How much do I charge for this????

Good Morning All,
I've been going to a local Kart Track here in Las Vegas and after taking over 2000 pictures, one of the Parents of the Kids wanted to know if I could give him some the pictures of his child on a CD and he'd gladly pay me for them....
My question is this, HOW MUCH should I get for CD's (8 total) with approx. 210 pictures?
I'm looking to possibly do this for other parents if it turns out to be "Worth it", I'm not looking to make TONS of money or anything but I'd like to make it worth my while too.
Has anyone else done something similar to this, and if so what did you do?
Is there a book that gives a "Base Price" in which to start from in this area?

Thanks for the information & Have a Great Day!!!
Roger

That's a tough one, Roger. On the one hand you want to get a fair price and not get suckered. On the other hand, you don't want to give a price and scare away a potential customer. I don't have any numbers for you. But I do have some ideas. The first thing I would do is check out some of the local kids' sports photographers in the area (baseball, peewee football, etc.) and find out how much they sell a CD of photos for. That will get you in the ballpark as far as what the local market will bear.

Do you plan to sort and edit the photos on the CD or just give them everything you shoot? Personally, I would sort and edit and only give them the best. That's quality control on my part and ensures that no crappy photos get associated with my name. But it does take time and time is money. It's your call how you want to handle it.

There's also the ethical question of whether selling a CD of photos is good for the photography business as a whole. Traditionally this kind of work has been print-based. You shoot the photos and the customer buys reprints. That way you hold all the originals and the possibility of return customers. When you sell as CD of images you sell the farm. Again, it's your call. But there are photographers who either wouldn't sell a CD of high-res photos or would put a premium on it because it allows the customer to do whatever they want. For instance, what if you saw one of your photos on a billboard, advertising a big company of some sort. Wouldn't you feel like the customer had taken advantage of you?

I'll leave it at that for now. I've been in the photography game for a while and these are all ongoing questions/issues - especially as digital cameras and technology have made it increasingly easy to shoot and share. People don't necessarily value photography like they used to.

I'm going to move your post to the Photography Business & Law forum. It's really more of a business question than a sports photography question. All the things I've covered apply just as much to a portrait or wedding photographer as they do to a sports photographer :)

What John said. Here's an idea, for what it's worth. This time give/sell him the cd, then get a SmugMug account - they have different tiers of pricing. Once on SmugMug, you can upload your best shots of the event and there are many controls (e.g. image size that shows, watermarking, backprinting) based on the type of account you pay for. People can then order prints from there, and you can set the price above a base price to make a profit. This way, instead of promising a CD and trying to remember which kid you're supposed to find, you can hand them a business card with the URL, they can look at the shots and purchase the photos they want.

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Originally Posted by megan

What John said. Here's an idea, for what it's worth. This time give/sell him the cd, then get a SmugMug account - they have different tiers of pricing. Once on SmugMug, you can upload your best shots of the event and there are many controls (e.g. image size that shows, watermarking, backprinting) based on the type of account you pay for. People can then order prints from there, and you can set the price above a base price to make a profit. This way, instead of promising a CD and trying to remember which kid you're supposed to find, you can hand them a business card with the URL, they can look at the shots and purchase the photos they want.

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The problem I see with this is that few want prints. Can you also get them as digital? - Terry

I sell field sports action prints at $12 for a 4x6. For a sale of 210 - 4x6's, I would give a volume discount and knock the per photo price down to about $5 a shot, or $1050 for a disc(s) with 210 medium resolution photos.

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Originally Posted by KmH

I sell field sports action prints at $12 for a 4x6. For a sale of 210 - 4x6's, I would give a volume discount and knock the per photo price down to about $5 a shot, or $1050 for a disc(s) with 210 medium resolution photos.

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Thanks for sharing, KmH. What's your standard delivery method? Do you do most of your sales via an online fulfillment site?

I'm certainly interested in all of this and was just reading an article in an old Rangefinder on this very issue today. One of the methods that was shared was to limit the resolution on the disc so that they could print to a set size, and that the release that I would imagine would accompany the disc would also dictate how large they could print in order to prevent a degraded 8x10 of your work showing up...or whatever cap you set.

Hey, I kinda like this idea... BUT, how do I "Set the size" when I put them on a disk???
... remember, I'm a COMPLETE NOVICE AT THIS STUFF.

Thanks for your input!!!

Roger

Quote:

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Originally Posted by KmH

I sell field sports action prints at $12 for a 4x6. For a sale of 210 - 4x6's, I would give a volume discount and knock the per photo price down to about $5 a shot, or $1050 for a disc(s) with 210 medium resolution photos.

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That would be alright if you were using a 35mm film camera :D

clarify? does pricing matter between the format?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by KmH

I sell field sports action prints at $12 for a 4x6. For a sale of 210 - 4x6's, I would give a volume discount and knock the per photo price down to about $5 a shot, or $1050 for a disc(s) with 210 medium resolution photos.

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Roger, I'd love to see that person's face when you ask them for over $1000 for the CD. :)

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