I have been offered the cover of a Wisconsin publication called the Wisconsin Blue Book. It's a publication of the state government of almost 1000 pages that outlines "everything you could ever want to know about the state of Wisconsin government, but were afraid to ask." Its print run is about 65,000 and it's sent to every school and library in the state. From my days working in elementary schools, I recall that it is used as an important reference for the local government and history sections of school curricula, and there's probably one on the shelf of every state and county agency, and many government contractors and employees. It ain't LIFE magazine, but it's a pretty nice gig for a nobody!
The publisher came across some of my shots of the capitol skyline and moon/sun:
And has all but made his decision that he wants to use one of them on the cover (6x9 inches, portrait format). He wants me to call him tomorrow to discuss terms. I have no idea what their budget is, but keep in mind this is a state with an annual budget of ~29 billion dollars.
So fellow DPCers with experience in the biz, what's a good bargaining point? My only experience in selling a shot license was one of my Chicago shots a few years ago, a printer bought the rights to one of my shots for $500 to use as a promo of what their large format printers could do. I was elated, of course.
Somebody has previously posted a link to some kind of standard stock price calculator, but I don't recall the specific thread, and for some reason I've never bookmarked it.
You could also go to a stock agency (Alamy, Corbis, Getty) and put in the printing specs you listed (as if you're the customer) and see what kind of pricing you get. I can see the license fee for something like this being between about $250-1000. You could also ask what they paid last year ...
If they try and get you to lower the price too far, maybe you can get them to throw in a letter of appreciation/recommendation signed by the Governor ... ;-)
Thanks all. I did find a few stock calculators online and the average price for a cover in this size run approaches $1,000, so that gives me some idea of a starting point.
Turns out, since it's a state government pub, they can't pay for the photography, but I get the nice publicity in the publisher's note in the front, and it's a run of about 75,000, I'm now told.
That's a little more than a "publisher's note" in the front -- an endorsement or testamonial is more like it. Congratulations!
BTW: There are now some sites which can help plot the position of the rising/setting sun/moon on the horizon from a specified location, eliminating some of the "trial and error" component you went through ... ;-)
Hey I know this John Rummel Dude. He is a pretty good photographer. But he is also a Bears Fan. So this publication will probably be the highlight of his year.
Congrats again John! Hope there are more opp's like this for you in the future.
