Sparta Calendars

I have to say I was shocked when I received an email about showcasing one of my photographs in there 2009 "Four Seasons" Calendar. Misty Morning
Well as you know I have never sold my artwork in such a capacity so I had no idea how much to charge, or anything about the copyrights involved.

So I set about to do a bit of research and came across a few sites that were very helpful and useful so I thought I would pass them on to you guys.

Bergman Graphics is where I started.
Bergman lists several sites on how to set a price for your work. And here they are

Cradoc Corporation
www.fotoquote.com
PO Box 1310
Point Roberts, WA 98281
800-679-0202

Now I went to this site and it is a program you pay for you punch in the information and it will give you a price to ask for based upon your answers. Such as, commercial or private sale. Or magazine or brochure, size of picture, length of rights, world or national. Well you get the idea.

Now Photographers index is similar to the fotoquote site but it is free and it is a great place to start.

Seth Resnick offers free stock photography pricing tables.

Editorial Estimator is a bit more complex and has a lot more options. It does appear to be free however and we all know how much I like free. :)

Now you will notice there is nothing in there about calendars and most of the price vary quite a bit from each different source.

Here are some of the prices I came up with. I used Brochure/catalog, full page color, and less than 10000.

Photographers Index
Type of Use:: Advertising
Specific Use:: Brochures / Catalogs
Press Run:: 10,000 or less
Size:: Full page or Major Illustration
Low Price:: $400.00
Average Price:: $600.00
High Price:: $800.00
Survey = 168

I also ran across an article mostly written for writers but has a small piece in there about photographs sold to calendar companies.
SELLING TO THE GREETING CARD AND CALENDAR MARKETS

" Compared to greeting cards, magazines or some of the other specialty markets for photographs the calendar market isn't as big as you might think. The reason? Calendars are very seasonal and they only have one to 13 images each. So even a company that publishes 50 calendars will only need a max of 650 images.

Reality Check:
The competition is fierce because getting your photos published on a calendar is VERY GOOD for the portfolio as well as the ego. There is nothing more satisfying than seeing your photo(s) on a nice big high quality calendar.

Pay Rates:
The fees range from poor to great $50 to $1200 per photo. Some calender companies want an outright purchase of the image and transfer of copyright, while others just want exclusive rights for the year of publication.

If you have been in any of the "all calendar" specialty stores that open up in November/December ... you know that there are calendars on virtually every hobby, and interest you can think of ... cars, locomotives, cats, dogs, flowers. The biggest sellers are scenic's that show the changing seasons. If you have a photo niche, the calendar

market may be interested!

Weeding out the competition. Most calendar companies want to see medium to large format transparencies. If you are shooting digitally you should know what RAW is, and what to do with it ... because the calendar companies want the final image submissions in very high resolution files.

Did you just weed yourself out of the market because of what I just said? All is not lost, because there are some back door markets that still use 35mm transparencies. This could be your entry into the calendar market by paying for your new equipment!!"

I am basically going to let the Calendar company make the first offer. I just basically said I was new to this and had no idea how to proceed and ask them if they have a set of guidelines or a standard "offer", I figure that way we both know what the expectations are and can start negotiations from there.



PhotoSecrets This is also a great resource and it is free.

I'll keep you up to date as I learn more on this.