I Hope…

On Licensing Art…

When Kris and I first came out of the Licensing Expo, it was clear to us that art was a critical component of any license. So we assumed that it would be the best for writers to start buying more rights for the art because the royalty free sites licenses did not allow for use of the art in many ways.

In theory, that is correct, and in the Licensing Transition Class on Teachable, later this winter, we will be talking about art licenses, what to do, what not to do, that sort of thing, including looking at contracts for art licenses.

But for now, unless you have an immediate plan to turn something into a t-shirt or mug to sell for profit, use filler art, meaning do your covers with the cheaper royalty-free art license.

Why?

Two reasons.

One… You can always change it out later.

Second.   When you go to an artist to do some covers or art for a project you are going to license, you have examples of what you want. You might even be able to go to the original artist and buy a better license for the original art you used.

So no point in spending money for licenses on products you are not pushing yet. Spend it when the project kicks off.

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On Shared World…

This is also about licensing.  As is going to be taught in the Shared World Class on Teachable, there are many, many different forms of shared worlds. Some, like Star Trek, license from the author all rights to the story when the author is hired. Some, like a magazine, only license the rights needed and revert in a few short months everything but non-exclusive rights to keep the story in the magazine.

On Cave Creek, the example shared world inside the Shared World Class, it will be closer to a magazine or anthology than Star Trek.

I have no desire to own anyone’s copyright even if they would be foolish enough to license it to me or WMG, but we will license, if we want to license something you write for Cave Creek, only the rights we need for the product we are building. Writers will own and be able to publish their own stories after a short time just like any anthology or magazine.

Again, this sort of shared world will be explained in the class, but I just wanted to be clear that this is a learning class, and anything done in the shared world of Cave Creek will be on the lighter copyright license side of shared worlds. But those taking the class will understand the entire rainbow of possible shared worlds when finished.

And be able to set up their own shared worlds anywhere along the spectrum.

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So two licensing questions cleared up in one post. (grin)