photo credit: fdecomite

This applies to all business not just photographers and photography businesses. To get paid on time takes cunning, guile and a really keen eye for detail. The aim of the game is not to let your client use any excuse to not pay you. You’d think that after delivering a stellar product on-time and within budget your client would be only too grateful and would pay you as a matter of urgency. You’d be wrong.

Let it be said here that after many years dealing with clients ranging from small businesses to multinationals there are pitfalls to be had with both and most come under the control of those who must be feared. Yes, I’m talking about the <insert jarring chord> Accounts Department. In most companies the Accounts Department are a law unto themselves. Dealing with them is an art form. In larger companies the Accounts Payable Department is the one you must conquer, in smaller companies it’s normally the part-time bookkeeper (who only works on alternate Wednesdays).

Here then. I present my 5 top reasons your clients don’t pay you quickly or on time, or perhaps both:

1. You didn’t make your payment terms or method clear on your invoice.

Your payment terms should be clearly marked on your invoice. They should reflect the payment terms set out in your terms & conditions document that you had agreed before starting the job or supplying the product. If you don’t tell the accounts department clearly what your terms are they won’t know and your invoice will not be given any sort of urgency whatsoever.

Similarly your acceptable payment methods should be clearly noted too. Some companies issue cheques and some pay by bank transfer and some offer both.

Tip: Write “Terms strictly 30 days” or whatever you work to. Write this in bold right underneath the total amount owed.

Tip: Ensure the name your cheque should be made payable to is noted on the invoice as well as your bank account and sort code details

2. You didn’t get a Purchase Order number or have an Invoice Number

Purchase Orders are a way for large companies to control their expenditure and keep track of who is ordering what. It’s becoming quite common for Accounts Departments to not pay invoices unless a Purchase Order number is stated on your invoice that matches the one they issued.

The very minimum you need on your invoice is an invoice number. This aids queries and allows the accounts person to identify your invoice on their system.

Tip: Always ask your contact whether you need a Purchase Order number (PO) before invoicing the job.

Tip: Invoice numbers are down to you – make it up but keep it unique. Think filenames. You wouldn’t have two files with the same file name and number, apply this theory to your invoices.

3. You sent your invoice to your client contact – not the company accounts department.

Your creative contact or the person that commissions you (sometimes the company dogsbody in the case of PR/lower end work) rarely holds the purse strings. This is good because you won’t have to hack them off by chasing them for payment all the time. Its’ bad because if you send your invoice to them they may not pass it onto the Accounts Department. It’s better for your invoice to be awaiting authorisation from your contact after it’s been registered by Accounts.

Tip: Always send your invoice to the for attention of the Accounts Payable Department of the company that owes you the money. If emailing the invoice, get an Accounts Department contact and cc the invoice to your contact not the other way round

4. You’re not in their “system” yet.

First time you work for a multinational it’s likely that they will have to “set you up on the system” in order to be paid. This can take weeks. So make sure it gets done by doing 5. below

Tip: Call after a couple of weeks to ensure you have been set up on their computer system

5. You didn’t chase the progress of the invoice

The worst thing you can do after sending an invoice to a new client is sit back and expect it to be paid on time without further intervention. The probability is that it won’t be paid on time for any of the reasons mentioned above but mainly because you need to be set up on a system and/or they are ignoring your payment terms. I always call after two weeks to ensure everything is progressing smoothly with payment of my invoice. Unsurprisingly a lot can and does go wrong. Some of the more common excuses are:

>>We can’t pay you until our client pays us
>>We only pay at the end of the month following the month we got your invoice
>>We only pay on 60/90/120 days
>>Our terms and conditions apply not yours
>>Your invoice is awaiting authorisation by (your contact)
>>Your invoice is awaiting cheque authorisation / the manager who authorises cheques is on holiday

I’ve heard all these over the years. Some sound plausible and some are deliberate delaying tactics. You need to be on the ball and chase until you get a payment date. Don’t get fobbed off with “shortly or “soon”. Ask for a “date when the invoice will be paid”. Most companies have payment schedules and should (after leaning on them in the nicest possible way) be able to tell you.

Tip: Ring, email, hassle, chase and then do it again in a couple of days if you get no answer or no call backs. As long as your terms of payment have been agreed then they should be adhered to.

Tip: Print your t&c’s on the reverse of the invoice

All you have to do is convince the Accounts Department gatekeeper – who hasn’t got a first clue who you are or what was agreed unless it’s written on the invoice. Be tenacious and be like a dog with a bone – don’t let go but always remember, you’ll catch more flies with honey than vinegar!

Good luck!

PP

If you found this article helpful you may also like to read:

• Photographer’s Terms and Conditions and why you need some (3)
• How to deal with clients who want your photography for the cheapest possible price (3)
• Assignment Photography: How to charge and price up assignments – part two (4)
• Assignment Photography: How to charge and price up assignments – part three (1)
• Assignment Photography: How to charge and price up assignments – part one (2)

photo credit: DanBrady

Where would we be without the small print? I’ll tell you where. In a world where we could be taken advantage of or worse still ripped-off and we would have little or no come back. I’m always surprised at the number of photographer’s websites that don’t contain any reference to their terms of business. Simply, that is what terms & conditions are, a way of setting out the conditions under which you will undertake a commission or sell a stock image.

Almost all businesses you encounter in your daily life have terms and conditions that relate to the service they provide or the product they sell. You will be asked to accept them before work commences. It is a way of protecting a business from being taken advantage of and allowing the business to lay out what they will do and what is expected of the client in return for the fee. A lot of photographers “can’t be bothered” until the day they are first taken advantage of, ripped off and/or lose money and all because they hadn’t set out clearly how they work.

The Association of Photographers in the UK have a publicly available set of Terms & Conditions which you can download from this page.

