New business: where to begin??

I am an experienced amateur who is going to start moonlighting by offering photography services to area woodworkers/craftspeop​le. Basically, take mobile lighting to their shop/house and make high quality photographs of their pieces for their portfolios and sales brochures. These are mostly guild members and people doing this part time, so it would be a fairly low volume enterprise offering flexibility for them (I show up at their place) and I'm able to learn how to work with customers on the business end of photography.

I've worked (for free) with a few friends (artisans) to start gaining some experience and portfolio shots and the response and discussion has been favorable. I'm ready to advertise (word of mouth and area club meetings, etc.) and start charging, but I'm at a loss as to how I should price my services. I've been reading John Harrington's book, which covers a lot of good topics, but I'm still seeking some more info. My products would be access to digital files and prints, if they prefer. I guess I'm curious to hear how others would price something like this. i.e. what would you take into consideration while thinking this through? Just looking for some more thoughts, thanks.

You have to price yourself so that you make them more than you cost them. How much will your pictures increase their sales? Is it the sort of thing they can re-use, or are the wood pieces one of a kind that need a new picture for every sale?

griptape wrote in post #9360418
You have to price yourself so that you make them more than you cost them. How much will your pictures increase their sales? Is it the sort of thing they can re-use, or are the wood pieces one of a kind that need a new picture for every sale?

Thanks. They can re-use the pictures. As they build other things, I could shoot those things too and they could add the images to their book as examples of things that they can and have done...

My approach would be a flat rate to show up (which would basically cover my travel expense and a small fee for my time if fairly local, somewhere in the range of $50), and then $15-20 per finished image depending on what type of money the crafts are selling for. With 5 minutes to set up a shot, and 10 minutes of post work, $80 an hour is about right to cover your equipment, time, and talent for small business owners that can re-use the shots for a long time to come. And if they need 20 finished images, a $400 up front cost stings just a little, but it makes good sense when you think about it.