Best Advice for New Freelancers

The other day an old friend stopped by to talk about his new direction in photography. Which is to say, he's no longer a staff photographer (not his choice) and has now joined in the great fraternity of the permanently unemployed.  That is, he's becoming a freelancer.

Of all the advice I gave (some sage and some useless, probably) I forgot to give him the very best advice of all.  Advice that every new freelancer should get.

Buy a copy of FotoQuote.

I don't know what Kathy and I would have done without this essential software.  If you haven't already heard of it then let me introduce you.  This nifty software does one powerful thing:  it tells you how much your photo is worth out on the open market.  Got somebody on the phone who wants to use your wonderful image a quarter page, in a brochure run of 80,000, English language only for two years?  FotoQuote will tell you what to charge. (Actually it will give you a range of prices to consider, and even give you negotiating advice for when you call back with your quote.)

The new version just out adds a whole host of new usage categories that keep the product up to date with changing photo usage patterns and prices, including web usage.

It's the brainchild of Cradoc Bagshaw who brought it out in 1993.  Before that he brought his genius to us poor photographers with the original Cradoc Caption Writer, about the first way to print labels for slides, back in the day.  So if you want to keep on the good side of anybody who's anybody in the professional photo world you'll BUY Cradoc's software instead of pirating a copy.  (Don't jack around with Cradoc.  He's saved our bacon time and time again.)

Go here for all the goodies: cradocfotosoftware.com

Cradoc, you don't know me, but thanks.