Update: I’ve just seen that over on the US based ‘A Photo Editor’ blog there’s a similar piece that explains the Day Rate vs Space Rate t&c’s clause by clause for all you US based photographers. Day Rate vs Space isn’t common at all here in the UK editorial world. It was used by some publishers 10 years ago + but died a death (certainly with the publishers I shoot for). If you’re in the UK and you shoot for a client who uses this system then it would be good to know (let me know in the comments) and head over to Rob’s blog to see what Rob’s readers make of it. Interesting stuff.

Back to the UK and standard photography assignment t&c’s. Let’s take a look at the AOP Terms & Conditions clause by clause. I’ll put my interpretation underneath. I am not a Lawyer and you probably aren’t either which is why using a legally drafted set of terms & conditions rather than something you knocked up yourself is the way to do it. The t&c’s below refer to England & Wales though by reading each clause you’ll see that they could equally apply (in principle) worldwide save for specific references to the those two countries.

1.DEFINITIONS
For the purpose of this agreement “the Agency” and “the Advertiser” shall where the context so admits include their respective assignees, sub-licensees and successors in title. In cases where the Photographer’s client is a direct client (i.e. with no agency or intermediary), all references in this agreement to both “the Agency” and “the Advertiser” shall be interpreted as references to the Photographer’s client. “Photographs” means all photographic material furnished by the Photographer, whether transparencies, negatives, prints or any other type of physical or electronic material.

Defines who is your client and protects you from client “ping-pong”. If you are commissioned by an Ad Agency then they can’t say that it’s their client who should pay you and vice-versa. Yes, this does happen. It also defines the use of the word “photogaph” to include electronic files as well as prints or transparencies

2.COPYRIGHT
The entire copyright in the Photographs is retained by the Photographer at all times throughout the world.

Asserts your ownership of the created material.

3.OWNERSHIP OF MATERIALS
Title to all Photographs remains the property of the Photographer. When the Licence to Use the material has expired the Photographs must be returned to the Photographer in good condition within 30 days.

More targetted to the days when transparencies were given to the client for the duration of the licence. Clients in receipt of electronic files should, in theory, delete electronic files once the licence period has ceased

4.USE
The Licence to Use comes into effect from the date of payment of the relevant invoice(s). No use may be made of the Photographs before payment in full of the relevant invoice(s) without the Photographer’s express permission. Any permission which may be given for prior use will automatically be revoked if full payment is not made by the due date or if the Agency is
put into receivership or liquidation.

The Licence only applies to the advertiser and product as stated on the front of the form and its benefit shall not be assigned to any third party without the Photographer’s permission. Accordingly, even where any form of ‘all media’ Licence is granted, the photographer’s permission must be obtained before any use of the Photographs for other purposes eg use in relation to another product or sublicensing through a photolibrary.

Permission to use the Photographs for purposes outside the terms of the Licence will normally be granted upon payment of a further fee, which must be mutually agreed (and paid in full) before such further use. Unless otherwise agreed in writing, all further Licences in respect of the Photographs will be subject to these terms and conditions.

Importantly this clause states that any licence you’ve issued doesn’t come into force until you’ve been paid. It also allows you to revoke permission to use your images from a client of an agency if the commissioning agency liquidates before they’ve paid you. For agency also read local PR company or marketing agency, doesn’t have to be Saatchi size to apply etc.

This clause makes it clear that third party use is not allowed. This stops your client from giving your images to related third parties for free (i.e. people who are not your client but perhaps those who have worked with the client related to the project). This happens a lot and you need to watch out for it.

The final paragraph makes clear that the client must seek to purchase another licence from you if they wish to use your material for purposes outside the original licence terms.

If you’ve no idea what a photography licence is then read this post.

5.EXCLUSIVITY
The Agency and Advertiser will be authorised to publish the Photographs to the exclusion of all other persons including the Photographer. However, the Photographer retains the right in all cases to use the Photographs in any manner at any time and in any part of the world for the purposes of advertising or otherwise promoting his/her work. After the exclusivity period
indicated in the Licence to Use the Photographer shall be entitled to use the Photographs for any purposes.

You are promising not to sell the images to anyone else while the licence is in force. Advertising assignment and commissioned photography is normally subject to an exclusive licence or a licence under which you agree not to resell for x years. After this period you may do what you wish with the images including resell as stock. Editorial commissions are normally for one reproduction in one edition of a publication only and the exclusivity may only last for one month in the case of a monthly magazine. At any time you may use the work for self-promotion.

6.CLIENT CONFIDENTIALITY
The photographer will keep confidential and will not disclose to any third parties or make use of material or information communicated to him/her in confidence for the purposes of the photography, save as may be reasonably necessary to enable the Photographer to carry out his/her obligations in relation to the commission.

If you’re commissioned to shoot something that means you become party to confidential information then you’ll keep it that way

7.INDEMNITY
The Photographer agrees to indemnify the Agency and the Advertiser against all expenses, damages, claims and legal costs arising out of any failure by the Photographer to obtain any clearances for which he/she was responsible in respect of third party copyright works, trade marks, designs or other intellectual property. The Photographer shall only be responsible for obtaining such clearances if this has been expressly agreed before the shoot. In all other cases the Agency shall be responsible for obtaining such clearances and will indemnify the Photographer against all expenses, damages, claims and legal costs arising out of any failure to obtain such clearances.

If your commission says its your responsibility to get model and property releases, permits and agreements then you allow the agency/client to sue you if you didn’t do this properly. However if your brief did not include such a request (for which I would charge a lot extra as it would involve lots of admin and perhaps legal queries) then the agency/client indemnifies you if they use an image you supplied without the necessary clearance and they get sued.

