Advice On Purchase Price

[AmandaMarie]

Hey all, long time no see!

I finally am about to ink a deal with a home building company for two of my photos. Originally, they were supposed to be in their showhomes, but they liked mine so much, they want them in their head office so people from all over the city can see them.

Anyways, this is the first time I have ever sold anything, so I am extremely unsure as to what I should ask for in the price department. I'll say up front that I am not sure whether they want just prints or exclusive rights. Also, they can print and frame it if I so choose.

Given this situation, can a few of you ballpark some prices for me with the different variables? ie. I just give them prints or I give them full rights etc.

These are the two photos. Let me know if you need any more info. Thanks!

[AmandaMarie]

24 people look at this and no one has any ideas? come on guys! i really need some advice here =D

[JacobPhoto]

what are they planning to use it for?

Are they buying a print, or licensing the use of the photo? if they are licensing it, you need to find out what they are using it for. This could be a 4 or 5 figure sale if you approach this properly...

[AmandaMarie]

They are hanging both photos up in their head office in the lifestyles area. I don't know what that means, but I assume it's the area where customers can go and look at different home styles in their different communities around the city?

She said they want to purchase the two photos, however I don't think she realizes she can either buy it from me or purchase all the rights.

Anyways, it would be great if you could give me a ballpark for both options. She knows I'm a local photographer and not someone huge or anything. I wont be offended by any prices guys so PLEASE help me out. I want to email her back before the end of the day.

[AmandaMarie]

Alright well since no one is helping me out, I'll throw out $750 for each if I sign the rights away?

So $1500 in total? Does that seem reasonable?

[Karl Johnston]

add another 0

[Rubi Jane]

You don't need to sell them anything but two prints. You're making this more complicated than it needs to be so let's think this through.

If you give them digital files for them to copy you lose control of the print quality plus how do you know how many copies they'll print?

They want to hang these in their office, not use them for an ad campaign, so there's no need to sell them any usage rights. There's certainly not a reason to "sign the rights away", which I'll take as being transferring the copyright to them.

Determine what size prints they'd like, whether they want them framed, gallery wrap canvas or another presentation method. Then cost out your print/frame/canvas and work on a markup. It's hard to put a price on it as it depends on what they are willing to pay and what your costs are.

You can ask them what their budget is. If they only want to spend $200 each framed then they need to know the frame will be low quality. If they're budgeting more then you can look at better quality printing and presentation. Consider your costs, time, equipment and work on whatever markup gets you the profit you want.

[AmandaMarie]

Okay well anyways, they just want the prints. I'm getting them printed and they're doing the framing themselves. So I asked for 700 in total.

I'll see what she says tomorrow. I'm hoping maybe since they are going up in their big Sales center, more people will see and contact me for more prints. But it's good to know I was under selling myself in the $$$ department if I was going to sign my copyright away. Duly noted.

Thanks all.

[Rubi Jane]

What size are they wanting? I wonder if they'll let you provide a plaque to go alongside the frames with your contact info - might be worth asking.

[i_am_cdn]

my 2 cents.

Please keep in mind this is not my main business and I don't sell prints as art very often, so my pricing strategy may not be the norm.

When I sell a print, I sell it for a multiple of my cost to produce the print.

Say a customer wants a 20x30 metallic version of a photo, and that print costs me $50 for the processing, and there are say $10 in variable costs for travel to pick up the print and get it to the buyer and 1/2 hour of my time to get the print processed and delivered. So a total direct cost attributed to the sale of of $60 and 1/2 hour. If I charged $50 hour I would add $25 to get a total of $85 Cost of Goods sold. I then multiply the costs by 3 to get my sale price. For me that would be $255. Now if you run a studio and have other overhead, then you may add in some factor to cover that overhead as well.

But basically the idea is to cover all your time and expenses plus provide for a profit. Don't fall into the trap of not including your time, because it is a cost of business, and time you are spending doing this takes away from time you can be spending making money shooting or something else.

I hope this is of some help

[AmandaMarie]

Hey guys,

Okay well she got back to me and basically gave me a tongue lashing for asking for $700. She said the purpose of their contest was to give local artists exposure, which I understand. However, not to sound snotty or demean painters etc, but I didn't spend $200 on a canvas and paints and call myself a painter.

