Feb 26 2009
The Cost of Rights
If you’ve been following the permission request process outlined in Steps 2 through 4, you now realize that you must make some major decisions before you ask for permission.
To review-
You must know these answers before requesting permission:
- Who is the creator of the original material?
- What is the source of the original material?
- What territory is needed?
- What language is needed?
- Is the request for all editions or this edition only?
- How will the material be used? (book, web site, blog, Power Point presentation, etc.)
You also need to know:
- What is the anticipated life sales (units or dollars) of your product?
- What is the estimated list price of your product?
For print material:
- How many units will be in the first print run?
- If a book, what is the anticipated publishing date?
- If a book, what is the estimated page count?
The fee you pay for your rights will be determined by the answers to these questions. Think of your permissions request as a menu with a wide range of prices.
If you ask for world rights vs. North America only rights, the fee will be higher.
If you are asking to use a cartoon in a book with anticipated life sales of 12,000 units, the fee will be higher than if the anticipated life sales were only 5,600 units.
If you are asking to use a 5 stanza poem in a book with 75 pages, the fee will be higher than if the book had 545 pages.
Are you using an essay written by a well-known author or by someone more obscure? Want to guess which one will cost you more? Yes, the fee for the essay by the well-known author will definitely cost more.
There are times when you won’t be charged any fee, but this is the exception, not the rule. How much could the rights cost? On an average, expect to pay anywhere from $150 to $1800 per request.
© 2009 Anne Wallingford. All Rights Reserved.
