Penguin crowdsource book cover
Penguin books is holding a spec competition for the cover of best selling author John Green’s latest book An Abundance of Katherines. The winner will receive a copy of said book (retail price $9.99).
Running this spec comp under the guise of fanart, Penguin will get access to potentially thousands of hours of free design time. The chosen design will then be used on the cover of John Green’s latest book and sold around the world. Penguin and Green cash the profits.
Fanart competitions are great if run correctly:
1. the competition holder doesn’t profit
2. competition holder asks for portfolios to be submitted, they then choose a designer that best fits the project and compensate him/her fairly
This is spec work dressed as fanart.
What can YOU do? Make some noise but please keep it clean. We have right on our side and the moral high ground.
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Comments
Come on Penguin! As much as I would love to do illustration “just for fun”, it is how I make a living. Please do not tarnish your brand and name by holding a horrible spec campaign. Shame shame!
Posted by Michele Melcher on 01 November 2011
As a nerdfighter and anti-spec supporter I find myself torn.
I strongly believe, this is not a spec work contest, but in fact a real fan art situation. The majority of people who will enter this contest, are not professional designers, or even aspiring designers, but in fact fans. And those who do make a living doing design work, know what they are getting into, and are fans as well.
I won’t be supporting this specific campaign, as I don’t think it’s necessary.
It’s not all black or white. There are some gray areas, or in this case Green areas.
Posted by James Mathias on 01 November 2011
Dear publishers do understand what harm you do to yourself and our Profession.
Do understand that if you pay them peanuts you get monkeys
Posted by Joop Ridder on 01 November 2011
This is indeed a fan art situation. Like James said, the fans aren’t designers. Those of us who are both fans and designers, however, know better than to get into such a thing if we want full compensation. I can’t support this.
Posted by Davis on 01 November 2011
Please understand that there is much, much more to the story than what is posted here. John Green is about to be releasing his newest book and many “fans” of his made covers (both serious and not) for said book. Not because they expected anything in return, but because they were excited for it and had fun while doing it.
In response, penguin agreed to let them design Katherines as a way of giving back for how much support they give to John Green already. It is not a “contest” in the way that will save penguin money, but it’s something that people are very excited about doing. Remember, these are teenagers (primarily). Not people trying to steal designers’ jobs.
Posted by Amira on 01 November 2011
I am holding a competition to see who can build me the best house! The builder with the best house will have the honor of me living in it! Cost free! I’ll even have the builder over for dinner in the house he built since he won!
THIS IS WRONG.
Posted by Tieson Wooten on 01 November 2011
Fanart if used as part of a professionally designed cover would be somewhat acceptable but still devalues the process.
Posted by John Boland on 01 November 2011
Hi. Author of the book in question here.
First, let me say that I might be in the wrong here, and if I am, I’m sorry.
This project was inspired by fans (almost all of them teens) who generated thousands of covers for “The Fault in Our Stars,” my new book. Many of those covers were very good, and I went to Penguin and said, “Hey! We should think about using these covers!” And they were like, “Yeah, no, that would be soliciting spec work, and that’s immoral,” so if you want to be mad at anyone, you should probably be mad at me.
I’ve written a lot on spec, and I absolutely agree with you that it’s unfair to designers to be asked to design on spec (specifically when the payment is, as you note, a book that retails for $9.99). But that’s precisely why there’s no money involved. We figured—rightly, I assume—that designers would not be interested in participating in a contest if there were no prize. This is not one of those spec campaigns where a company tries to get a thousand designs from a thousand designers by offering to pay one winner. We don’t want to be soliciting spec designs; we want to reward and thank the kids who love the book and have been designing covers for it for months and uploading them to tumblr and twitter.
But it’s not like there were plans to release a new cover and then Penguin decided to find a way to make that new cover for free. If anything, they were bullied by an author into doing this because that author did not feel the contest would contribute to the very real and very serious problem of these paid design contests.