She said their budget only allows for then to pay $100 in total for both prints. Am I wrong to be completely offended by that? $100 doesn't even pay for my backdrop in my studio. I'm sure I sound difficult to her, but I don't think she appreciates what kind of monetary investment photography is. My other issue is, for the $100, she wants to do the printing herself at their place. Well, I'm not really comfortable with that. I can't guarantee the quality. And that would mean I'd have to send her a pretty large version of my photo which I'm not comfortable with. I would never give anyone a file over 200kb except maybe my own Mother.

Anyways, long story short (okay, still long), I'm thinking of declining their offer to have my work shown. I've probably already invested at least $15k in the last 9 months of doing photography including the $3000 hotel bill I had for staying in the room that ALLOWED ME TO GET MY FIRST PICTURE.

Thoughts?

[Johnsoir]

I don't sell a lot of prints, but when I do, I have a fairly high mark up. That being said, how much are you making from photography, is $100 better than $0 at this point?

As I see it, you can :
stop and walk away now with $0

sell them the two files for $100, (not the copy rights) deal with them getting them printed and hopefully don't get hit somewhere down the road from a bad print job a possible client see's.

or Sell them two, framed/mounted prints that you have to pay for and still only get payed $100. If they are large prints your not going to be getting a lot if any money out of that scenario.


Personally when I started out, I would have jumped at this. And there were times that I did. I didn't get payed much and times got payed nothing. But in the long run I ended up getting a few clients I probably wouldn't have other wise.
But as I am today, I wouldn't go near this with a 50ft pole.

And don't be insulted by low prices, people just don't understand how much a photograph cost these days.

[gonzogolf]

These are nice, not $700 nice though. They offered, you can either accept or not. But keep in mind they can get framed decorative art from an office decor place for about what they offered. Dont let inflated expectations get in the way of getting paid.

[AmandaMarie]

Thanks Johnsoir. I'm sure I sound conceited etc but I really wouldn't have even taken a second look at this contest had I known I would only be paid $100 whether I spent $400 on printing/framing/mounting or run the risk of them doing it themselves.

It's not the actual cash in hand that I have a problem with. I am not struggling for money, that's for sure. But I don't want to be known as someone who doesn't value her prints.

I had originally sent them an email about a week ago asking to be taken out of the contest as friends and family of the other entrants were becoming exceedingly hostile and juvenile. I only stayed in because the girl assured me that my photos were most likely to be chosen.

Anyways, all in all, I think I'm going to call this a waste of 3 weeks and a lot of frustration. This industry is so over saturated by people who either suck or just plain undervalue themselves, and I am neither. I'll just call it a loss and move on.

[AmandaMarie]

These are nice, not $700 nice though. They offered, you can either accept or not. But keep in mind they can get framed decorative art from an office decor place for about what they offered. Dont let inflated expectations get in the way of getting paid.

I have to disagree, without even being biased as to who took them. The print sizes they asked for were very large and custom. Printing and framing together would've cost me $400 for both. But thanks for your input.

[gonzogolf]

I assumed their offer was for the prints not the framing. But having recently been in an office decor store, I know you can get large art cheap because its a volume business.

[i_am_cdn]

well, one one hand you can't hope to recoup all the costs of all your equipment on a single or a few customers. If you look at the depreciated cost of your equipment over the life of that equipment (where the equipment is used solely for professional work - not personal stuff), you could add a portion of that into the overhead portion of your Cost of Goods Sold. What you can't really do is say hey because I spent $3000 on the hotel where i took the photo I should recover that, because that is just not reasonable.

Now is $100 for 2 photos too little? well only you know that, but you can ask yourself a couple questions. Why did you take the photos, were you planning to sell them or was this just a happy circumstance?

If you do decide to let them print them themselves you can always have them sign a license agreement authorizing them to only make a single print of whatever size of each file and that the file must then be deleted. Then if they use the images for anything else you have legal recourse. You can even put in a "retail value" to the prints in case they do make more copies then you can show true damages in court.

If it were me, and I shot these as part of something personal, and would not normally be selling them or expect there to be a market for the photos, them I might consider the $100.

Big thing is don't take stuff like this as an insult, it is just business.

[AmandaMarie]

I assumed their offer was for the prints not the framing. But having recently been in an office decor store, I know you can get large art cheap because its a volume business.

Large art cheap? Do you mean large art frames? That's not really of interest to me. I'm not going to half-ass something. I was quoted around $400 from more than one framing store.

well, one one hand you can't hope to recoup all the costs of all your equipment on a single or a few customers. If you look at the depreciated cost of your equipment over the life of that equipment (where the equipment is used solely for professional work - not personal stuff), you could add a portion of that into the overhead portion of your Cost of Goods Sold. What you can't really do is say hey because I spent $3000 on the hotel where i took the photo I should recover that, because that is just not reasonable.

