Anyone regularly sell photos to local newspapers?

jeremiah212 · Jul 5, 2016

Those that do what do you charge per photo that's published? And do you have a contract you sign for usage and copyrights?

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jeremiah212 · Jul 5, 2016

I have been charging 10$ a photo but one of the papers wants me to sign over all rights to the photo when they purchase them. Is this normal?

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MPPilot · Jul 5, 2016

For all rights you need to charge a hell of a lot more. It all depends on the contract. Normally copyright stays with the person who took the picture. From there you can assign limited or exclusive rights for use. This is probably not the best forum for this discussion. I would recommend checking out PhotoFocus.com or TWIP.com (This week in photography).

GaryDZ · Jul 5, 2016

Isn't that commercial use?

jeremiah212 · Jul 5, 2016

Thank you for the advise I'll check out those other forums.

Yes it's commercial use.. Keep in mind we don't all live in the US..

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Meta4 · Jul 5, 2016

jeremiah212 said:
I have been charging 10$ a photo but one of the papers wants me to sign over all rights to the photo when they purchase them. Is this normal?

It all depends on what your photo is and how much it is in demand.
That perfectly composed shot of the express train going off a bridge is worth a lot and the local prize winning garden might only be worth $10.
It's normal for the paper to want to get sole rights but it's your photo to decide.
If it's a nothing photo that you don't think you could sell again to anyone else, there's no problem giving away the rights.
But if the photo is something special, you'd probably want to keep the rights yourself and just sell the rights to use the photo, not own it.

BigAl07 · Jul 6, 2016

I regularly sell photos to the local news outlets (papers and TV) and it really depends on the image. I have an agreement with one company to send "random" aerials every week and we work out advertising in trade. That's a very good agreement (advertising is expensive) for our company. If they "assign" me a project then I charge a min of $25/pic depending on the complexity of the assignment, how far I have to travel, and how much post processing I have to do. Some pics can run a few hundred dollars per picture. It's all "relative".

Also I rarely give "full rights" to an image although I have but they do pay for those rights. If they aren't willing to pay for them they don't value your work.

jeremiah212 · Jul 6, 2016

Thank you I appreciate the feedback

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kenjancef · Jul 6, 2016

jeremiah212 said:
Thank you for the advise I'll check out those other forums.

Yes it's commercial use.. Keep in mind we don't all live in the US..

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Well without your location in your profile, how are we supposed to know??

Digdat0 · Jul 6, 2016

Curious - how do you advertise your photo's to the paper? Do you Spiderman it and just bum rush the door shaking printed 8x10's around? (this is a serious question despite the humor)