Charging for ownership of a document?

["Hart, Geoff" <Geoff-H -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA>]

David Girardot wonders <<For those of you who retain ownership of work you
do for your clients, have you ever had a client who wanted to "buy" the
rights to a document?  If so, how did you figure out what to charge them?>>

All of my work (primarily editing, but also some techwhirling) is work for
hire, so I don't generally confront this issue. My understanding of the
advice given to artists, who more commonly encounter this situation, is that
you need to estimate how often you could have potentially resold the design
to future clients, combined with the value of the design to the original
client. If it's a design that's likely to earn you substantial income in the
future, then obviously you'd want more money for relinquishing that income;
for example, the _Report on Business Magazine_ reports that Carolyn
Davidson, the woman who created the (in)famous Nike swash, sold it to the
then-new company for US$35. (She's probably still kicking herself. <g>)
Against this, you have to balance the fact that most work we do in technical
communication is unlikely to be reused extensively elsewhere, since the work
tends to be very specific; in that situation, the potential for future
income from a piece of writing is relatively low, and it may be worthwhile
trading that future income for client satisfaction _right now_. A tough
call, huh?

--Geoff Hart, FERIC, Pointe-Claire, Quebec
geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca 

Tarzan's rule of data processing: Never let go of
one vine until you have a solid hold of the next.--Anon.

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