newspaper asking about some old images

cletus

Got an email from a newspaper editor that is working on an article about Junior Brown. They came across my gallery of Junior pics and they're interested is using some of my images with their article.

Before I get in contact with the paper I wanted to see if anyone had any advice to offer up. I was planning on letting them use the images free of charge provided I get a by-line for my images and a copy or two the paper with my image in it.

Any advice would be appreciated!

mercphoto

cletus wrote:

Got an email from a newspaper editor that is working on an article about Junior Brown. They came across my gallery of Junior pics and they're interested is using some of my images with their article.

Before I get in contact with the paper I wanted to see if anyone had any advice to offer up. I was planning on letting them use the images free of charge provided I get a by-line for my images and a copy or two the paper with my image in it.

Any advice would be appreciated!

Personally I do not understand those who give images for free to profit making organizations. Free for non-profits or charities? Sure. But to for-profit, no. If they're making money then so should you.

To put this another way, my local home-town small weekly newspaper pays $50 per published photo. This is a small paper with a circulation of probably 25,000, and even they will pay for photos. And they STILL give photo credits.

Put yet one more way, the photos are yours, you own the copyright. You have the right to demand the photo credit. In other words, you will get the by-line whether you get paid or not. So your plan of letting them use your image in exchange for a by-line means they are going to give you something they always would have given you, and you get nothing whatsoever. Its a poor bargaining position, no?

Scott_Quier

I would start from a negotiating position. I think you have identified your lowest acceptable offer in your post. I think you should include some compensation as well and negotiate down from that position. It may very well be that the paper will not budge on the $$ but I wouldn't think it would hurt to ask.

On the other hand, it might be interesting to ask them from the start what they are offering in the way of compensation. It could very well be that they would offer more than your would consider your starting negotiating position.

SteveM

cletus wrote:

Got an email from a newspaper editor that is working on an article about Junior Brown. They came across my gallery of Junior pics and they're interested is using some of my images with their article.

Before I get in contact with the paper I wanted to see if anyone had any advice to offer up. I was planning on letting them use the images free of charge provided I get a by-line for my images and a copy or two the paper with my image in it.

Any advice would be appreciated!

If you've never been published before, this is worth more than anything they would likely offer you in the way of money. And unless you have a photo of Mel Gibson urinating on the Talmud and the paper is the Enquirer, they probably already have a set price they offer. Of course that doesn't mean you can't try to negotiate, but consider that every bump in the road might weaken the sale. Don't worry about other photographers having their services devalued. These are changing times where $17 will buy you a commercial license from exploitive stock photo sites. Get your name set in stone, then start to leverage. Just my two cents.

Art Scott

Unfortunately some paper WILL NOT give a credit line....I tried to do this years ago with a pic of Mark Farner that the Local Paper (The Wichita Eagle - the largest KS paper) and they were very adamant....at the time they paid $10 for publishing a pic but refused to give a credit line and would not publish a pic with an embeded copyright.....I see pics every day that have no byline in papers at bookstores and such....sometimes a smaller paper will be better at how it treats a freelancer.....this was just my personal experience.....and I was young and hunger and I took the offer.

Good luck with your offer and hopefully they will give both a byline and monetary compensation.....

cletus

Thanks for the inputs guys.

The only newspaper experience I have is from working at a college student paper. No bylines until you were staff - which usually required a couple months of regularly taking assignments. Even when you were staff the pay was so little it wasn't worth having another W2 to file. I had one issue that I had 20+ photos in and I don't think I cleared $100.

At this point I think I'm just going to see what they have to say. I'll let you guys know how it goes.

rdlugosz

You should head to your local book mega-store and read Pricing Photography while you're waiting to hear from them. If they're interested in running the photographs then they should be interested in paying for them. This book will help you to understand what to charge.

By the way, isn't it scary how the big online news sources are soliciting people to "send your images about this story!!"? When you look at the terms these "contributors" are giving away their images for free and grant the company *unlimited* rights to use it in all forms of media for all time!

mercphoto

rdlugosz wrote:

By the way, isn't it scary how the big online news sources are soliciting people to "send your images about this story!!"? When you look at the terms these "contributors" are giving away their images for free and grant the company *unlimited* rights to use it in all forms of media for all time!

Yup. Volunteer photojournalists. People (rightfully so) complain all the time about big money making corporations taking advantage of the little guy, and then the little guy runs giddily into a situation of handing over all their image and revenue rights just for the "thrill" of seeing themselves "published". It is a bit scary.

cletus

Thanks for the help!

Everything went pretty well. The paper wound up using three of my images. One image was used as the full page cover of a section. I got photo credit for the images, the paper is sending me copies of the issue with my images and I wound up making just about enough money to pay for that SB600 that I've been looking at for a while.

If anyone is interested, the paper was the October 27th edition of the Santa Fe New Mexican.

johng

Congratulations! Sounds like it worked out pretty well.