When authors sign publication agreements with commercial publishers, they typically transfer their copyright away, for life. Unfortunately, if the author includes figures, tables, or graphics in their paper, they may lose the copyright to those works, too — requiring an author to ask permission or even pay fees to re-use their very own work in later publications or talks.
However, authors can easily protect the rights to re-use their own work! Simply by treating the individual figures, tables, or graphic designs as individually copyrighted works, an author can grant permission to themselves, and to the publisher, to use those images — while retaining the copyright in the images for themselves.
How to do it?
First, consider and treat these works (figures or images) as individual works. Post them on your professional website, share them on a website like Figshare, or preserve them in the campus repository ScholarWorks. You can even get a DOI for individual graphics or data, and you can openly license them with Creative Commons. (Be sure to include the DOI or CC licensing info in the caption.)
Second, when you include them in your article or book chapter, treat these graphics the same way you would treat a graphic created by a colleague who gave you permission to use it. Include a credit, and a standard “Reprinted by permission of …” in any caption, table of images, credits, or list of materials you submit to the publisher of the article.
Third, if your publishing contract mentions getting permission for some works, make sure that the language is broad enough to refer to your own previously published works. If the contract does not mention permissions, feel free to include a note in the contract, or add an amendment in any uploads with the contract, that specify certain materials are “used by permission”. If the contract specifically references ownership or transfer of your included graphics, then call those out in the contract as *not* being transferred.