Again, I might be wrong about any or all of this, and I’m sorry if I am.
-John Green
Posted by John Green on 01 November 2011
If a company ran a competition for one author, appealing to that author’s fans, that is a fan based competition. If a company ran a competition for another author, then it is a “we don’t have to pay to hire a designer for the cover, YeeHee!” I too believe in some fan based competitions, but this is a company seeing dollar signs, not satisfied fans.
Posted by Amelia Schwencke on 01 November 2011
WHat example does this set budding young designers?
Posted by Jeff J on 01 November 2011
Mr. Green, thanks for responding. Covers are valuable things. They are valuable enough for companies like Penguin to pay for, enough for illustrators to work towards attaining. They are marketing tools and influence sales.
Here’s an idea: have Penguin design or commission as per normal for your book, for pay to designers and illustrators as usual. Additionally, run your contest for fans to have fun with. Ten winners get a 1-off copy of the book with their cover printed nicely. The fans get their fun and their keepsake, you get your community participation, Penguin gets to keep their reputation, and a designer and/or illustrator gets to pay rent for another month.
If you’ve asked for this contest, then ask to end it or amend it along these lines.
Posted by Randy on 01 November 2011
Read what the actual author of the book wrote, a couple of comments above this, and remove this campaign. I’m usually all for anti spec, but this isn’t spec, and the author clearly understands the problem and wasn’t trying to add to it.
Posted by Ben on 01 November 2011
No Spec! Pay designers for their work the same way you pay your phone bill, gas bill and rent!
Posted by Danii Oliver on 01 November 2011
Should we consider purchasing books based on whether or not we liked the story after it’s read? Rise above.
Posted by Ron Thompson on 01 November 2011
Shame on you Penguin.
Posted by Eileen MacAvery Kane on 01 November 2011
These types of campaign, whether “fanart” or not, are demeaning to designers. It makes the public think that if the work is such fun and people do it for free, then why should they then have to pay a designer when they need a logo, brochure, website, etc. It hurts the graphic design profession. It’s serious business; we’re not just a bunch of people having fun with crayons you know. As a licensed graphic designer, through the Society of Graphic Designers of Canada, I am not allowed to participate in any spec work, and for good reason. Shame on you Penguin and John Green. Why not be supportive of our profession and hire someone? Maybe next time?
I think I’ll ask the local tailor to make me several jackets. I’ll keep them all of course, but I’ll only pay for the one I like. Or give the tailor a copy of the latest poster I’ve designed.
Posted by Mona McClintock on 01 November 2011
Let me pontificate. You know, I illustrate a lot of posters for our local school’s plays. I love it and it makes the kids feel like they’re pros. I print them on my printer, the kids hang them all over the schools and fight for them when the play’s over as memorabilia for, maybe, their 15 minutes of fame. You see, they DON’T MAKE MONEY FROM IT. I agree, let the fans have fun, it’s certainly where your pay check comes from but, do it with a sense of ethics involved.
Posted by Jim Redzinak on 01 November 2011
I think these graphic designers are taking this all too seriously. If John Green’s fans enjoy making fan covers and don’t want compensation for them, why is it such a bad thing? There have already been two different covers for An Abundance of Katherines, both of which were fully paid for. I don’t think most people understand the unique kind of fans John Green has. He is not just an author; he is a leader of a large community of super dedicated fans who would be more than happy to just see their design on a real book and are not interested in the money whatsoever. Some of the fan made covers for The Fault in Our Stars were VERY good. They looked more professional that some real book covers I’ve come across. All he is trying to do is give back to a community that has given him so much already. There will be plenty of other opportunities for the professionals to design book covers. This is just one book out of thousands upon thousands. Just let the fans have this one.
Posted by Kim on 01 November 2011
This campaign is so off base that it’s entirely ridiculous. John saw his community loved making book covers, and he decided to let the community do just that, but in a fun way. It’s not meant to take work away from designers. It’s meant to engage John’s fan community who like to design.
