The best thing to do Steve is to go to other sites with similar images and uses to yours. There are so many variables that affect pricing ranging from size to usage to uniqueness of the images. I don't think there's any one answer, so you will have to compare rates and decide for yourself. Wish I could be more help, but it would take a book.
Posted by Gary Minish on August 18, 2006 at 12:54 PM
Stephan; I think you need to fix a couple things on your site before you actually release any of your images. You state that either prints or files are available but there is no information on prints when you go into the catalog. More importantly, there is no statement or clarification of copyright policy. Are you giving away the files with no restrictions? If not, what are the restrictions? If you are selling full rights with the files your price should be WAY higher because now everyone who purchases the file can be selling your prints (or images) at a lower price than you are and they didn't have to do the photography! I suggest you take a look at various stock agencies on the web to get an idea what is being charged for similar image files and what types of copyright arrangements are available. At least it would give you some sort of basis. I am probably not your best reference as I am not a professional and have no experience selling image files but my alarm bells sure go off when I see you selling image files with no copyright agreements for £25.00! That could be a reasonable price for a medium sized print though. There are a number of professionals in NPN though and I hope they will correct me if I am off base with my concern.
Whatever you decide, I wish you the best of luck in your endeavor. By the way, you have some very nice images!
Gary's right Steve. You're giving your work away at those rates, especially if you imagine actually making a living at photography. For example, we just licensed several images for online use at a site, 1/2-page or less for one year at roughly 5 times per image what you are asking. Our income is applied to equipment replacement funds, retirement fund, mortgage payments, operating costs, insurance and more. In your own mind, make a contribution to each of those funds from your sale, then devote the remainder to salary. Either you need thousands of sales per month, or you had better consider raising your rates if you hope to be a professional. We know from experience it's difficult getting started and garnering those first sales, but it's even more difficult if you price your work too cheaply and go broke in spite of a steady stream of sales.
Thanks guys for your replies. I am working as a poorly paid laboratory technician, but i would love to make a living from my photography instead. Can anyone tell me what kinds of restrictions i could put on my images or what i could charge for unrestricted use.
Steve.
Posted by Jasper Doest on August 19, 2006 at 4:23 AM
I think you should never place your prices online like this. Now they can just buy an image for 100 pounds...and use them for what ever they would like. The price for an image depends on the amount of prints, the size printed ect ect. I recommend you to sell prints through your website and ask people to contact you if they want to use images for other purposes.
Posted by Doyle Thomas on August 20, 2006 at 10:34 PM
I agree with Jasper, This is a steep price for digital files even with unlimited usage. Better to sell prints and price for other usage on a case by case basis. The text in the expanded images is too large, obscuring viewing.
Posted by Rod Barbee on August 21, 2006 at 6:40 PM
To get a better idea of pricing and right restrictions, get a copy of Fotoquote or other pricing software. Fotoquote is great in that it gives you much more than just what to charge. It discussed value, rights, negotiation..... You'll pay for it with your first sale. If you're serious about selling reproduction rights your work, it's an absolute necessity.
If you're trying to sell nature images, pick up a copy of John Shaw's Business of Nature Photography. Also get The Photographer's Market and "Pricing Photography" by Heron and MacTavish.
Also, as I'm sure Hank will confirm, you'll never make a living off of your photography by underpricing.
It's one thing to receive money from someone for your photos. It's a nice vote of confidence, no matter how little or how much money.
It's another matter to sell enough to cover you costs in photography. That helps take the bite out of an expensive hobby. But you still haven't made any money yet.
The sum total of your sales not only must cover your photographic expenses, but also your entire living expenses. If it's truly a profession you need an office or other facility, operating expenses, rent or mortgage payments, salary, insurance, a personal savings account immune to the siren calls of new camera gear, a retirement fund and all the trimmings of a normal life.
You simply won't get there if you undervalue your work. It's hard enough when getting paid market rate, but impossible if you can't get your cash flow up because you are accepting too low pay.
With our shutter releases we are making mortgage payments on our commercial studio building, mortgage payments on our home, three vehicles, salaries for both my wife and I, hourly pay for part time workers, utilities, tax payments, insurance, two retirement funds, plus extra money for investments and leisure. Yeah, a life. If we cut our income per sale by 80% such as you list, we'd be out of business. Period. As it stands, we have to generate an average of $5 in sales for each dollar that finally makes it into our salaries. And that's a really high rate of return for the photo business, simply because we keep our costs low while keeping both our prices and sales volume as high as possible.
I don't say any of this to brag or discourage you, rather to encourage you never to accept sub-market payment for your photos. Every reduction you make comes directly out of your pocket and cuts into your potential ever to make a meaningful living as a professional.
Lecture over, but I hope the insights encourage you to follow up with the purchase of Fotoquote and the other sources Rob suggests, then live and breath by their guidance. It takes a LONG time to build up a successful photo business, and not getting fair market price for your work only prolongs the agony.
Posted by Walter Rowe on August 23, 2006 at 12:04 PM
The advice previously given is spot on. Sell prints through your web site. License other uses offline, one-on-one with each client. Note I said "license other uses", not "sell". More on that below.
ASMP put out an excellent book on the nuts and bolts of photography as a professional. It covers not only contract terms and conditions, usage restrictions, contract negotiation techniques, etc., but also how to calculate your minimum (rock bottom) acceptable usage rate. The book is called ASMP Professional Business Practices in Photography and is worth more than its weight in gold.