8.PAYMENT
Payment by the Agency will be expected for the commissioned work within 30 days of the issue of the relevant invoice. If the invoice is not paid, in full, within 30 days The Photographer reserves the right to charge interest at the rate prescribed by the Late Payment of Commercial Debt (Interest) Act 1998 from the date payment was due until the date payment is made.

You invoice after the work is delivered and expect payment within 30 days. Don’t take either of these excuses:

a) “We only pay accounts after 90 days”; or

b) “We only pay once we’ve been paid by our client”

That’s just bull***t so they can keep your money earning them interest. Ask for and pressure for 30 days. If 30 days is stated here in your t&c’s and on your invoice then you must stick to this like glue. A lot of companies only pay the people who hassle them the most. This is business not personal and all accounts people seem to think it’s their personal stash you’re asking for a chunk of. Don’t be afraid to hassle them.

Remember the client can’t use the images before they’ve paid you….. see clause 4.USE

9.EXPENSES
Where extra expenses or time are incurred by the Photographer as a result of alterations to the original brief by the Agency or the Advertiser, or otherwise at their request, the Agency shall give approval to and be liable to pay such extra expenses or fees at the Photographer’s normal rate to the Photographer in addition to the expenses shown overleaf as having been agreed or estimated.

Deals with those “while you’re here” moments or “why don’t we try it like this” moments on a shoot which mean your finely executed estimate goes south and you are liable for the overtime of assistants/crew or incurring extra expenses because the client altered the brief.

10.REJECTION
Unless a rejection fee has been agreed in advance, there is no right to reject on the basis of style or composition.

Stops the client rejecting your work purely because they don’t like it. This has nothing to do with, and doesn’t override, their statutory rights if you’re just a crap photographer and can’t focus or expose properly. But it stops the nit-picking that sometimes goes on if the client couldn’t be bothered to turn up at the shoot, hasn’t witnessed the difficulties that may have existed due to weather, crap talent they made you hire because of their lean budget etc etc. and then rejecting your images from their office chair later. Tip: if they do turn up get their approval of every shot on the list before moving to the next set-up

11.CANCELLATION & POSTPONEMENT
A booking is considered firm as from the date of confirmation and accordingly the Photographer will, at his/her discretion,
charge a fee for cancellation or postponement.

Your right to charge a cancellation fee if a client pulls a shoot that has been firmly booked.

12.RIGHT TO A CREDIT
If the box on the estimate and the licence marked “Right to a Credit” has been ticked the Photographer’s name will be printed on or in reasonable proximity to all published reproductions of the Photograph(s). By ticking the box overleaf the Photographer also asserts his/her statutory right to be identified in the circumstances set out in Sections 77-79 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 or any amendment or re-enactment thereof.

Self explanatory!

13.ELECTRONIC STORAGE
Save for the purposes of reproduction for the licensed use(s), the Photographs may not be stored in any form of electronic medium without the written permission of the Photographer. Manipulation of the image or use of only a portion of the image may only take place with the permission of the Photographer.

Stops the client holding onto your files for longer than they need (similar to clause 3). Stops the client manipulating the work you present them without your consent

14.APPLICABLE LAW
This agreement shall be governed by the laws of England & Wales

Sets the legal jurisdiction for the agreement

15.VARIATION
These Terms and Conditions shall not be varied except by agreement in writing.

Ensures these t&c’s can’t be waived, varied or amended unless it’s in writing

So I’ve got my t&c’s sorted – what do I do now…

Don’t hide them away under a bushel. Publish them on your website and send them with every estimate without fail.

Your own terms and conditions may vary depending on which country you are in but please make sure you have some. They not only reinforce a degree of professionalism, but they will stop you and your work being easily exploited. They will help if ever you need to take a client to court for late payment or a breach of licence by showing that you clearly set out your terms of engagement which were agreed before the job commenced.

Your terms are your terms and your client (especially in publishing) will have their own terms. Your task is to get your terms agreed by your client before you shoot a frame. This may take some bartering on both parts or it may not. The terms above are not scary nor onerous for a client. They are pretty standard fayre. If anyone wants to reject them completely be very wary of motive!

I always send my terms & conditions along with my estimate form and the wording: “By accepting my estimate you are also agreeing to my terms and commissions as attached” In this way if my bid is accepted so are my t&c’s. Hasn’t failed me yet. Some people get the client to email them confirmation of acceptance. Either way, the onus needs to be on the client to accept your terms before you shoot.

Along with your estimate setting out the fees and rights included for the job your t&c’s are the second most important piece of paperwork you will possess pre-shoot. For if and when the brown stuff hits the fan (and in the creative world this can often happen) it’s these very simple t&c’s which will often be your lifebelt.

Small print is good print… ;)

PP

If you found this article helpful you may also like to read:

• How to deal with clients who want your photography for the cheapest possible price (3)
• Assignment Photography: How to charge and price up assignments – part two (4)
• Assignment Photography: How to charge and price up assignments – part three (1)
• Assignment Photography: How to charge and price up assignments – part one (2)
• Alamy announce a ‘Find a Photographer’ service (1)

photo credit: Vinay Deep

But it’s the web! It’s just a web image. It’s cheap. It’s not worth as much as print usage. It’s only 300 pixels wide. It’s small. It can’t be worth anything like a full page in the magazine. It’s just our electronic version. Nobody reads it online anyway.

Just some of the excuses you’ll hear when publishers want you to throw in “digital rights” i.e. web and pdf uses for free or for nearly free.

Wrong!

Here’s why. A great article by Paul Melcher over on Black Star Rising gives you 10 reasons why your pixels are worth as much (if not more) on the web than they are in print. http://rising.blackstar.com/10-ways-to-fight-for-your-digital-rights-as-a-photographer.html

PP

If you found this article helpful you may also like to read:

• Alamy announce a ‘Find a Photographer’ service (1)
• Why photo credit lines aren’t worth the paper they’re written on (6)
• Assignment Photography: How to charge and price up assignments – part four (16)
• Assignment Photography: How to charge and price up assignments – part five (6)
• Understanding licensing types: Royalty Free image licences (1)

photo credit: PetroleumJelliffe

I was sent a link to a video on YouTube this week by a friend who laughed and said “this always happens to me”. I don’t know who made this video but it shows the kind of problems many photographers face on a daily basis. Especially in this current recession.

