Please help the rookie!

[photofinish]

This MAY be my first gig, so I want to be prepared before it happens, because it will happen quickly. An art dealer who represents a local hotel may want to purchase 200 20x30 copies of one or more of my images to be placed in their redecorated rooms.

I have some "canned" releases, but I'm not completely sure how to protect myself. I also don't want to scare off the dealer. What are the major points I should address? Also, is there any etiquette concerning asking for a deposit before I go off running to a lab and print out the 200 copies, only to have the dealer/client change their minds?? A percentage?

[ssim]

I am not aware of any etiquette on asking for a deposit. It makes good business sense to do this when you are dealing with people that you have never dealt with before. I'm not sure what your markup is but I would make sure that your deposit covers all of your direct costs related to printing and shipping.

On reprint orders my standard deposit is 50% of the total order. I have some corporate clients that I accept purchase orders from but this still leaves me carrying the initial cost but I know they are not going to back out and they mostly pay on time.

Canned releases are fine if you are doing alot of repetitive type of work. In my work, the end usage tend to vary somewhat from customer to customer and we do the standard release and then a "letter of understanding" that explains everything in plain English and each of sign it. I hate the legalese on some of these forms and find that this makes me and the customer more comfortable in knowing exactly what each party is responsible for and can and cannot do. In your case I would make sure that it is detailed that they cannot make duplicate copies of the prints without additional charges.

[photofinish]

Thanks, Sheldon, for the detailed response and your time!