The key thing to remember if you are going to make photography a profession is that you are licensing the right to use your image for a specific purpose. You are not selling the image. Think of it like musicians license their music. Apple paid a pretty penny to U2 to license "Vertigo" for their iPod ads. Advertisers pay musicians to license their songs for use in commercials. Musicians are also paid each time a radio station plays their song. They are paid for CD sales. In all cases, the musician still retains all the rights to the song. Everyone else pays for the right to use the song, even the radio station.
The same model applies to licensing photographs. You, the photographer, retain all rights to the image. The client simply licenses the right to use it for their specific purpose, which you spell out in detail in your contract with them (and again on your invoice for your own protection). Purposes can be magazine articles, advertisements, product packaging, catalog covers, web sites, corporate literature, presentations, billboards, posters, postcards, greeting cards, calendars, and much more. Licensing should never include the right of the client to sublicense it, unless you negotiate that specifically and include details for getting your cut of the deal (for example, a stock photo agency contract).
Posted by Les McLean on October 8, 2006 at 5:30 AM
This is always a thorny question, and almost impossible to answer.
I think the main thing is to get your site known, if you can do that then if your images are good enough,, then sales should flow in (or trickle)
Another option is to use photo stock libraries (Alamy, photographers direct etc)
Most of my sales have come from folk/organisations seeing my website.
I recently sold two images for £100 each for a calendar in the states. One of the same images, a few months ago, Canon licenced the image (500 euro for 2 years) for publicity purposes.
The same image sold to a Japanese magazine (via photographers direct) for £200 around a year ago.
My point here is, it's difficult to put a fixed value on an image, and I would go along with some of the above, and not use fixed prices.
Discussion
10 repliesAll my images are placed in my gallery section, for you to view.
Images are actually sold in the products section
www.blackhole-storage.net/steve
Please give feedback through my website via contact me.
thank you,
Steve Walton.
Whatever you decide, I wish you the best of luck in your endeavor. By the way, you have some very nice images!
Steve.
If you're trying to sell nature images, pick up a copy of John Shaw's Business of Nature Photography. Also get The Photographer's Market and "Pricing Photography" by Heron and MacTavish.
Also, as I'm sure Hank will confirm, you'll never make a living off of your photography by underpricing.
It's another matter to sell enough to cover you costs in photography. That helps take the bite out of an expensive hobby. But you still haven't made any money yet.
The sum total of your sales not only must cover your photographic expenses, but also your entire living expenses. If it's truly a profession you need an office or other facility, operating expenses, rent or mortgage payments, salary, insurance, a personal savings account immune to the siren calls of new camera gear, a retirement fund and all the trimmings of a normal life.
You simply won't get there if you undervalue your work. It's hard enough when getting paid market rate, but impossible if you can't get your cash flow up because you are accepting too low pay.
With our shutter releases we are making mortgage payments on our commercial studio building, mortgage payments on our home, three vehicles, salaries for both my wife and I, hourly pay for part time workers, utilities, tax payments, insurance, two retirement funds, plus extra money for investments and leisure. Yeah, a life. If we cut our income per sale by 80% such as you list, we'd be out of business. Period. As it stands, we have to generate an average of $5 in sales for each dollar that finally makes it into our salaries. And that's a really high rate of return for the photo business, simply because we keep our costs low while keeping both our prices and sales volume as high as possible.
I don't say any of this to brag or discourage you, rather to encourage you never to accept sub-market payment for your photos. Every reduction you make comes directly out of your pocket and cuts into your potential ever to make a meaningful living as a professional.
Lecture over, but I hope the insights encourage you to follow up with the purchase of Fotoquote and the other sources Rob suggests, then live and breath by their guidance. It takes a LONG time to build up a successful photo business, and not getting fair market price for your work only prolongs the agony.
ASMP put out an excellent book on the nuts and bolts of photography as a professional. It covers not only contract terms and conditions, usage restrictions, contract negotiation techniques, etc., but also how to calculate your minimum (rock bottom) acceptable usage rate. The book is called ASMP Professional Business Practices in Photography and is worth more than its weight in gold.
The key thing to remember if you are going to make photography a profession is that you are licensing the right to use your image for a specific purpose. You are not selling the image. Think of it like musicians license their music. Apple paid a pretty penny to U2 to license "Vertigo" for their iPod ads. Advertisers pay musicians to license their songs for use in commercials. Musicians are also paid each time a radio station plays their song. They are paid for CD sales. In all cases, the musician still retains all the rights to the song. Everyone else pays for the right to use the song, even the radio station.
The same model applies to licensing photographs. You, the photographer, retain all rights to the image. The client simply licenses the right to use it for their specific purpose, which you spell out in detail in your contract with them (and again on your invoice for your own protection). Purposes can be magazine articles, advertisements, product packaging, catalog covers, web sites, corporate literature, presentations, billboards, posters, postcards, greeting cards, calendars, and much more. Licensing should never include the right of the client to sublicense it, unless you negotiate that specifically and include details for getting your cut of the deal (for example, a stock photo agency contract).
I think the main thing is to get your site known, if you can do that then if your images are good enough,, then sales should flow in (or trickle)
Another option is to use photo stock libraries (Alamy, photographers direct etc)
Most of my sales have come from folk/organisations seeing my website.
I recently sold two images for £100 each for a calendar in the states. One of the same images, a few months ago, Canon licenced the image (500 euro for 2 years) for publicity purposes.
The same image sold to a Japanese magazine (via photographers direct) for £200 around a year ago.
My point here is, it's difficult to put a fixed value on an image, and I would go along with some of the above, and not use fixed prices.