Looking for help from anyone. For the first time a company has offered to buy a picture of mine. I usually give away pictures to non-profits or individuals, but since this is a law firm that wants it on their website's landing page, I'm hestitant to just give it away.
I'm more concerned with the legality of it all than the price I can sell it at. Sure I can write up a contract and do $100-$200 for a year of use. But, do I need to make an invoice for that? Do I just do paypal?
I'm also on the states on a work visa, so not sure if this is income I will have to pay taxes on or how would that work.
If anyone can share their experiences with selling their own work to a company that would be helpful. Just looking to understand if one-off situations like this are typically handled with a casual contract and paypal exchange or something more formal.
Hey @thrice, I've sold a few photos and services to large companies as of now, and what I can tell you is that an invoice, although seeming unnecessary, is a lot easier for the company to work with it. A normal person, sure just tell them, but I'd be safe and find an invoice template to fill out and send to them. As well with this you can choose whether you'd like your payment via check or PayPal.
About taxes, since I assume that photography is a side hobby and not a full time career, you'd be having to make over something like $10,000 a year on photos alone to file taxes. Again just my assumption, don't take it as %100, if needed I'd research that a bit more thoroughly.
As of my personal experience, it does take a bit of effort to get them to pay, so sending an updated invoice every month is key. Lastly, if you are sending over the photo file, try and send it with the first invoice. Although this might be a tad unnerving to hand over work unpaid, it allows for the client to send out your payment faster and without suspicion that you will take the money and go (with one on one clients, best get the money first, just in case .)
^ Much appreciated info good sir. This all seems even more daunting since 1) The interested party is actually a law firm 2) I am a foreigner in the U.S. working a Finance Consulting job on a temporary visa and 3) This would be my first time asking for money in exchange of my work (so far it's only been free products and the like).
I'll definitely look into creating an invoice for them. From what I'd heard, it would be fair to charge somewhere in the area of $200 for a digital file, in a single payment, for commercial use during 12 months.
I keep putting off charging for one reason or another even though I've had quite a few request, but I realize I got to start doing it sooner rather than later. If not for anything else, just to know how the process works. After all, we all wonder what if we could do this for a living.
If you must ask about the name, I used to be a volunteer fire fighter which in Spanish is a "Bombero" and people would call me Bomber (I also had a Marzocchi 66RCx) as a nickname. A friend from IMBA in Manchester knows I like bears and recommended the name Bombear after I told him I needed a brand for some of the more professional work I was doing for IMBA and other organizations.