Quote Originally Posted by 777heavy
What was the most any of your photos have been sold for to the papers?
Unless your shooting for a very large paper you won't get a whole lot, and if you shoot an event and nothing is used you won't get anything. I really don't like going into the payment amounts but here is the way a couple of ideas:

Paper #1: pays $19 per shot run.... no mileage
Paper #2: pays $25 an event + mileage from the "office" to the event location.

Now if paper #1 runs two shots thats $38, while paper #2 pays the $25 whether they run one shot or 10, but they pay mileage which, even if it's .26 cents helps offset the driving costs.
Now what I do is track each jobs mileage. Lets say it is 50 miles from my home and 45 from the office. I get paid for 45 miles at .26 cents mile... I loose out 10 miles on the round trip, but the govt. allows .44 cents a mile, so I take the difference from what the paper pays and the govt. allows and use the difference on my taxes as well as the unpaid miles and then I get to deduct that difference. It all works out in the end mileage wise no matter which paper I shoot for.

This dosen't seem to be like much, until you start doing it, and hopefully then, as you get known you can get more work either from the one you shoot for the most or by a competitor.
Basically get your foot in the door, within a year you will be known in the community, which can lead to bigger and better things.

One thing, don't sell photos or post them on websites without first getting the OK from the editor at that paper. This can lead to copyright issues. With one paper I can do what I want with any photo they did NOT run, the other doesn't care at all either way. Again, each paper is different.

JS