I designed a whole booklet with advertisement and was paid for all ads I designed. What do I do now when they want to redo it? I won’t have as many ads to design, so it’s not such a big profit. The person doing it will earn all money and me nearly nothing. Did I do something wrong? Should I have made a contract? Because that person claims it’s her idea so the money is for her. Is she right?
I think you can look at this job (and many others, like setting up workbooks, newsletters, anything that has a big initial outlay and then follow-up changes down the road - even an ad!) in 2 steps.
The initial stage is where the heavy lifting happens, the layout, the back and forth. This is where you charge a lot, because this is the bulk of the work.
Then there is the follow up stage. For example, when the newsletter is running for a second time, with content changes but the layout is the same. Or when the store is running the sale ad again the next year, but is changing some details.
Unless you stipulated it beforehand, the client has every right to go to whoever they want for this second stage. They do not need to come back to you. You can charge them for the time it takes to package the open files, or charge a flat rate for access to the open files. But you can not refuse to send it to them, outline the fonts etc etc unless you clearly stipulated this beforehand. Such practice will probably come back to hurt you (tho we hope not!) So much of this industry is word of mouth, and clients get very annoyed at such practice. So set yourself up from the beginning with a clear policy so they know what to expect. (For example “once the layout is confirmed, you can request the open files at a charge of xyz”. We reserve the right to use the files for promotional materials etc.)
Now let’s say they decide they want to continue with you for this second stage. So yes, of course you will be paid a lot less. The bulk of the work is done. I don’t recommend pricing hourly, but if you would, you would see it would (should) take a lot fewer hours. So making less money in stage 2 is not a mistake that you made, it’s the way it’s meant to be! 
As an example, I recently developed a layout for a set of curriculum books. The first one they paid a lot for, the next 5 books they paid me fairly, but a lot less because the system / “look” was already in place. And for the small changes (which I anyways didn’t want to do) I packaged up the files, charged them a small fee for the effort that took, and they had someone else do it. There was no resentment BH because they knew how it would happen beforehand and so did I.
Anyhow Im sorry im darshening away! I jsut see a lot of similar questions to yours on the forum, so I decided to get on my soapbox and give my little speech! Hope it helps and that you feel fulfilled and not frustrated when these things happen! It’s the sign of a good graphics artist that they are using your things again and again, so feel proud!!! And I am not saying you should let the client run all over you. But if you charge your worth from the begining, you won’t end up feeling cheated when they pay less for updates / changes… hatzlacha!
Wow, thank you for making it clear to me. However I still have a question. The People were charged a certain price to have a place in the advertiser which INCLUDED the graphic design. When I designed the booklet I said that if anyone wants to reuse their advert again wherever they want, they have to pay me an extra fee so that it can belong to them. Now that this booklet is being redone, I will have to send all the designed adverts to this person doing it
. So everyone who had an ad in this booklet will be able to use my designed advert without any charge. Is it correct? or can I still charge?
Are they just rerunning the ads? Or are they changing them?
To rerun an ad, they should not need to pay any fee (aside from the fee that the magazine publisher charges). It’s understood that when someone pays for an ad design, they are paying to use it as many times as they want.
However if they are requesting the open files and / or changes (and it sounds like they are), then yes they should certainly pay whatever the fee is that you said from the beginning. That fee will either cover the time spent on the changes, or the time spent packaging the open files.
It could be I’m not understanding the exact nature and scope of what you’re describing, but from what I understood that’s what I think!
Let me give you a clearer example. Let’s say I’m designing the adverts for the Monsey View. The people are paying the Monsey View for the ad in magazine including the graphics. However I made it clear beforehand that it’s only for use in the Monsey View. To be able to use it somewhere else the person advertising has to pay me an extra fee. Now the Monsey View decided to use another graphic designer and asking me to give all the adverts I designed. Not all advertisement need changes and can be reused as is. If I send all adverts to Monsey View they can give it further to their client and I’m left out without the extra fee. And I made it clear that it has to be paid to me. (is it clear what I’m trying to explain?) Am I still supposed to send all the ads? I won’t be getting the extra fee and the client can use the advert without me getting anything!?
I hear! I would say that this clause is pretty unusual -
“To be able to use it somewhere else the person advertising has to pay me an extra fee.”
Nonetheless, it sounds like they agreed to the clause. So what I would say is, in an email…
As discussed in our initial agreement, any advertiser wishing to use any ad which I designed outside of the Monsey View would be required to pay a release fee to me, for usage of the ad.
As such, while I am sending you the files below, I would like to reiterate that they are for use only within the View, as agreed upon. If any advertiser would like to reuse their ad elsewhere, they must be directed to me as discussed.
Between you and me, even if the View agrees, practically this is very hard to enforce because didn’t they send the pdfs to the client to approve? Once they did that, what’s to stop the client from taking the pdf and sending it to any other newspaper, without informing the View? So it’s relying very heavily on people understanding these clauses and sticking to them…
In the future, you may want to just up your base price, and then charge one flat rate for releasing all the ads. Contingency clauses (if they x, then y) often get confusing and sticky!!
Hope it all works out and keep in mind that every single thing we do is iYH a stepping stone for the next thing and every bit of experience is a HUGE deal! So don’t give up!!! Even when these frustrations hit!