Digitizers: Would you work for a stock embroidery design company?

cnyembroidery · February 21st, 2020, 12:55 AM

Hi,

As I mentioned in my introductory post in the Member Introductions forum, I'm the co-owner / general manager of a company selling stock embroidery designs. We've been around a while and you've probably heard the name.

Recently, we've been thinking about growing the business by bringing on new artists and digitizers. The problem is, our current digitizers have been with us for close to 20 years, so I don't have a very good understanding of what the job market for this profession currently looks like. I'm here on the forum to put the question to you, embroidery and digitizing professionals:

Would you work for a company that sells stock embroidery designs? What would convince you to?

The arrangement that we have with our current digitizers is that they make royalties from each design they make for us. We take care of the customer service, marketing, etc. They are pretty much completely free to pursue their creative whims and choose their own direction for the designs. We do insist on exclusive rights to distribute the work that they do for us.

My goal here is to come up with a fair offer I can make to talented people, in order to entice them to join our team.

I appreciate any input!

Robert Young · March 4th, 2020, 03:41 PM

as this is currently my 30th year making a living off of digitizing/// yep that old. I would have to say a big fat NO heck to the NO. "exclusive rights" ? uh heck NO. Sorry having made millions off of digitizing only I do not recommend any new digitizer following that path. YOU BE YOU... YOU GAIN YOUR OWN CLIENTS if you want to pursue stock designs then do it yourself or on your terms. exclusive rights my A..

digimaster · March 5th, 2020, 10:00 AM

WOW.....once again Robert, you are VERY RUDE, and always seem to throw your experience out there to try and belittle people (or at least that's how it looks to me) you are not the only one that has been in this business for a considerable length of time. I see absolutely NO PROBLEM in what cnyembroidery is asking. Explain to me how that is any different then an artist painting pics and putting them in an exhibit for sale, I'm sure the establishment would get a cut of the sale or how could they stay in business? pretty much the same thing here, only the creator/digitizer receives ongoing royalties from their design while cnyembroidery does the leg work.
I think many digitizers would like this idea cnyembroidery. just my 2cents worth.

jhornsby3 · March 5th, 2020, 12:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by digimaster

WOW.....once again Robert, you are VERY RUDE, and always seem to throw your experience out there to try and belittle people (or at least that's how it looks to me) you are not the only one that has been in this business for a considerable length of time. I see absolutely NO PROBLEM in what cnyembroidery is asking. Explain to me how that is any different then an artist painting pics and putting them in an exhibit for sale, I'm sure the establishment would get a cut of the sale or how could they stay in business? pretty much the same thing here, only the creator/digitizer receives ongoing royalties from their design while cnyembroidery does the leg work.
I think many digitizers would like this idea cnyembroidery. just my 2cents worth.

First I have to say that Mr. Young is not being rude but not sugar coating his response. It's nice to see that someone can tell you the truth right from the beginning and not try to hold your hand as he is walking you to your safe place where words won't hurt you.

Second, I agree that if I come up with a design, why give it up to the company? That is what Mr. Young said no, but hell no to. Getting that little bit of mailbox money is one thing, but giving up all designs while in the presence of the company is not going to happen. As for a painting in a gallery, you can sell it through the gallery but that gallery is not going to come back and say that you can't paint something close to it or the exact painting again or wee will sue you. They won't say that. And they wont tell you to do the same if you desided to pull out of Bob's gallery and start showing at Genes gallery.

There is a huge difference. And I would agree with Mr. Young here.

cnyembroidery · March 5th, 2020, 12:43 PM

Thank you guys for chiming in. I'm a big boy, so I don't mind candidly expressed opinions.

I should clarify: we are not looking to claim exclusive rights to *everything* a designer does while they are also working for us. That would be insane. We would just like exclusive rights to the designs that the digitizer sends to us for distribution.

So if a designer has a contract with us and they made designs A, B and C. Design A is sent to us. Design B is put up for sale on the designer's Etsy shop. Design C is an exclusive made for another client. We would only insist on having the exclusive rights to Design A. In other words, the digitizer would not be able to sell Design A on their Etsy shop, etc.

I hope that makes a little more sense

Robert Young · March 9th, 2020, 12:28 PM

Thank you for clarifying as that does make more sense in that you are allowing the digitizer to pick which product they are willing to put on your platform. I misunderstood and apologize for that.

Although... having worked with interior designer embroideries we are NEVER allowed to show our work to other companies to gain more business, to show what we have done to show our abilities. SO the only way to gain new clients is to create a completely new and unique portfolio which is time consuming but I guess necessary if you want new business. Just seems unfair to the digitizer since the previous work was accepted and apparently approved as the invoice was paid. Does your program allow for "design A" in your scenario to be used in their portfolio? Not to sell A but to use it as an example of the quality they can achieve?

gulfcoastembroidery · September 8th, 2020, 06:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Robert Young

Thank you for clarifying as that does make more sense in that you are allowing the digitizer to pick which product they are willing to put on your platform. I misunderstood and apologize for that.

Although... having worked with interior designer embroideries we are NEVER allowed to show our work to other companies to gain more business, to show what we have done to show our abilities. SO the only way to gain new clients is to create a completely new and unique portfolio which is time consuming but I guess necessary if you want new business. Just seems unfair to the digitizer since the previous work was accepted and apparently approved as the invoice was paid. Does your program allow for "design A" in your scenario to be used in their portfolio? Not to sell A but to use it as an example of the quality they can achieve?

And with these designs be sold for personal use only or resell will there be residual on the Final sale of products

personal use only

digidana · September 10th, 2020, 04:40 AM

big picture...years ago, when i had 'down time' i would supplement by doing some stock designs that where distributed/sold through a stock design site. honestly, i haven't had time to do stock designs in the last 10-15 years or so. you can get overseas digitizers to work for peanuts (which translates to big bucks in their countries), and some may create good designs, but creating stock designs won't pay the mortgage because profits have to be split, etc. basic point is to make sure you find digitizers that actually know what they're doing....but digitizers that actually know what they're doing are probably making more money doing custom work. for me, the whole design A, B, or C thing isn't really an issue. i wouldn't use stock designs in a portfolio...i wouldn't expect to own rights to a stock design. that's why they're stock designs.