Now is $100 for 2 photos too little? well only you know that, but you can ask yourself a couple questions. Why did you take the photos, were you planning to sell them or was this just a happy circumstance?

If you do decide to let them print them themselves you can always have them sign a license agreement authorizing them to only make a single print of whatever size of each file and that the file must then be deleted. Then if they use the images for anything else you have legal recourse. You can even put in a "retail value" to the prints in case they do make more copies then you can show true damages in court.

If it were me, and I shot these as part of something personal, and would not normally be selling them or expect there to be a market for the photos, them I might consider the $100.

Big thing is don't take stuff like this as an insult, it is just business.

Yes, I'm aware I cannot recoup my $3000 hotel bill. I already stated that. Neither of these photos were ever taken with the intent of just pure enjoyment for myself.

The hassle I've been through with this company is not worth it. I'll pass and wait another year.

[gonzogolf]

Large art cheap? Do you mean large art frames? That's not really of interest to me. I'm not going to half-ass something. I was quoted around $400 from more than one framing store.



I mean framed art work. Not original artwork by a local artist, but something to fill their walls. I wasnt suggesting you do anything half assed, but you need to understand that they have options that cost them less than your perceived worth.

[AmandaMarie]

I mean framed art work. Not original artwork by a local artist, but something to fill their walls. I wasnt suggesting you do anything half assed, but you need to understand that they have options that cost them less than your perceived worth.

I understand. However, they were not looking for something to fill their walls. They were looking for work to represent their ENTIRE company. Two photos to represent everything they are. Considering the fact that they are an extremely large and successful company, $100 is not worth my time. If they are the kind of company that would rather put some $50 photos up, then be my guest and go to the cheap warehouse store and buy some. But that's not something I want to be associated with and I stick to my guns.

[aroundlsu]

I personally would not have had a problem with offering the prints "at cost" for several reasons.

1) If the print is in a high traffic area that's a lot of eye balls on your work. While one print in one location will not do much for you, if you start populating your prints in lobbies around town people will start to notice (especially if they all have a similar look or theme to them).

2) It would be a great way to get your foot in the door with this company. If they like dealing with you, you may be called to do real work with them. You can keep the relationship alive by calling every few months to replace the print with a new one and chit chat about potential projects.

3) "At cost" can mean many different things. As was said earlier, you need to factor your time in as part of the cost so a $20 print could end up "costing" $100.

$700 wasn't a bad offer and $100 is not a bad counteroffer from them. If they are a large company they are probably very well versed in the art of negotiation. They probably actually want to spend about $400 for the prints.

Regardless, stick to the pitch that the print is half the art of your photography so you absolutely must be the one to make the print. They can have it framed, but you need to deliver the print.

I would go in there and scope it out. Look at the space, meet some of the executives, offer to place even more prints in their offices (have samples ready to show), and in general be a nice person.

[Rubi Jane]

What size prints do they want? They'd be a huge difference for what I'd charge for an 11x14 print done at a pro lab an archival photo paper versus a 20x30 custom black & white print on archival fibre stock.

Take Johnsoir's method and figure it out. What would the value be based on out of pocket expenses, time & then a multiplier for profit. You might be surprised it not being close to $700 each.

[pworm14]

She said the purpose of their contest was to give local artists exposure, which I understand.

but I really wouldn't have even taken a second look at this contest


I had originally sent them an email about a week ago asking to be taken out of the contest

They were looking for work to represent their ENTIRE company.

So, which is it? Is it a "contest" they are sponsoring for local artist? Or, are they looking for “professional” artwork to decorate their office. Big difference in my opinion.

If it’s a “contest” are they giving prizes/awards that might make it worth it (besides the $100 they’re giving you) to enter?

This would be the first “contest” that I’ve ever heard of that pays contestants $100 to enter.

This is not making sense to me and I’m just trying to figure out what’s really going on here.

[ScottKCooper]

Congrats AmandaMarie!

[philwillmedia]

Not knowing the size they want or what your costs would be...
What about if you sold them the prints only and then it was up to them to bear the cost of framing etc.

That way you'd have the $100 less what your costs were for the prints, they'd have the prints and then they'd find out how much it REALLY costs to have something framed.

Would this work?

[Karl Johnston]

Hey guys,

Okay well she got back to me and basically gave me a tongue lashing for asking for $700. She said the purpose of their contest was to give local artists exposure, which I understand. However, not to sound snotty or demean painters etc, but I didn't spend $200 on a canvas and paints and call myself a painter.

