Reminds me of our church's yearly directory where a certain commercial studio that does this sort of work comes every year and takes photos of parishioners, all by appointment on set days. They make money off the package they try to sell you. If you don't want to purchase anything, you still get a 8 x 10 color portrait for free. Does the church get any kickback? heaven forbid (no pun intended)
dmacmillan wrote:
A little? Try 40-50% of gross! That's what the big boys offer. No, it's actually much worse than it sounds.
It's been over 20 years since I was in the photography business, but we did have two large schools (one public, one private) under contract. There was no kickback to the private school, although we did a ton of free photography for them. We photographed all the teachers, clubs and sports teams. Back then, the practice was to shoot these in B&W for the yearbook only. I took color film and shot Memory Mates for all the teams. I did quite well with added sales. Also, the students knew me and were quite comfortable with me when we did their Senior photos. I knew almost all of them by name.
The public school expected a kickback and camera equipment to subsidize the printing of the yearbook. I lost the contract when a big company came in and offered the school 50% of their Senior gross. I just couldn't compete. The students ended up having to pay more for their prints and got crappy work taken by some minimum wage "photographer".
I think if local photographers were smart, they'd team up to drive out the chains. They'd get parents fired up by using an information campaign. I've heard of local photographers divying up the freebie photography at the local schools so the yearbook got the club photos etc. that they need. If done right, everybody wins.
Oh, one last note. May Lifetouch rot in hell....Show more →
dmacmillan,
I'm sorry you lost your contract with the school. My question is did you try to get it back? I have seen school boards and sports groups make the same mistake (dump a local for bigger bucks) only to find the kickback/ royalty/ commission/ not worth the complaints from parents. We had a baseball T&I contract in 2008, lost it in 2009, but have already been contacted about 2010, with the word "help" in the body of the email.
Being local has many advantages that need to marketed along with the quality of your images, pricing, etc. You are in a much better position to support the school in other areas.
What I meant by "not as bad as it sounds" is parents are not required to buy anything from the school's vendor. The only requirement is his image appears in the yearbook class section.
I've had a few yearbook advisors contact me, about being their school's "exclusive" photographer. They want $$ up front from me, I offer percentage of sales instead ... their main reason for wanting one photographer/studio is consistancy in the yearbook images. They require me to shoot every senior for free (for their yearbook image), and I hope that a percentage of them will also have me do their senior pictures, as those are different than the yearbook image
to date, I've been outbid by others for the school contracts, because I don't have the cash up front to pay a few grand for the privelage.
TTLKurtis wrote:
How profitable is this market, anyways? Seems like an awful lot of hoops to jump through, and I don't like being anybody's puppet..
It's alot of money if you have:
-Exclusive team and individuals plus action
-All seniors
-Graduation
-Dances
-All school activities
I am very fortunate in that I don't jump through hoops or pay any of these "upfront costs" and "kickbacks" some are talking about.
If a school board hands you a photo contract that has the potential to generate well into 6 figures...if you work hard and work smart...then you do whatever it takes to keep everybody happy. That's business.
There's a fine line between being "anybody's puppet" and being umemployed.
