Re: [APML] Payment for astrophotos

[Jerry Lodriguss <jml@astropix.com>]

Hi Michael,

You are right about Sky and Telescope being great to work with. They are 
all consummate professionals there. S&T has also established space rates 
for use of the photos (except in the Gallery which as a different pay scale).

I have been having a different experience with my agency selling stock for 
me though.

A couple of years ago, they sold quite a bit, and my income from this was 
split about 50/50 with my own sales from my web page.

This last year, sales from the agency are down to less than 25 percent of 
what they were a couple of years ago and my web page sales are up more than 
200 percent.

Perhaps buyers are coming directly to my web page and bypassing the agency. 
In any event, it's better for me because I keep 100 percent of the profits 
instead of 50 percent.

It's not that much trouble dealing with the people who want freebies, just 
an email or two, and when you quote them a price, they go away.

Jerry


At 11:28 AM 11/1/2002 -0800, you wrote:
>Hello Chris:
>
>I have had similar experiences in the past.  There are a lot of people out
>there (predominantly authors and publishers of books) who are cheap skates.
>As an example I was once approached by a new non-astro English magazine with
>"limited funds" who wanted to use one of my images gratis.  I said OK, if
>they would merely send me a copy of the magazine when it was published.
>Evidently that postage was more than they wanted to spend and they did not
>use the image (I hope).  Probably the only honorable astro magazine willing
>to pay a reasonable fee now is SKY AND TELESCOPE.  Other non-astro
>publishers like the SMITHSONIAN and to a lesser extent Time-Life are also a
>pleasure to deal with.  Some of those who frequently sell their images use
>an agent that takes a commission.  This makes things far less frustrating
>and you are "insulated" from all those rude people who want something for
>nothing.
>
>
>Michael Stecker
>mstecker@dslextreme.com
>
>My Web Site:
>http://www.homestead.com/mstecker/index.html (INDEX)
>http://www.homestead.com/mstecker/astrogallery.html (Astroimage Index)
>http://www.homestead.com/mstecker/placesindex.html (Places Index)
>
>
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Chris & Jennifer Cook" <ccjd@ix.netcom.com>
>To: <astro-photo@seds.org>
>Sent: Friday, November 01, 2002 11:32 AM
>Subject: [APML] Payment for astrophotos
>
>
> > This topic has been discussed here before but I just thought I'd share
>some
> > recent experiences.
> > Two different people have emailed me over the past two months wanting to
>use
> > some of my images in a text book and regular book.  One being on the
>cover.
> > I emailed both of these people back with a price and never heard from them
> > again.  Both were very interested and indicated they really wanted to use
> > the image, specified in their original email, but once I gave them a
>price,
> > which was in the hundreds of dollars range, they vanished.  Not even a
> > "that's too much, can you accept this" reply.  Nothing.  I based my price
>on
> > the following licensing calculator:
> > http://photographersindex.com/price-ed-calc.htm  I even came in on the low
> > side.
> >
> > I refuse to give my images away for free.  My guess is that's what they
>were
> > expecting......  Too much time and effort goes into them.
> >
> > Chris
> >
> >
> > ==================
> > Chris Cook
> > Astronomical Photography
> > www.abmedia.com/astro
> >
> >
> >
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Astronomical photography: http://www.astropix.com




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