Take a look at the video below – heard this all before?

Unless I’ve missed the point, what this video illustrates so well is the way many clients want top class products for low class fees. They expect to get the best of the best for the least price possible. This is incredibly prevalent in the creative industries where creativity is often viewed as a commodity and not something of value.

In each of the scenarios we saw, the restaurant, the hairdressers, the game store; the client wanted to enjoy the creativity and art of the creator, but didn’t want to pay for it! I always find it astounding that someone can try to lowball a creative without second thought. Yet they wouldn’t try to buy a Mercedes if they only had budget for a Ford. They wouldn’t go into their local foodstore and try and buy a whole smoked salmon for the cost of a budget brand tin of tuna.

But when it comes to paying for creativity, production and ideas – they feel no shame. Some even ask us to work for free and pretend this is a good thing by offering us a credit line! See why credit lines aren’t worth the paper they’re written on here.

The lowballing usually comes in via a couple of different avenues. Either they want us to shoot for a ridiculously cheap rate or they want us to throw in “all-rights” granting usage forever and a day or even a combination of the two (that’s when you’ve got a real lowballer!).

So what can we, as creatives (and I include all those of us who provide creative services not just photographers) do about it? How can we fight back?

I believe we have two options.

Option 1: Turn down the assignment.

There is nothing wrong with saying “I’m afraid I might be outside your budget”. A client who can’t see the value your images may bring to their business is not one you want to be working for. You’re in business. Your business objectives are to make money. If you don’t you’re not doing this as a business :) If you book yourself up with low-paying gigs where you’re giving your time away cheap and/or you are granting a very loose licence for not a lot of money you’re working cheap and you’ll stay working cheap. It’s a vicious cycle to break because you get known as “the cheap guy”.

In business “time is money“. If your time is taken up with low paying gigs you’ll never make any money unless you work a 60 hour week. You could do that in an office but with all the added benefits of sick-pay, a company car, 4 weeks holiday and a decent pension. You get none of those business benefits for free as a photographer. So it doesn’t make any sense to work as a low paid employee when you run your own business. Make your valuable time work for you.

It’s a hard call – especially in a recession. I appreciate that. Do you take the paltry offer of a low day rate while signing over essentially an RF licence for a bespoke shoot OR say “No, sorry – the best I can do is £X for Y usage”. I believe the latter is the right course to take. You want your client base to come to you because of your photography and not because you’re throwing in everything for a cheap rate. But sometimes you might take the former because you want the gig and you can see it’s a low rate but there might be secondary markets to sell the work on to as well.

Option 2: Lower the production values accordingly.

If your client only has the budget for a Ford then shoot them a Ford. Don’t shoot them a Mercedes for the price of a Ford! PP get’s a lot of enquiries from people who see my website, love the images that have a high production value (by production value I mean styling, lighting, post-production and retouching) and want to hire me to shoot the same for them. Once we start pricing up the assignment it becomes clear that they can’t afford that level of production.

I then depends on how I feel about the project. That decides my next move. I always explain that the production values in the images they like are high and that for the budget they are offering I can’t produce images like that. Sometimes I offer to shoot for their budget or somewhere inbetween (always barter ok!) but at a lower production value if the project interests me.

I never shoot for all-rights though. Irrespective of budget, in the long term all-rights is always a bad deal for the photographer.

In conclusion then, either stick to your guns and seek out the clients who do see the value in your images or modify your shooting to fit the budget. Whatever you do, make sure that if you’re shooting a low budget gig then give the client low budget imagery. Don’t turn up with a crew and 10 packs if it’s the budget for a snapper with a flashgun. Make it quick to produce and get it out the door fast. Invoice it and move on. That’s what they’ve paid for. Give nothing more.

Don’t let the flattery that they “love your work” hide the fact that they don’t actually want to pay for it.

As Jodie Foster once said: “Quid pro quo Dr Lecter…”

PP

If you found this article helpful you may also like to read:

• Alamy announce a ‘Find a Photographer’ service (1)
• Why photo credit lines aren’t worth the paper they’re written on (6)
• Fight for your right to licence your pixels for a proper fee (2)
• Assignment Photography: How to charge and price up assignments – part two (4)
• Assignment Photography: How to charge and price up assignments – part three (1)

photo credit: Caveman 92223

Alamy have announced today that they’re going to set up a section of the website where buyers of photography can “Find a Photographer”. Hats off to Alamy for a great photographer friendly initiative.

Alamy will shortly be launching a free service to put picture buyers in touch with photographers.

Customers will be able to search by location and see contact details and portfolio images from photographers in the area. Photographers will be able to update their location and availability at any time. This will be useful for customers who need a picture taken at short notice.

‘Find a Photographer’ will launch as a free service. It will be up to the photographer and the customer to define the task, agree a price, transmit images, arrange invoicing and payment and to resolve any problems between themselves.

To qualify for this service, photographers must meet all of the following criteria:

1. Be experienced in conducting assignments and/or commissions
2. Have at least 100 images and 10 sales on Alamy
3. Have a website that showcases your work

PP thinks this is a grand idea – even better if Alamy were to inspect the websites that people submit for quality. The only problem I can see with this being a very low entry threshold is that buyers/commissioners won’t know whether they’re getting someone who can actually deliver images from a commission before its too late. Then the buyer may be disappointed and this could reflect badly on Alamy.

