imagemaker46
Been spending a lot of time on here!
- Joined
- Mar 9, 2011
- Messages
- 4,422
- Reaction score
- 1,705
- Location
- Ottawa, Canada
- Website
- imagecommunications.ca
- Can others edit my Photos
- Photos NOT OK to edit
It is a crap shoot these days, if you say to them you want between $300-500 and they come back and say that works for us, which is it? If you ask them what kind of budget for photos are they working with, they may come back and offer you between $500-1000, fact is, you just don't know. Negotiating is a skill, but all magazines/book publishers/TV/Film also have set fees, and no amount of negotiating is going to get you what you think the images are worth, they are only worth what people will pay for them. The only time I negotiate fees is when I am selling more than one photo, the rates change based on if they want 1-7 or 8-12 and then up from there, the more they want the lower the fee they pay.
Companies are cheap these days, they want more for less, and I have had some magazinzes come to me looking for images that I am offering at a great rate, and they still figure it is too high, I don't end up seling anything to them, there is a minimum that I won't go below.
It's a tough call.
In your opinion, which do you think is the better route? Which do you think will benefit me more? I know you can't predict that but you have a bit more experience with this than I do. You actually have legitimate things to say with things to back them up without just telling me I'm inexperienced. I really appreciate that!
Do you think if I ask too much they will just not use my photo? Or do you think there actually is room for negotiating? I don't want them to decide I'm too much trouble and not use my photo at all.
I always ask new clients or potential clients what kind of budget they are working with, for the most part they come in higher than I might have asked, in other cases, they are much lower, there is room to negotiate a higher fee, and yes they might just say no. The bottom line is that you should walk away from it happy with what you end up selling the photo for.
I've been dealing with one client for three months now and they are driving me nuts, all the fees hinge on how many photos they want to use, and the number keeps bouncing between to fee zones, if they decide to use 7 photos I make less than if they take 6, it's for a tv documentary and until the final cut is done, no fees have been argeed on. They may also just decide to drop the photos in the final cut. It's really the nature of the business.