What to charge - magazines, backdrops, etc

[JamesBlonde]

Argh.  I'm in the UK.  I've had a couple of unsolicited requests recently via Flickr to use a couple of my photos.  One is for a magazine (10000 bi-annual circulation) and another from a local hotel to use an image as a large backdrop. 

They're asking for my terms, and I just don't know what to say to them. I have no idea what the going rate for this sort of thing is, I've no idea if these are the sorts of places that would even pay whatever the going rate is!  In fact I suspect I've lost the hotel request as I kept talking about licensing terms but never talked about cost.

I suspect it would be crazy for me to ask them what they'd pay, surely I'd need an idea myself what I should be charging - but I don't!  Would it be crazy to ask???

Pricing prints is easy - find someone who's work is of a similar standard, steal their price list!     This isn't so easy.

Any advice here???

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

You could ask them what they’d pay, just not in those words. Ask instead “what’s your budget?” When I was approached by a UK magazine, they told me that upfront themselves.

Rates I was getting from American magazines were between $150 and $250 (double spread) per picture. Cover (for the UK magazine) was 2-3 times that.

[elliot_n]

Yes, the magazine will have rates, related to how large the image will be reproduced (1/8, 1/4, 1/2, full page, double page spread, or cover). So ask them, 'How large do you want to use the image and what are your rates?' You don't have to accept what they offer. If you have something very special that they can't get anywhere else then you can ask for more. 

For the hotel, you'll have to come up with a price. As a guide, plug the hotel's requirements into a couple of stock photography websites and average the results — try www.alamy.com and www.gettyimages.co.uk

[JamesBlonde]

Awesome, thanks both  

I've dabbled in a really ill prepared and non-committal way (how not to say half arsed) with selling to date, both in terms of prints, but especially with other media.  Really really need to get off the fence with this selling my photography (or even print services) thing, commit and make the effort!  I've got an enormous Epson printer sitting in my cupboard not printing anywhere near what it should be and a ton of images that would make awesome prints or stock or something!  but everything is an excuse for me I think... argh.