A field manual by Jeremy Richard
Keep control of your work.
Before the waiver arrives.
Know what you are granting. Keep your judgement. Deliver complete work you can stand behind.
A practical field manual for creative professionals navigating automated production, broad permissions and changing client expectations.
Make the decision before the pressure.
Six clauses. Six scripts. An audit and assessment.
The problem
Two stories are being told about creative work, and both are lies
The first is the vendor's: everything is automated, adapt or die. Told loudly by the people selling the tools, because fear closes sales.
The second is the comfort blanket: AI can't do real creative work, clients will come back when they see the quality. Told in studio kitchens, usually by people who have not properly tested the tools in a year.
Believing the first makes you panic and give away things you did not need to give away.
Believing the second makes you do nothing until the work stops arriving.
What it is
A field manual, not a pep talk
For creative professionals who intend to still be working in five years. Contract language, scripts for the conversations that actually decide things, and an honest map of what has and has not been automated.
The practical inventory. Examine which tasks face price pressure, which need careful review and where your judgement creates value. A framework to test against your own work.
Aggressive Incompletion. Deliver complete work while reserving your method and judgement. How to document procedure without casually giving away the decision rules that make your work valuable.
The Human Firewall. Make your review, sign-off and responsibility visible. Automated production still needs accountable people and entities; a particular job is never guaranteed.
Six contract clauses. Firm and softer drafting versions, including a restriction intended to survive a copyright assignment. Plain English explanations of their scope and limits. Have them reviewed where you work.
Six scripts, word for word. Being handed a waiver. Being asked to train your replacement. Why do you cost more than the AI? Getting your clause in without a fight. The manager with an efficiency target. Work that has been altered and still carries your name.
The audit and assessment. Use the free 25-question audit to find your priorities. The buyer PDF also includes fifteen scenarios to test how you apply the framework.
Start here, free
Find out where you actually stand
Twenty-five questions across five areas: what your work is made of, how much of your method you have already handed over, where you sit in the chain, what you have exposed, and what your paperwork actually says.
No payment. No email required to see your score.
Take the audit →Most people score worse than they expect in one section and much better in another. The gap is the useful part.
The Guild
A book is a photograph. This is weather.
Chapter Two describes a situation that is already slightly out of date. The clauses will meet clients who have learned to refuse them. The scripts will get replies nobody anticipated.
The Guild of Human Work is being built for practitioners to compare negotiation experiences, discuss the replies they get to scripts and report changes in their own work. Those contributions will inform reviewed updates to the resources.
An individual can take a clear position into a negotiation. Shared experience can help improve it. The community will depend on members reporting what actually happened, including what failed.
The founding cohort
The Guild is being established. The founding cohort will help shape its practices and resources. No membership number is claimed here.
Help shape the beginning. Founding members can contribute to the priorities, community practices and resources as the Creative Chapter develops.
The maintained library begins with the clauses and scripts in this manual. Member reports will guide what gets reviewed and revised.
Choose your edition
Start with the manual. Build with the community.
The PDF and assessment are €39. The €99 bundle is the total price for the PDF, assessment, community and maintained resources. A later upgrade would be €60.
PDF + Assessment
- The complete PDF field manual
- All six contract clauses
- All six scripts
- Exposure Audit + 15-question assessment
- Keep your PDF permanently
PDF + Assessment + Community
- Everything in PDF + Assessment
- Guild Mark after passing and accepting the standard
- 12 months in the private Creative Chapter on Discord
- 12 months of access to maintained clauses and scripts
- Resource revisions when useful, with no fixed update schedule
The €99 bundle is planned. Checkout and community delivery are being prepared. The 12-month term starts when community access is delivered. No automatic renewal charge.
Read this before choosing the bundle
What the Guild Mark is, and what it is not
Most places selling you a badge will not tell you what it is not. We will.
It certifies that you have been assessed against this framework, fifteen scenario questions, open book, judgement rather than recall, and that you have accepted the Guild's standard.
It is not an accredited qualification. It is not a licence. It confers no regulated professional status. It does not certify your creative ability, because we have not seen your portfolio. It does not guarantee you will keep your job, because nothing does.
That list belongs on the certificate itself, not hidden in the terms. A badge that overclaims has one life expectancy: the first sceptical post that takes it apart. The certificate will state those limits plainly.
Honest answers
The questions worth asking
- Is this anti-AI?
- No. The book was written with AI assistance, disclosed in the front matter. The position is deliberate use, with responsibility for the final work.
- Isn't it hypocritical to use AI to write this?
- It would be hypocritical to use it and hide it. The doctrine in Chapter Three is that your output and your method are different things, and that you stay responsible for what you put your name to. That is what happened here.
- Will this save my job?
- No. Nothing will, and the people promising otherwise are selling you a feeling. What this does is stop you handing over the parts that make you necessary without deciding to.
- Is the contract language actually usable?
- It is drafting material, real clauses in conventional language, written to save you and your lawyer time. Have it reviewed where you work. One hour of a solicitor's time on a clause set you will reuse for years is the best value in the book, and considerably cheaper than hiring lawyers afterwards.
- I'm not in Europe. Does it still apply?
- The doctrine and the scripts, yes. The legal position on style and on moral rights varies by country, and the book says so where it matters.
- What does the €39 option include?
- The complete PDF, all six clauses and scripts, the Exposure Audit and the fifteen-question assessment in the appendix. It does not include community access or issuance of the Guild Mark.
- What does the €99 bundle add?
- The planned bundle adds 12 months of access to the private Discord Creative Chapter and maintained clauses and scripts, starting when community access is delivered. Useful resource revisions published during that term are included, with no fixed update schedule. You keep your downloaded manual and resource files. A Discord account is required. There is no automatic renewal charge. The Guild Mark requires a recorded assessment pass and acceptance of the standard.
- How big is the Guild?
- The Guild is being established. No membership count is claimed. Founding members will help shape the Creative Chapter.
The one sentence
The risk is not that a machine does your job. It is that you hand over the parts that made you necessary without ever deciding to.
In process documents, in default contract terms, and in meetings where you had no time to read what you were signing.
Decide in advance. Write it down. Stop doing it alone.