit, or they wouldnât have contacted you at all.Â
And in that case, let me answer the next question: negotiate whatever you can for the reuse fee, but know itâs usually much less than the original fee. 2nd format publishers and foreign publishers usually have very little budget to relicense art. Consider it a little bonus money, and donât stress too much about figuring out exactly what itâs worth in the book market. You can always say no if you donât want them to use it, but honestly itâs usually only $100-$500 max.
âAgent KillFee
