How to price photos to be used in upcoming book?

Calm Light Photos

Hello! I could sure use some advice on how to price images that I am being hired to take for an upcoming book. I have been scouring a website, Shakodo, and I have found some great info but it's quite overwhelming.

The job will require me to go several times with a horse veterinarian to some of her clients homes to photograph them with their elderly horses. The goal is to capture the unique relationship between horse and owner. I am not sure how many images will be used or what size the image will be in the book. I believe the majority of the images will be at least half page. Emotion needs to be clearly portrayed and this is best done with larger images.

I don't have all the info needed to give them a fair quote - that info is coming. I'm primarily wanting to know of a few sources in which to glean info about pricing such a project as I have never done this before.

Any and all help would be much appreciated!

jarboedoggart

Maybe impossible to answer?

It will mostly depend on the scale of the book. Is it a large publisher or a small local author? May also depend on your local area and what you charge for other services. But to try to answer your question from experience.......

I live not far from you down in Worcester, MA. I do a lot of business with a local woodworking/construction company for their website and brochures. I charge them $200/hr with a minimum of 4hrs. But that's me, and that's pretty cheap for my locale.

And to emphasize the first paragraph...depending on the companies expectations...this may be a little pricey or CRAZY INSANELY cheap. Is it crazy just to ask what they are expecting to be charged???? That number may be higher than you expect!

OffTopic

What a fun project!

Here's how I would do it: As jarboedoggart said first I would ask them what their budget is. Once you have an idea of what they think the project is worth you'll be better prepared to negotiate an arrangement that works for both of you. Or you might decide that their expectations are too high for what they are willing to pay.

If you bid with a single-fee price you don't leave any room for negotiation and you could hurt yourself if you need to spend more time in the field shooting than you had anticipated, your costs are higher than anticipated or the client wants more photos/different rights than you anticipated. With so many variables up in the air, I would break down an estimate as follows:

1. The assignment fee....what are your costs...to some degree the costs you want to cover will depend on if you are full time photographer making a living with your photography, but at a minimum you need to calculate direct expenses, travel, food, do you need to rent any equipment, and then your hourly/daily creative/shoot fee. Line item it as much possible to give yourself room for negotiation. If you don't know the locations yet, quote it as your creative/shoot fee plus direct expenses such food/hotel/mileage at cost.

2. Your licensing fees...quote what you would charge for full page, half page, quarter page, cover etc. PER IMAGE based on the usage rights they want. And I'd throw in a quantity discount.

Then you and your client can sit down and discuss it and hopefully reach agreement on how often they want you to be on location shooting, how many images they want to use, what changes might need to be made to allow you to meet their budget. If the project spans over an extended period of time it would also allow you to bill the assignment portion of your fee as you go along (discuss that up front), then bill for the licensing fees after your client has decided what images they are going to use.


ASMP has good info on calculating your cost of doing business and their Paperwork Share has some real life examples you can look at. http://asmp.org/links/32

ian408

A good place to start would be to figure out what you need to make per hour to pay your out of pocket expenses plus make a profit. Not specifically for this job but for all work you do.
That should give you an idea of how much to charge for travel, equipment, your time and so on.

There are also numerous books on the subject of pricing photos. They often advise setting prices based on the number of copies printed or circulation, etc. I'm sure there's lots of good info on the asmp site as well.

Good luck!

zoomer

Ask them what their budget for the photography portion of the project is.

W.W. Webster

zoomer wrote: »

Ask them what their budget for the photography portion of the project is.

Why? Supposing they have one, that will become the upper limit of the price!

I would get on the front foot and set the expectation as to what the 'budget' should be!

zoomer

W.W. Webster wrote: »

Why? Supposing they have one, that will become the upper limit of the price!

I would get on the front foot and set the expectation as to what the 'budget' should be!

That is fine for someone who knows how to play the game...she is new to this.
Better to think long term and possibly working more together in the future and gaining some experience.

W.W. Webster

zoomer wrote: »

That is fine for someone who knows how to play the game...she is new to this.
Better to think long term and possibly working more together in the future and gaining some experience.

I couldn't disagree more!

It's important to have done your research carefully, but then to name your price clearly and confidently. There can always be a little room for negotiation, but the starting point should always be the photographer's, not the client's - particularly where the client has no particular experience of purchasing photography services nor of the value of such services!

zoomer

No problem...we don't have to agree....gives her a couple different ways to look at it.

Glort

We so need a pricing section of this forum where all these questions can be asked. Has to be about the most popular topic of all.

jpc

W.W. Webster wrote: »

Why? Supposing they have one, that will become the upper limit of the price!

Assuming that figure is carved in stone, yes. But that rarely the case with any budget. I'm in favor of asking this question and using it as a starting point. Her quote can be prepared in such a way that it falls within the "budgetary" figure, but limits the number pf photos that can licensed, or the number of locations. Then the negotiation starts from there. She's not giving anything away, she's just limiting the scope of her work, initially.

It's likely that the "budget" really isn't the "budget" anyway. It's almost always lower than the actual amount of funds available, so she could prepare a quote that comes in 10% higher and now it looks like she really sharpened her pencil to get as close as possible, and it might still end up being acceptable.

W.W. Webster

jpc wrote: »

... that rarely the case with any budget. I'm in favor of asking this question and using it as a starting point.

There must always be a starting point for pricing in any commercial transaction. However, as the seller, I'd prefer the starting point was my price, not a naive perception of the value of my services held by an ill-informed customer!

jpc

Maybe so, but the more we know about our customer's expectations, the better salesperson we are.

W.W. Webster

Of course, understanding the customer's willingness to pay your price is an important aspect of the negotiation. But that's not the same as using the customer's price perception as the starting point.

A good sales person is one who is able to confidently represent the value of the product for sale and achieve this in the price. Immediately the conversation is about what the customer wants to pay, s/he has taken control of the negotiation.

jpc

A good sales person is one who is able to confidently represent the value of the product for sale and achieve this in the price.

Yes, of course.

Immediately the conversation is about what the customer wants to pay, s/he has taken control of the negotiation.

Again, knowing what the customer expects to pay helps us to negotiate. If you don't ask, they're only going to end up telling you anyway, if your price is higher than they anticipated. And if your price is lower than they had anticipated, you have done yourself an injustice by not first asking. I do not agree that it relinquishes control, but we'll have to agree to disagree on that issue.

I hope the OP is able to take some valuable information from this thread and I wish her luck with her project. I'm interested to see how it plays out. Good luck!