Alamy have a hard judgement call to make on how they sign this area of the website for buyers to see. If they intimate the photographers they list are recommended it might come back to bit them in the butt if the ‘tog fouls up and customer becomes disgruntled, blaming Alamy for the introduction (a bit like your mate arranging you a blind date that he swears is a “looker” and…. well, we’ve all been there).

If, on the other hand, Alamy decide to stay 100% hands off “nothing to do with me guv” then doesn’t that say something about the quality of imagery in the library? Maybe not? Tough call.

Prospective new receivers of commissions would do well to note that it’s not unusual (as Tom would sing) to not get paid for 60-90 days after the commission. They should also have extremely robust terms and conditions of business in place which should be agreed before the commission starts, because without them you’re going to get plucked faster than a Turkey at Christmas by the wily publishers waiting in the wings to relieve you of your copyright/all rights. And there are plenty of those miscreants dotted about the sectors we’re looking at here.

Some PP thoughts for those wet behind the ears in the commissioned world.

I see some on the Alamy forum thinking this is a quick way to easy money and to make more stock images to place with Alamy. Some gigs might be; but some will also be difficult, unrepeatable and you’d better have the skills to nail it first time. The future saleability of assignment images will also depend on what rights are granted to the commissioner. If you’re forced to transfer “all rights” or copyright you won’t own the images to be able to sell them! You must also respect any exclusivity you give as part of your negotiations. Always make them pay more for exclusivity.

A lot of these commissions (if Alamy set this up on a geographical basis as they’ve suggested) will come in with a hugely short lead time and turnaround. i.e. you might get a call at 3pm one day to do a shoot the next morning and deliver files that afternoon. This sort of work is only for those who are full-time, you can’t do assignments part-time – it’s way too unpredictable. So don’t hack-off customers by pretending you’re a full time pro when you’re only available on Wednesday nights and Saturdays!

Don’t forget to charge for mileage, digital file preparation and delivery too. Remember, this is not stock, they are not buying off the shelf here but a one-off shoot so make sure you charge well for the rights you are granting. You’ll also have extra costs like public liability insurance in case your light stand acts as a trip magnet to the local ambulance chaser!

Admin dear admin

You will now have to do the Alamy bits you never see (and it”ll show you just how hard negotiation/debt collection is). You’ll need to negotiate the fee, do the shoot and get it right, deliver the images with a licence, and prepare and send an invoice. Then you’ll have to chase that invoice all the way through the system of Acme Inc. to get paid. Oh yes you will.

Finally, if you’re new to the game we call assignment photography and new to charging for your work and you need to bone up fast – have a look round here at some of the articles (many on charging and licencing) but especially this one OK!:

12-easy-ways-not-to-succeed-in-business-as-a-new-professional-photographer

God speed, you’ll need it!

PP

If you found this article helpful you may also like to read:

• Fight for your right to licence your pixels for a proper fee (2)
• Why photo credit lines aren’t worth the paper they’re written on (6)
• Assignment Photography: How to charge and price up assignments – part four (16)
• Assignment Photography: How to charge and price up assignments – part five (6)
• Understanding licensing types: Royalty Free image licences (1)

photo credit: °Florian

PP presents an easy to follow tutorial. “12 easy ways NOT to succeed in business as a new professional photographer”. Follow these tips and you’ll be flipping burgers inside 48 months.

Contracts and business

1) Don’t have any terms and conditions. You’re a photographer, you’re not actually running a money-making business are you?

2) Don’t discuss and agree fees and a contract before shooting the job. You never bothered finding out how much you were going to get paid and how long you had to work each week when you were in employment. Why start now?

3) Don’t have a clue about your copyright. That way you won’t be offended when people try to grab it.

4) Do charge for your photography by the hour. That worked really well when you were an employee didn’t it? No point in charging a fee for your product instead of the time it takes to make it – you don’t see successful companies doing that sort of thing do you?

Websites

5) Do have a website that lists your ’specialities’ as every style of photography imaginable - even though you’re not really very good at any of them if you’re honest.

6) Do list your gear on your “about me” page. I’m sure you won’t get that £10k ad job unless you tell everyone about the entire contents of your camera bag (and don’t forget to list who makes your camera bag too).

7) Do show images on your website in simulated frames (wood, metal etc). Nothing says “I’m a professional” more than that.

8) Don’t have any good examples of prior commissioned work on your website. Pssst… nobody knows you didn’t actually shoot that can of Heinz beans for money and you just got it out of your cupboard to make it look like somebody paid you to do it.

Making images

9) Don’t bring more than one camera body or lens to a shoot. Nothing ever goes wrong, these things are so reliable nowadays.

10) Don’t bother using any lighting on location shoots. Just push the ISO on your new baby to 6400. That’ll be fine after a bit of Noise Ninja and curves in Photoshop. Nobody will ever notice.

11) Don’t bother shooting RAW. RAW is for purists. You’re a pro – you get it right in the camera. You don’t need to adjust anything after the shoot. All these retouchers have got it so wrong.

12) Don’t bother with colour management or profiles or any of that hocus-pocus. It looks good on your monitor so it should look good on everyone else’s right?

PP

If you found this article helpful you may also like to read:

• How to deal with clients who want your photography for the cheapest possible price (3)
• Alamy announce a ‘Find a Photographer’ service (1)
• When does fair use of a photo become copyright infringement? (2)
• Welcome to thephotographybiz.com (0)
• Photographer’s Terms and Conditions and why you need some (3)

photo credit: Lili Vieira de Carvalho

Welcome to the final part of the tutorial on pricing up assignment photography. This part is going to show you how to apply your base usage rate (BUR) to assign license extensions for re-use of your images in a real world example.

In part four of this tutorial we priced up an initial licence for a commission to shoot a Fitness Centre brochure.

We granted a one year use for brochures and web in the UK as our initial licence included within our shoot fee.

