Good news for those wanting a new book from JK Rowling that doesn’t have anything to do with Harry Potter and its Satanic rituals! The author will be releasing a new children’s book titled The Ickabog (pronounced as it sounds) chapter by chapter for free online. As an extra bonus, she’s also holding a competition where kids can illustrate the book for her and all proceeds will go organisations who are helping those affected by COVID-19.
Sounds too good to be true, right? Yeah, it sort of is, sadly.
Speaking of kids content, the GOAT team talk about ‘Out’, Pixar’s amazing new short film on ‘It’s Been A Big Day For…’ below:
So JK Rowling made the big Ickabog announcement on Twitter, where she revealed her new book (which happens to be her first non-Harry Potter children’s book), the background to how it came about, and the cool little art comp she and her publisher is holding for kids to submit artwork for the book.
Apparently The Ickabog was written well over a decade ago and Rowling had every intention of publishing it after Harry Potter, but she got sidetracked writing a couple of adult novels instead.
Since kids are stick inside due to COVID-19, Rowling thought she might dust off her old manuscript and publish it online as a new book as a way to help people get through iso. New chapters will be coming every day on the official Ickabog website and will finish on July 10.
That’s all good and it’s nice to see her doing something so nice for those affected by COVID-19, but let’s get to the juicy part: the art competition JK Rowling and her publisher is running for her new book.
The general gist of this competition is to have kids submit their artwork and the winning entries will be included in the Ickabog books Rowling intends to publish in November 2020.
However, if you check out the Terms and Conditions for this Ickabog illustration competition, you’ll notice that just by entering, JK Rowling and her publisher will have the right to use any submitted art however they want, royalty free, even if they’re not selected as one of the 34 winners.
As for the winners, they’ll have to sign an agreement basically giving up all rights to JK Rowling’s publisher, who will then be able to use this artwork however they see fit for the new book without having to pay anything.
Welcome to the real world, kids.
Now to be fair, this isn’t too unusual of a thing to put in the T&Cs of a competition like this Ickabog illustration contest, but this one comes off as particularly gross considering how high profile it is, making now the perfect time to explain why exactly this is.
Companies will always try to solicit free work and labour from people under the guise of “exposure” just so they can save money by not hiring anyone. It’s an awful and predatory practice. Given how tough it is for creatives to make a living out there (especially during COVID-19), this whole practice sets a bad precedent and makes it even more difficult for people to get properly compensated for their work.
And when you consider just how stupidly wealthy JK Rowling is, it doesn’t quite sit right that her publisher is asking for free work from kids when she can easily afford to pay for this sort of thing.
But hey, at least she’s giving exposure to entries by retweeting every submission she gets even though she’s not judging the competition so, uh, it’s better than nothing.
That’s not to say that parents shouldn’t enter their kid’s work into this competition, but it’s important to teach them what it means and how it all works before submitting anything.
So here’s a life lesson, kids: always read the fine print or you’ll probably get screwed.
Always be in the loop with our snackable podcast breaking the biggest story of the day. Subscribe to It’s Been A Big Day For… on your favourite podcast app.