Hotel wants to use my photos as art on their walls.

The main questions they asked were if I am open to licensing some images to them, and what my rates are for reproduction rights. I have a phone meeting later this afternoon with them to discuss, but I want to go in asking the right questions.

I have no problem with them using my images, as long as I'm paid (of course). I'm at work right now, so I don't have access to my FotoQuote program at home. I have no idea how many images they want in total, what sizes, who would pay for the framing, etc... but I do plan on asking those questions.

What would you all ask? What would you charge?

Thanks in advance!

do they want to own the images and/or physical prints? or just hang them for a month or two and then rotate them out?

That wasn't specified in the initial email, so I'm not entirely sure, truth be told. I would guess they're not looking to rotate them in and out, but I could be wrong. Hopefully they're not looking to own the images, but I could sell them some prints as fine art, and I would be happy with that.

I was just in a similar situation with a small inn and a restaurant, both receive a lot of tourist traffic. They are both going to hang ten framed prints for as long as I want to leave them. In return I can put the price on each, framed or matted, and my contact info. I am hoping that it will generate some sales. If not I"ll take them home at the end of the season.

Very cool! I'm curious, what sizes did you end up going with for these? Or are they various? Are they to get a certain percentage of whatever you sell the piece for?

They get free art for the lobby and dining room - I get all money and handle any sales . The prints are mainly 11' x 14", unframed. There was the upfront cost of frames and mattinng, which I did myself.

I printed several thumbnails on a laser printer and let them choose the images.

Excellent; sounds like a good system. 11x14 seems to be a good size, I'm finding.

Let me get this straight. The hotel wants to license some images or pay you for reproduction rights. Instead, you propose to give them to them for free in the hopes that someone walking by will want to buy them. I can see that this is going to be a very hard sell to the hotel. "No, you are not allowed to buy them, you must take them for free. And don't try to convince me otherwise. I'm standing firm!"

Bearmann wrote in post #14636355
Let me get this straight. The hotel wants to license some images or pay you for reproduction rights. Instead, you propose to give them to them for free in the hopes that someone walking by will want to buy them.....

+1 to this. Never turn down money now for possible money in the future. - at least not unless you have actual market research data that shows that people passing through hotel lobbies actually look at and buy the photos they see there.

From what you're telling us:

A. You don't yet really know what they want.
B. You don't yet really know what you want.

I would recommend you have a meeting with them--take your notepad--and find out what they want. Then tell them you'll work out a proposal for them and get back in touch within a couple of days. Then figure out what you really want out of it.

Do you expect to make money selling art to them as customers? Is selling art to businesses what you do?

Do you expect them to operate as a gallery for art sales to their customers?

Do you expect them to operate as a gallery marketing device to enhance your sales directly to customers?

For hotel wall artwork, you probably need to be looking at print sizes of a minium of 16x20, more likely 20x30 or larger.

I do not plan on letting them have my images for free, no. I was just commenting on magoosmc's post for that.

I spoke with them yesterday, and got a few more details. They're looking at two of my images to license, and normally pay between $50 and $200 per image. I am not looking for them to sell them for me, or allow me to sell them from the hotel... they will just be displaying the work, as the images they want are local to where the hotel is. I do want to sell my artwork to businesses, yes. The woman I spoke with on the phone was just getting details, asking if I was open to licensing my work to them, letting me know which images were requested, and basically setup a time for their art resourcer to contact me to discuss it all further... as far as rates, how many prints they would need, sizes, etc. I'll keep you all posted.

magoosmc wrote in post #14634826
They get free art for the lobby and dining room - I get all money and handle any sales . The prints are mainly 11' x 14", unframed. There was the upfront cost of frames and mattinng, which I did myself.

I have thought about doing this as well, but I know from my own personal experience in staying at such places, I rarely pay that much attention to what is on the wall, as I am primarily coming or going to and from my real destinations...and have never bothered to see if a print on the wall was for sale...even if it happenend to catch my attention...as I dont expect images in a hotel/motel to be for sale...but hey thats me...YMMV..

Can sales happen, sure...will they...who knows...but since I know the cost of preparing my images to hang, I like to make sure I have a better then "maybe" chance of selling something.

Good luck, and let us know how it goes for you...

If it were me, I would prefer to charge the hotel for displaying them. The people that are in the hotel aren't really there to buy pictures or scout photographers.

I'm not looking for the hotel to sell them for me; I'm looking for the hotel to pay me for the right to display them.