How to handle a request for re-use or a licence extension

The images are delivered and you’ve been paid. Six months later your client calls you and says they want to run the images again in fitness magazines in the UK as advertisements. They are also building a fitness centre in Germany and want to use your images in a German edition of the brochure and they want to reprint the brochure next year, but only for the UK, so need a one year extension to the licence.

Lets refer to our handy re-use fees table. This one is produced (and is ©) the Association of Photographers (AoP) based in the UK. The table shows you guidelines for how to price up the additional license uses. It is freely available to download as a pdf from the AoP copyright4clients site here. It is designed to allow you to take your initial Base Usage Rate (BUR) figure and use the table as a guide to price the licence extensions.

Lets look at this table in detail. Click the thumbs to enlarge.

List of additional media types and time periods

List of additional territories

Each table has a range of percentages (%) upon which to base your negotiations. The AoP recognise that in any business there must be room for negotiation so this table is used as a starting point for those negotiations. It gives you, the photographer the confidence to price fairly for additional usage. It gives the client the knowledge that you are not plucking figures out of the air.

Using this table to price up our assignment re-usage example

Our client wants to buy the following additional usages:

1) UK magazine advertisements for 3 months
2) German version of the same brochure
3) One additional year’s usage for UK only

In part four we set our BUR at £1500

1) UK Magazine advertisements: Call up the media types page and look down the column until we see “press includes magazines, newspapers etc.” Look along the row. Additional media types within the initial use period are charged at 100% of BUR. But our client wants 3 months use only for three ads in a couple of magazines.

In this case I would charge 33% of BUR for 3 months UK magazine advertising. 33% of £1500 = £495

2) German version of the same brochure: Call up the territories page and select “single additional country”. Look in the “principal media” column as we’ve already licenced for the brochure media type for use in the UK. The table recommends 20-100%.

In this case I would charge (depends on the client size of course) 50% of BUR for additional territory = Germany. 50% of £1500 = £750

3) One additional year’s usage for UK only: Call up the media types page and look down the column until we see “Brochures” Look along the row. Additional year after licence period is charged at 25-50% of BUR. Look down the media type column for “Internet”. Look along the row. Additional year after licence period is charged at 30-100% of BUR.

The client wants both UK brochures and internet for an additional year. Internet is fast becoming the most widely viewed advertising media (especially for high-traffic websites) so you should not see Internet use as being a lesser option than print.

In this case I would charge 75% of BUR for the additional year UK brochures and web use (giving the client a 25% discount on the additional year) 75% of £1500 = £1,125

Total cost to client for additional uses = £495 + £750 + £1,125 = £2,370

But hang on PP, that’s more than they paid you for the original shoot….how can that be right?

The golden rules of usage

a) Use of the image not time it took to shoot

Remember, the original shoot we priced up in part four was for one year UK only in two media. We undertook the shoot based upon that usage. We priced the shoot based upon that licence to use. This is the essence of usage. The more widely an image is used, the more you, the photographer should receive. This is not Royalty Free and this is why assignments should never be priced based upon time.

Also realise that in this example, your client’s spend for advertising in magazines and printing/distribution of a second language edition is going to be far in excess of your additional usage fees.

b) Use the BUR system as a way of creating building blocks of pricing so that you can handle any request for any use, any time, any territory with confidence and the ability to negotiate.

Final thoughts….

That just about wraps up the five part series on pricing assignment photography. I hope you found it useful and it has given you a methodology to be able to price your photography based upon the benefit it gives to your client; not the time it takes you to shoot.

If your client is buying extra usage, multiple medias, territories or time then by all means haggle, barter, negotiate. Assignment photography is a business like any other. Businesses do deals every day of the week. Nothing wrong with negotiation, just make sure you always get something out of it.

Quid pro quo Dr Lecter? ;)

PP

p.s. if you need to start from the beginning here’s Part One

If you found this article helpful you may also like to read:

• Assignment Photography: How to charge and price up assignments – part four (16)
• Alamy announce a ‘Find a Photographer’ service (1)
• Fight for your right to licence your pixels for a proper fee (2)
• Why photo credit lines aren’t worth the paper they’re written on (6)
• Understanding licensing types: Royalty Free image licences (1)

photo credit: Lili Vieira de Carvalho

Welcome to the next part of the tutorial on pricing up assignment photography. This part is going to show you how to apply your base usage rate (BUR) to assign a license in a real world example.

The previous three parts of this mini tutorial showed you how to:

1) avoid pricing by making it up as you go along
2) work out how much you need to earn to stay in business
3) understand the need for a constant figure for each assignment to enable you to fairly price usage licenses

Base Usage Rate (BUR)

I’ve already mentioned that the BUR figure is a constant BUT that it can be a different constant. Indeed it has to be, else you’re going to end up charging a PR shoot the same as an advertising shoot and that’s not right. So using you NTMPD figure as a base I want you to arrive at four separate BUR figures for assignment types:

PR
Editorial
Commercial
Advertising

My test NTMPD figure was £480 GBP ($960 USD). This is what I need to make per day if I shoot for 104 days a year, just to break even.

So our BUR figure needs to be more than that right?

Not necessarily! Why? Because we have a range of photography assignments we undertake. We do everything from PR to Advertising so our BUR should suit the job. This is so that:

a) you don’t price yourself out of the market
b) you don’t undercut yourself
c) you can charge according to the value to the client (i.e. usage)

Here’s my example BUR figures:

PR £250 ($500)
Editorial £500 ($1000)
Commercial £1000 ($2000)
Advertising £2500 ($5000)

Remember these figures are your “creative fee” only. They do not include expenses or the hire of equipment , models, catering etc. These should be charged separately on your invoice at cost or a reasonable mark-up. Every job will have different expenses attached but your creative fee should remain fairly constant within that area of operations.

