What do you want your work to do for you?

An offer arrives to put your illustrations on stationery. The fee is the clearest number on the page, so it is tempting to start there. Start one step earlier: decide what you want this work to do for you. More income, less administration, a new audience, time to make other work, and control over how the images appear are different aims, and one deal rarely serves them all equally.

Start with the result you would notice

"Make money from my IP" is an ambition, not yet a deal. Turn it into a result you would notice. A designer who needs dependable income this season should favour money paid up front over royalties, which are paid later and depend on how well the licensee sells. 3 A teacher who wants a resource translated widely should give permission to adapt it rather than restrict every reuse.

Answer three questions before you reply to any offer, and write the answers down:

1. Who do you want the work to reach?
2. Do you want to keep using it in your own practice?
3. How much ongoing work (approvals, reports, quality checks) are you willing to take on?

Every term in the offer has to pass the test your answers set.

There is more than one way for rights to help

You have three ways to earn from your IP: use it yourself in your own products and services, license it (give others permission to use it while you keep ownership), or assign it (sell it, so ownership passes to the buyer). A license can pay you a lump sum, recurring royalties, or both. 1 Pick the route that fits your answers: sell your own products if you want full control, license if you want someone else to do the making, and assign if you are moving on to new work and want a clean break.

Licensing also lets you rely on a partner's capacity, know-how and management skills that you do not have. 1 An illustrator who enjoys drawing but dislikes manufacturing and shipping can license a manufacturer to do both. The license does not make the partner reliable, so check them before you sign: look for past lawsuits, ask for financial statements and a credit report, and confirm that their strategy fits your brand. 3 If you care how the images appear, write quality standards into the license and keep the right to audit the licensee against them. 3 Put the agreement in writing: most countries set formal requirements for licenses and assignments, such as written form. 1

Sharing can have a clear purpose too

A community group may want local organizers to reproduce its illustrated guide. A Creative Commons license tells everyone at once what reuse is allowed. Before you choose one, decide 2:

• whether others may adapt the work, for example translate or customize it, or may use it only unchanged;
• whether you allow commercial use or only noncommercial use;
• whether adaptations must be shared under the same or a compatible license.

If you want to give up all your rights, use the CC0 public domain dedication instead of a license. Check two things first. You must own or control the copyright: if you made the work as part of your job, your employer may own it, so ask first. And the licenses and CC0 cannot be cancelled: they last until the copyright expires. 2 Then use the License Chooser to pick the license 4, and mark the work: name the license, link to its deed, place the notice where people will see it (a copyright notice or website footer), and add the title, your name and the date you made it. 2

Generosity does not require vagueness. A visible permission notice saves the group from answering the same question again and again, and tells a teacher whether translation is welcome. If a particular work needs a tighter arrangement, keep it out of the open license and negotiate permission case by case. Match the permission to the purpose.

Notice what an opportunity asks you to stop doing

A large fee often comes with a broad exclusive grant. Under an exclusive license only the licensee may use the work, which often stops you using it yourself and can limit your other commercial opportunities. 3 In the stationery example, permission for notebooks in one country for two years is a very different deal from permission for all products, everywhere, for as long as the rights last.

If a partner asks for exclusivity, narrow it, price it and keep an exit 3:

1. Limit it to a field (notebooks, not all products) and a territory (a named list of countries).
2. Charge more for it: expect a higher up-front lump sum and higher royalties, and tie it to commercial milestones the partner must meet.
3. Choose a renewable term instead of a long one, and list the events that let you end it, such as non-payment of royalties, insolvency or a change of control.
4. If you want to keep selling the work yourself, offer a sole license instead: no one else gets a license, but you keep the right to use the work.

Broader is not always worse. A partner may have a good reason to ask for it, and you may have a good reason to agree. Say yes when you can name what the deal makes possible and which of your own options it closes, and the trade still serves the answers you wrote down at the start.