Take this down. It’s patently stupid.
Posted by ahuster on 01 November 2011
I am, along with many of the people who read this because it’s on Johns’ twitter: an avid supporter of the community work that John Green and his brother Hank Green do via the Vlogbrothers on YouTube. As Amira wrote above: the reason this was done is: for Johns’ current book The Fault in our Stars, all the Nerdfighter fans that wanted to design a book cover did of their own accord. Just because they love John and because they are excited for the book to be released and also surely, because they are talented young people.
They did this. And they did it well. So John decided to let one of them design the cover of his next book and regardless of what you people may think I truly belive that John did NOT do this as a way to rip off designers. He is doing this to empower young people and we love him for it.
If you can find me another author who has such an avid group of supporters who follow him as we do and most importantly FEEL CONNECTED TO HIM because of what he does on the internet, then they too should allow their fans to be involved in their books because after all authors are real people too. It’s a great privelage to come down to the level of your fans and have them involved in the product that you are eventually going to sell to them. Its’ a fantastic way to get us involved. And more importantly: he’s built that up for himself.
Let other authors do the same amount of work for their fan base as John Green does VOLUNTARILY and then we’ll see if this is fair.
Jeez people. Taken completely out of context anything can and will be a bad thing. If this silliness results in the pulling of the brilliant idea that will almost certainly make history in the name of rules and regulations over 500 000 people are going to be devastated.
DFTBA John
Posted by Em Daim on 01 November 2011
Well, one more company to boycott.
Posted by Andrew on 01 November 2011
“Again, I might be wrong about any or all of this, and I’m sorry if I am.” -John Green
Mr. Green, it’s pretty obvious you know you’re wrong but would like to appear thoughtful and conflicted. In writing. In your video it was painfully obvious you couldn’t care less.
Others have given excellent suggestions as to how you might salvage some sense of decency from this.
Posted by Steve on 01 November 2011
To the author, that you have written a lot on spec does not justify slowly turning every freelance what-should-be-a-paying-job into some BS competition. Ive done spec work too, that is, I’ve done a few jobs and then proposed a potential client with a finished product. That they would pay me for in full if they liked what they saw. But I was soliciting them, not the other way around.
Posted by Tim on 02 November 2011
I’m not sure about this campaign as the competition is not aimed at commercial use per se.
Posted by Miriam on 02 November 2011
I’m writing this as a fan of the author, and as somebody who probably would be participating in the competition if I wasn’t so busy writing a B.A. thesis right now, but also as somebody with zero experience in the design industry, and I acknowledge that.
I think most of you are missing this important point that John made in his comment: “But it’s not like there were plans to release a new cover and then Penguin decided to find a way to make that new cover for free.” There were no plans to have a new cover. The whole point of having the new cover is the contest. Penguin is not taking any payment away from a designer.
And another point (that a few other people have made) is that the contest entrants are mostly teenagers who are doing this for fun. They want to do it. Nobody is forcing them. They don’t have any rent to pay, because they’re still in high school and live with their parents. So not only is Penguin not taking payment away from a designer because without the contest there would be no cover to design, but they’re probably not even taking payment away from somebody who especially needs it to live.
You know, maybe I will participate in the competition after all. An anti-boycott, if you will.
DFTBA, Nerdfighters
Posted by Paige on 02 November 2011
Not expected from a brand of this stature! Please! Let’s develop a healthy professional working environment…
Posted by Sandeep Salariya on 02 November 2011
What exactly is the difference of having people work for free on fan art and spec work? In each scenario you get lots of free work which will be marketed for real money.
I found this video so annoying, I would anyway not submit anything. What is that thing about DC? Do they actually have laws against such contests there???
Posted by Tori on 02 November 2011
Did John Green get paid for his work?
Posted by MeethaChi on 02 November 2011
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