Here’s where this gets tricky. There’s a big difference between the USA and the UK. In the USA usage fees are often charged on top of the creative fees and expenses. In the UK the initial usage fees are normally included in the creative fee. However, the concept of BUR still works for the US.

Okay let’s make up a fictitious assignment and test this out.

A small local design agency has called you and asked for a price to do a shoot for their client. It’s a series of shots in a newly built fitness/health centre. The agency is looking for about 10 shots to be delivered. They estimate it will take half a day (note: never let the client tell you how long it’s going to take!).

So where do we start?

The first thing to rule out is charging on time. Charging for your time is not going to make you rich, and it’s very unlikely even to make you a living wage. Charging for your product is what you are aiming for. If you want to know why charging time is bad business for photographers read this post here.

The first question you should ask the agency is about the usage of the images. Brochure, web, advertisements in the press?

The three key things you need to know are:

1) Where are the images going to be used? List all “media” (where media = each type of placement i.e. brochure, web, press ads would be three media)

2) How long are they going to be used for? You need to know the length of time the images are going to be used for.

3) What territories are the images going to be used? (i.e. state/county, national, international or country, europe, world) etc.

Armed with these three pieces of vital information (you shouldn’t be pricing without knowing these) we can start the formula.

Pricing the example job

Lets look at the roster of BUR charges we set again:

PR £250 ($500)
Editorial £500 ($1000)
Commercial £1000 ($2000)
Advertising £2500 ($5000)

The usage needed is for a brochure, website use and possibly adverts in the press in the future but they are not sure…..

PP note: this is very common. Often clients request copyright or “unlimited use” because they don’t know exactly what they are going to use the images for. Sometimes, if you have produced some great images, once seen the client decides to use them in extended advertising or point of sale, or other media. By licensing your usage, you can charge for each extension of use. But if you granted “unlimited use” at the outset because they said it was “just for a few leaflets” then…….you just lost a load of cash….

So now we know the usage the client needs we pick a BUR creative fee figure to work from. Keep in mind that although the BUR figure is constant (for the purposes of the formula) it can be whatever you like. The BUR is a way of estimating future usage fees. This job is what is known a “below the line” advertising. Its a small local design firm, its a local fitness centre. It’s not a major agency and major client. Its one of those jobs that falls in the middle between regular “commercial” work and true “advertising” work.

So for this example I’m going to set a BUR figure of £1500.

My estimate shows £1500 as the creative fee. This is also noted as the BUR for future usage rates to be based upon. I then add my post-production fees for the 10 master files, a fee for hosting a web gallery, etc etc (this is a whole new tutorial in itself!) plus my expenses.

**Important Bit!**

Under the line item “license to use” (or “licence” if you are in the UK!) we set out what rights are granted. If you need a reminder on what a license looks like:

Download a blank licence to fill in

PP note: as mentioned before – this is where US and UK/Europe seem to divide. There’s no “law of charging” but in my experience US photographers then charge for usage separately from their creative fee, whereas UK/European photographers include the first usage in their creative fee.

Here’s how I would do it.

Licence to use includes: Brochures and web use for 1 year, UK. (Remember its use/time/territories in that order).

Had they only wanted brochures I would have granted: Brochures, 2 years, UK.

Initial Licences: In the UK the AoP (Association of Photographers) recommend granting either one media, one territory for two years – or – two media, one territory for one year

In the US those inital licences would attract further “usage fee” payments. I’m all for usage fees but I do think clients like to see a base usage built into the estimate. Comments from US readers on this would be appreciated.

.Job done…..and that’s all there is to it.

You have set your BUR fee and attached usage conditions to that fee. You have now controlled the usage of your images and charged accordingly. You have rights-managed your images and have the mechanism set up to be able to charge for licence extensions further down the road.

Next time on “How to Price Up assignments”…..

So, we’ve done the fitness centre shoot. It went great. We’ve got ourselves 10 stellar images. Client loves them. They love them so much that six months later they call you and say they want to run the images in fitness magazines in the UK as advertisements. They are also building a fitness centre in Germany and want to use your images in the German brochure and they want to reprint the brochure next year so need a one year extension to the licence.

Q. What are you going to do now? A. Get out your handy re-usage fees table and work out the additional usage fees to charge…..and that will be the subject of the final installment, Part Five.

p.s. if you charge on time or give away unlimited use of your images to clients don’t bother to read part five, it won’t apply to you….. ;)

PP

If you found this article helpful you may also like to read:

• Assignment Photography: How to charge and price up assignments – part five (6)
• Alamy announce a ‘Find a Photographer’ service (1)
• Fight for your right to licence your pixels for a proper fee (2)
• Why photo credit lines aren’t worth the paper they’re written on (6)
• Understanding licensing types: Royalty Free image licences (1)

photo credit: Lili Vieira de Carvalho

In this part of our pricing photography tutorial I am going to start to describe a system for pricing up any assignment you are asked to do based on usage of the images you produce.

In Part One of the tutorial I showed you why making it up as you go along is not a good idea and in Part Two we discussed how you need to know your costs of business to be able to break even before you price to make a profit.

In this section we are going to discuss the pricing strategy. A method that can be applied across all commercial assignment photography sectors.

First PP rule of pricing: there is no rule of pricing

That’s not to say there aren’t methods; like the one I’m going to show you here. But photography is an unregulated business and nearly all practitioners are self-employed and thus there are quite possibly hundreds of ways to price photography assignments.

Over the years my methods changed too. To reflect changing times and copyright legislation. The 1998 Copyright Act in the UK gave us photographers back our copyright. Prior to that the copyright on our images was automatically given to the person paying for the assignment.

So the method I’m going to discuss here is pertinent only to those photographers creating images in countries of the world where copyright is automatically assigned to the creator of the image. For those poor photographers having to hand over their copyright, my commiserations and I hope you charge megabucks for the privilege!

