You have just been contacted by a prospective client who wants to buy one of your images for a specific use. If you are new to selling your photography your first thought may be “now what do I do”? As landscape and nature photographers, we hope to sell our images and generate some income. Whatever your financial need, the skill of negotiating licensing fees for usage of your images can be intimidating as we never want to lose a sale. But, with a step by step approach simplifying the process, you can easily determine a fair and justified fee.
There are basically two ways prices are determined. The first is when the client asks what your price is and the second is when they inform you of their established prices. When a client contacts you regarding usage of your image they may ask your price or inform you of the price they are willing to pay. You then have the option of agreeing, disagreeing, or attempting to negotiate a price that is more favorable to you since rarely are you offered too much money.
If there is an image that they are interested in they will inquire as to your prices for a specific usage they have in mind. From here forward your ability to negotiate favorable prices for your work will in the long run provide you a better return on investment for your stock photo business.
To determine a usage fee you need to look at what you shoot and how your images fit into the market since today’s prices for stock are in reality all over the place. The sky really is the limit and it depends on your photographic product and ability to sell them. Today the average is less than $200 and often closer to $100.Keep this in mind when deciding the best way to market your imagery as making good money from your stock photography boils down to the art of negotiation.
What do you shoot? This is the first important factor in determining the value of your work. You must clearly know where you fit into the market and who your competition is. If you have a niche specialty, then the value of your work would be higher. These are important points. If clients are interested in an image you have, but can also get the same or comparable image from someone else, then a bidding war could start and the price will be forced lower.
Is your work more suitable for Royalty Free or Rights Controlled pricing? At one time all stock photos were rights controlled (RC) and the price for a photos usage was negotiated on how it was to be used, how big it was going to be used, and how long it was going to be used. Photo Disc was founded and Royalty Free (RF) stock photography was formed and the world has never been the same. You can choose to shoot for one or the other and it is imperative that you understand the difference.
Today, RC and RF images are defined by many factors including how difficult the image was to obtain. RC images command two to three times the usage fees as RF and often more than that. RC images might include an image that was difficult to get; for example, lightning across the Grand Canyon. RC images are still licensed by the usage and if the client wants to use it again, beyond the original negotiated terms, they pay again. Clients pay for RF images once and can use them without any additional compensation going to the photographer.
For most of my life I was a house painter. I traded my paint brush in for a computer key board. I combined my love for photography and internet marketing into one and became a photography marketer. Now I go day by day but I'm living and loving everyone. Bobby d is a freelance photographer, photography student, photography marketer, internet entrepreneur, and owner operator of shutterbugphotobiz.com
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