Selling image files for advertising.

[RSG1050]

Over the past eight months, I've been photographing shows and events for the Pensacola Civic Center, a large-scale venue that has seen shows from Kiss, Daughtry, Kelly Clarkson, etcetera since I've been doing their house photography. The arrangement is such that I don't get paid unless they use my photos for public advertising. Pensacola is a cheap town.

There's a big anniversary coming up that will have it's own media campaign, and they want to buy some images to use for it. I've never sold image files before, and I'm not sure where to start my pricing. If anyone here has experience in selling images like this, I would appreciate some help.

[OsmosisStudios]

Ask for what kind of usage the images will get (size, location, number of times printed) and how long the organization wants the rights.

[RSG1050]

Spoke to my contact the other night. The photos will be used in tabloid-format newspaper advertising. Any advice on how to price for this sort of thing?

[Brian Mullins]

Originally Posted by RSG1050

Spoke to my contact the other night. The photos will be used in tabloid-format newspaper advertising. Any advice on how to price for this sort of thing?

Whats the distribution of the newspaper? What size will the ad run? To put it another way, getting your photo on the front cover of national geographic should and does pay much more then having a photo in the personals page for a newspaper that sells 100 a day.

[RSG1050]

All of this advertising will be very local; put out in city magazines and distributed largely for free, one of which I used to shoot for. Pensacola has a slew of local magazines and most of them are distributed via racks of free copies in restaurants, libraries, colleges, small businesses, grocery stores, etcetera. To the best of my knowledge, I think the combined regular circulation makes it into the hands of around 75,000+ people each week.

[RSG1050]

I'm bumping this up because I still need advice and can't get any from the photogs I associate with in real life.

[GadgetRick]

Originally Posted by RSG1050

All of this advertising will be very local; put out in city magazines and distributed largely for free, one of which I used to shoot for. Pensacola has a slew of local magazines and most of them are distributed via racks of free copies in restaurants, libraries, colleges, small businesses, grocery stores, etcetera. To the best of my knowledge, I think the combined regular circulation makes it into the hands of around 75,000+ people each week.

Even if they're given away for free, they're making money on them by having people pay for advertising. Whether they charge for circulation or not shouldn't factor into your pricing equation. Newspapers charge a nominal fee for their papers ($0.25 to $0.50 for during the week usually) so it's (essentially) free.

I can't help you on the actual pricing though as I've never done this.