Best Business Practices for Photographers [65]
I often hear colleagues counsel their brethren to set up an account on a major stock photography site, such as Getty Images, Corbis, or others, and then find an image like theirs, price it out, and use that rate. Using someone else's assets (that is, pricing information and pricing schedules) for a use that was not intended is, at best, a violation of that company's Terms of Use for their website/service.
Instead, why not get some quality software that has been put together by people with decades in the business to guide you?
First up is Cradoc Bradshaw's fotoQuote. Honestly, for more than a decade, I have relied on Cradoc's products, including fotoQuote, to help me and guide me in fair and reasonable pricing of my images as both stock and assignment work. Often I get a call from a colleague asking me to help him or her price a stock request, and my deal with the colleague is as follows: "I am going to look this up in fotoQuote for you, and I am going to talk you through it, using the usage tips section of the software and the coaching section of the software, and I will add in a few thoughts of my own. But—and here's the catch—when you get the license, you have to go out and buy a copy of fotoQuote yourself, because it is such an amazing piece of software. You will learn so much by using it, and you will become a better negotiator when calls come in in the future."
fotoQuote, in the Spring of 2009, produced an overhaul of their software, with new interfaces, quote packs, and so on. As times change, so does fotoQuote. With this revision, they have added a large number of video-related categories for licensing images for the various video products and services, as well as video assignment requests such as, "Oh, just shoot a little behind-the-scenes video while you're doing the stills shoot so we can share what it was like to be on the shoot with you," and so on.
Figure 7.2 shows one of the 304 different categories that have pricing information in fotoQuote. The figures are based upon extensive research into what is actually being paid, so don't be thrown by the figures. Further—and this is important—these figures do take into consideration that there is a microstock market applying downward pressure on image licensing fees, so don't further discount any figures you see here, thinking these figures don't factor that in.
Figure 7.2
A category with pricing information in fotoQuote.
In Figure 7.2 you see all of the different categories in the Email category. In the center is one of the two most valuable features of fotoQuote—the Usage Tips and Coach tabs. This information is really the heart of fotoQuote, giving you guidance about what to expect during the negotiations and how to ask the right questions. Figure 7.3 shows another of the 304 categories—TV Advertising Cable Stills, with tips and coaching—and then, on the right, are the variations for local, regional, and so on, as well as the number of weeks the ad will run.
In addition to the Stock Pricing tab, there is the Assignment Pricing tab, which has an amazing amount of information for you (see Figure 7.4). It provides coaching information about how to price the assignment when it is event photography. On the right side is background on the type of photography, valuable questions to ask, and so on.
Figure 7.3
Another of fotoQuote's 304 categories.
Figure 7.4
The Assignment Pricing tab.
There are so many other categories in the Assignment tab, and Figure 7.5 shows another— Corporate Jobs.
Figure 7.5
The Corporate Jobs category in the Assignment Pricing tab.
In this category, the information is far-and-away different from the insights and advice for the events photography coaching.
If you are considering this software for use in another country, it's completely customizable for any currency. If you are even licensing just a few images a year, all of the information