An opportunity has come up for us to make potentially a significant
amount of money, and as we have no experience with this I thought I
would consult the collective wisdom of this list.

A local artist with whom we have worked for nearly 20 years is
assembling a book that will contain reproductions of her work, bits of
original poetry, selected journal entries pertaining to the work and the
poetry, and assorted memoirs.  It is really a hihg-quality thing, and
although she could probably interest a major publisher in it, for the
sake of time (she is in her 70s now) she has chosen a local vanity-type
press and will proceed to self-publish the book.

Here's where we come in:  she wants us to receive 75% of the GROSS in
return for helping her raise the $30K+ it will cost to have it published
and distributed (the press will take 25%).  Her idea is that she will do
most of the contacts with potential donors (with us being the host site
for fundraising events, the cost of which would be covered by the
press), and the money would be given to the Art Center into a designated
fund so the donor could take a tax deduction.  We would forward the
money to the press for production costs.  When sales are made, the press
would forward 75% to us, which we would put into our general fund. The
press would be in charge of marketing the book to retail outlets, and we
would also sell the book through our own gift shop.

To us this seems fairly clean in general, with the added advantage of
the artist introducing us to her contacts, but there are some
complicating issues.  To wit:

The artist is putting up $10,000 of her own money up front as a
guarantee, which she hopes to get back through fundraising.  The total
project budget is $30,000, including a $5000 advance to the artist
against royalties.  The idea is to find 6 $5000 donors.  If all of the
donated funding doesn't come through, the artist will personally fund
the difference and we only get money after the initial $30,000 of gross
sales.

We don't see how we can lose here, since we aren't putting up any cash
ourselves (just staff time), but is there something we are missing? We
have thought of asking for $3000 (10% of production costs) up front as
an additional budgeted item to ensure that even if no $ are raised and
no books are sold we get something for our efforts--is this a good idea?

I'd appreciate any this-happened-to-us-too stories from any institutions
that have been involved with something similar, or from anyone who can
see the situation differently from the way we see it. You can reply to
me personally or to the list.

Thanks for your help!

Julia Muney Moore
Director of Exhibitions and Artist Services
Indianapolis Art Center
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