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]

Originally Posted by 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.

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.