She said their budget only allows for then to pay $100 in total for both prints. Am I wrong to be completely offended by that? $100 doesn't even pay for my backdrop in my studio. I'm sure I sound difficult to her, but I don't think she appreciates what kind of monetary investment photography is. My other issue is, for the $100, she wants to do the printing herself at their place. Well, I'm not really comfortable with that. I can't guarantee the quality. And that would mean I'd have to send her a pretty large version of my photo which I'm not comfortable with. I would never give anyone a file over 200kb except maybe my own Mother.

Anyways, long story short (okay, still long), I'm thinking of declining their offer to have my work shown. I've probably already invested at least $15k in the last 9 months of doing photography including the $3000 hotel bill I had for staying in the room that ALLOWED ME TO GET MY FIRST PICTURE.

Thoughts?
They don't sound to want a print they want a license. Do up a license for one time usage, for 1 year, non-exclusive, non-sublicensable nor trade/sellable to sell them an appropriately sized file (suitable for printing to their needs; usually high res jpeg at 300 dpi will do, 8x10").

If 100 is all they can pay, that's pathetic, but its up to you to take it or leave it.

What you can do is negotiate with them and put more of a value on your work by needling out more cash.

Let them handle the printing costs, etc. That's how it's usually done

[Bearmann]

I agree that $100 is pathetic. Here's another idea, but it would cost you more money. Do the framing yourself and allow them to display the prints with price tags and contact information for a certain period, say 6 months. You would have the prints for sale as though in a gallery. When the time is up, who knows, they may decide to buy them if someone else has not already done so. You get exposure and get your prints back in the end to sell to someone else. They may decide to make you their house photographer with a rotating exhibit if you feel that there are enough people visiting that office to generate some sales.

[zagiace]

You are completely justified charging 350 each. That's a reasonable price that in reality is not going to make you any money. I just love the whole exposure sale, give it to me free for all the free exposure you will get. I can't see home buyers requesting contact info for the photog.
I wonder how many who commented in this thread actually do this kind of work. $100 probably won't cover the printing costs much less any time expenses or profit.
When you charge a reduced rate you apply that value to your product. Keep in mind your product you sell is not a simple wall portrait. It's you, your eye, your art and your time. Apply what value you feel is reasonable then add your costs. If one prospect ain't buying, move on.

[Rubi Jane]

I wonder how many who commented in this thread actually do this kind of work. $100 probably won't cover the printing costs much less any time expenses or profit.

Some of us do. Problem is little information was given. What was this contest? What were the details or expectations on both sides? How large a print are we talking and what is the cost to print? Client can print so no material costs, simply license for a single reproduction of each image. OP didn't take the images for personal use so I anticipate they are looking to make money off them which is great, but the $3000 hotel bill is a whopper and they'll need to sell numerous prints to cover just that cost let alone, equipment, time, talent, travel etc. To recover costs of business you need to achieve and maintain a threshold, to make profit you need to make more than the threshold. One sale won't do it, but it's a step forward.

I wouldn't say $350 isn't reasonable (admittedly I read it as $700 each initially), I'm not saying $100 is fair either. A print is worth what a customer will pay for it. If the customer won't pay the price you ask then they don't value the print as much as you do, so I agree...move on.

[Karl Johnston]

I wonder how many who commented in this thread actually do this kind of work.
and do you?:p

[zagiace]

and do you?:p
Nope, not any more. only weddings, portraits, commissioned work, architecture, aerial and general commercial. Mostly weddings though.

[Karl Johnston]

join the club ;)

[Naturalist]

Stick to your price, never undercut yourself or sell yourself short, and if they do not want to pay your price then politely state, "I'm sorry we could not work out a deal, please let me know if you need anything else".

$100 for both is an a slap in the face.

Oh, and never sell all rights. You are selling (2) photographic prints for their display use only and not for use on the internet or advertising brochures, etc.

Second Oh: Never sell JPG or RAW files without thousands of dollars being exchanged for the file and even then I would state on the invoice the manner in which the image may be used. If you sell them the digital file for them to print their own, the next thing you know your image will be on billboards, magazine ads, and brochures and all you got was $100?? I don't think so!

[Karl Johnston]

Naturalist, you're confusing selling the rights with selling copyright. Some rights is okay, and if you encounter infringement (which is illegal) you can seek damages.

If we never sold the jpeg or the raw file you will never see any sales, anywhere. Create copies. :D