Second PP rule of pricing: you need a constant if you’re going to licence usage

Why?

Well without a constant, a reference point, an agreed baseline, your client is going to think that you’re making it up as you go along. That leads to distrust and that’s the last thing you want. You’re going to be quoting your constant as an agreed creative fee.

Its upon this creative fee that the licences you grant for usage are going to be based.

We’ve already got a constant. But its not the one we quote to the client.

In Part Two we worked out your “need to make per day rate” or NTMPD rate. That was based on 104 shooting days a year. It shows you what you need to make on each of those 104 days to break even.

If you haven’t got this figure yet – go do it now.

That figure is constant. It is a baseline that you apply to the variable (104 shooting days). You shoot more days, you can afford to earn less and break even. You shoot less days, you need to charge more to break even. Except we don’t want to play it like that. Nobody wants to work 365 days a year for $50 a day do they? :) So the constant we got for break even should stay rooted and fixed. If we shoot less then our constant is wrong and should be higher. If we shoot more then we make profit.

But we are going to work out a profitable constant for our markets that makes us profit on our projected 104 days shooting.

Third PP rule of pricing: sectorize your market

PR grin and grab photography is not going to pay as much as above-the line Advertising photography. Editorial is not going to pay as much as a below-the-line gig shooting a brochure for a local manufacturing firm. That’s how it is all over the world in every industry. A Kia car is cheaper than a Lexus etc etc..

So although we have a constant we need different constants for different sectors. It’s OK, this is quite common. In fact, IMHO its the best way to know that you are always pitching your prices so that you remain:

a) profitable; and
b) accountable to your client; and
c) with a system that can be applied not only to the assignment and its usage, but to repeat and additional uses of your images too.

The constant you are going to be working with is called your Base Usage Rate (BUR) and I’ll show you how you apply that in Part Four.

PP

If you found this article helpful you may also like to read:

• How to deal with clients who want your photography for the cheapest possible price (3)
• Assignment Photography: How to charge and price up assignments – part two (4)
• Assignment Photography: How to charge and price up assignments – part one (2)
• Alamy announce a ‘Find a Photographer’ service (1)
• Why photo credit lines aren’t worth the paper they’re written on (6)

photo credit: Lili Vieira de Carvalho

Part One of this mini tutorial showed (by way of a rather spliffy video) the way not to go about pricing up an assignment. Poor old Mark Focus (great name eh?) decided that making it up as he went along was the best policy. And with disastrous results. He ended up pitching so low that he not only lost the job – he lost all the respect of his potential client as well.

So where do we start pricing up an assignment? What is the basis of our calculations?

How much do you need to earn?

Yes indeed this is and should be the base of all your calculations. As every business knows, it cannot spend more than it earns else it shall go bankrupt or insolvent in a very short period of time.

The whole basis of business in a capitalist economy is that you charge more than you spend in order to make a profit.

…and in order to do that first you must know how much you need to earn.

Note (and this is really important): need not want.

How do we calculate your base expenditure so we can see what you need to earn?

Remember when you got your first job. You got paid a salary. You took the job based on that salary and for a while you were happy. Then you looked around for another job because you wanted to earn more money.

Capture that feeling.

Now, as a self-employed photographer, what salary do you want to pay yourself?

Write that figure down in whatever currency you use.

Now add how much you need each year to pay for your

>studio rental
>business & equipment insurance
>advertising & marketing
>rentals
>transport costs (be that car or van or both)
>employees
>investment in new equipment
>other regular expenditure associated with your business

Got that? Good. Write that figure down.

Lets call it: Annual Expenditure

OK, now for the basis of this I’m going to use an example figure. Yours may be way in excess of this or way below it. Different photographers will have different expenses in running their business. I recognise that. But whatever your figure is – the principle remains the same:

You must know what you need to earn just to break even before you can understand how to make a profit

Take your Annual Expenditure figure and divide it by 104.

Why 104?

104 is the average amount of billable days that a commercial photographer can charge for in a given year (of 365 days obviously!).

Lets call the resulting figure our “need to make per day rate” or NTMPD rate

Update: 5th Feb 2008: Many thanks to Bruce Elliott for pointing out a web resource that will do this calculation for you!

Click the link below and fill the table in then input 104 shooting days. This will ensure you don’t miss any expenditure that you pay but forgot about!

https://www.nppa.org/professional_development/business_practices/cdb/cdbcalc.cfm

Example:

My Annual Expenditure rate is £50k GBP ($100k USD)

Divide by 104

My NTMPD rate is £480 GBP ($960 USD)

Still with me?! I hope so. I’ve just shown you how to:

Calculate a figure that will allow you to break even based on a shooting year of 104 days.

But what if you don’t shoot 104 days a year? Then simply replace my 104 with however many days you shoot and bill for. The 104 is the average and in our calculation its also the constant.

But we don’t want to break even do we? We want to make a profit? That’s what companies do right? That’s what part three is going to address.

How to take your NTMPD rate and use it in calculations and negotiations with clients to not only let you break even but make a healthy profit; while (of course) retaining control of your copyright and rights as a creative.

One final thing…..

Your NTMPD rate is not a “day rate”. It is simply a way of arriving at a figure we must be aware of (your client needs know nothing about what you need to make – its nothing to do with them).

We don’t charge day rates. Day rates and charging on time loses you money.

Why?

Bone up on this post until Part Three to see why:

Don’t base your photography rates on time

PP

If you found this article helpful you may also like to read:

• How to deal with clients who want your photography for the cheapest possible price (3)
• Assignment Photography: How to charge and price up assignments – part three (1)
• Assignment Photography: How to charge and price up assignments – part one (2)
• Alamy announce a ‘Find a Photographer’ service (1)
• Why photo credit lines aren’t worth the paper they’re written on (6)