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Should I stop buying the magazine?


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I post pictures (fairly low res with my e-mail addy) for fun on Facebook and sometimes on FB groups.
I posted a couple on the FB page of a magazine which I buy and the owner asked (in the comment section) that i e-mail her the picture for inclusion in the magazine, which is very nice, so I e-mailed her an offer of a licence, she answered that there is no budget, so I don't get to see it in print then.
She also asked someone else the same question about their pictures and I swear they answered with an affirmative in less than a second.

So, should I stop buying the magazine due to my own budget restrictions, or laugh it off as the norm?

Does anyone know just how much content is given for free in magazines?

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A lot of trade magazines are almost entirely "free" content or written by the editor. Many other magazines or local newspapers only use free content or in house material. For example F2, formerly Freelance Photographer now only uses free material (last time i asked) which was not the case before its founders David and Shirley Kilpatrick sold it.

 

It is not unusual to see reworked press releases in the less credible titles and for them to feel as though they are all advertorial.

 

Even the BBC asked me to provide an image for free; I declined. They used an absolutely awful and pointless image ( a stage taken from 100 yards away - it was all backs of heads and not artistic at that) for an article on Nottingham Pride which was actually very colourful and visual..

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I recently posted some photos to an event page on FB. Almost immediately someone asked me to email them privately because they wanted to use one or more of the images in a local publication and website.

So I asked if they usually pay for images. She said they did, but since someone else had already sent them a free one, if money was the issue, they would go with the free photo... so I declined.

 

Nowadays I suspect many, if not most, magazines will choose free images over those that cost them money. Even so, if they use your photo, there's nothing wrong with asking for a few free copies for tearsheets. This used to be standard practice no matter how much a magazine paid for images. Whether you want to continue paying for a publication that doesn't pay for photos is your choice. The idea that everyone gets paid except photographers tends to spoil it for me.

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fotoDogue If they use my picture I'll want a bit more than a tear sheet, but I agree, the fact that only photographers should work for free spoils it for me too.

At least there are some on here who are willing to do without the kudos (is it actually worth anything) rather than give things away.

 

Martin, I had noticed that some magazines have a certain 'cheap' feel about them, not sure I'd realised why until just recently.

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F2, formerly Freelance Photographer now only uses free material (last time i asked) which was not the case before its founders David and Shirley Kilpatrick sold it.

 

He paid a decent amount as well. Enough to make a day in Photokina interesting and even a little extra to go back for a Hasselblad press conference. But those days are over.

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"Amanda Demanda" here.

I always ask the writer/editor if they can afford to work for free.

I always insist on some financial compensation.

Having the fortune/misfortune to have had so many wealthy clients and friends I know where their value lies with things(photos) and with people.

They really don't regard things they get for free as important. They don't regard people that aren't capitalists like they are.

 

So...charge them something and ask for credit and  tearsheets.

 

When they say they can always go with the freebie I point out that if they don't care that their publication has no identity and looks like all the other kids websites that have the free photos,why would an advertiser want to put their money there? Why would someone buy their put if they've already seen the same photos a million times on other publication sites.

 

I find more often than not they will find some money and probably come back to you again in the future because their publication will have a better look because they didn't use the same photos everyone else did.

 

 

L

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I no longer pay for anything - because I have no margins to do so, and I earn a quarter of what I did twenty years ago, so I'm not keeping it all for myself. But with Master Photography magazine this has always been more or less the case, it's an association mag and the members do not expect fees for use of their work, and we do not often ask anyone to do a specific commission. If we do, it's on the lines of, if we can get you a Hasselblad and Broncolor kit for a day, can you find an assignment to test it and look after the man from Hasselblad?

 

For Cameracraft, the little quarterly I'm doing now, we don't pay fees and we don't have advertising - it's a deal between subscribers, editors, and contributors that no-one is getting anything except the magazine. However, if someone lets me use a picture, they get a year of the magazine worth $40 - use an article, they get three years; use a portfolio, they get three years and a binder, and 250-500 copies of their portfolio specially printed as a run on and sent to them - a value more like $500. They also get the very best reproduction you can get from a small short run press and a lot of care and attention paid to how things are used. It's hard going, I'm finishing one now and it is a week overdue. 44 pages of solid no-ad editorial is equal to most 100 page+ photo mags and we don't even use big graphics and type to fill the space the way they do.

 

It would be great to be back in control of a budget, apart from anything else I have always really enjoyed working with many different photographers and writers, especially new ones. I actually offered f2 to Alamy as a contibutor magazine before I parted with it, but it didn't fit in with their approach (mostly, because it was printed - not something they wanted).

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fotoDogue If they use my picture I'll want a bit more than a tear sheet, but I agree, the fact that only photographers should work for free spoils it for me too.

At least there are some on here who are willing to do without the kudos (is it actually worth anything) rather than give things away.

 

Martin, I had noticed that some magazines have a certain 'cheap' feel about them, not sure I'd realised why until just recently.

 

Bad enough to provide an image for free but in this case the photographer didn't even get a photo credit. So much for any illusions that these kinds of publications will give you any "exposure."

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F2, formerly Freelance Photographer now only uses free material (last time i asked) which was not the case before its founders David and Shirley Kilpatrick sold it.

 

He paid a decent amount as well. Enough to make a day in Photokina interesting and even a little extra to go back for a Hasselblad press conference. But those days are over.

 

Yes, I enjoyed writing for David too, With Cameracraft the situation is different and such magazines have often been payment in kind. That said David's offer is a lot more generous than some overtly commercial "art" magazines with much bigger circulations.

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David, I hope you weren't offended by my criticism of 'magazines', as the one I was referring to is an advertising supported one with a cover price as well.
Your titles would attract people who wanted kudos I'm sure, and the Cameracraft deal is very generous.
 

I have had an article published without payment and they accepted it gladly, including some photos to illustrate, however they only made on change to the text (without permission) and made a glaring error on that one line, by assuming my wifes occupation and stating it incorrectly!

I think my real gripe is the fact that they can't bring themselves to offer a single cent for a picture, but will not avoid paying parking fees, cinema entrance money, Starbucks coffee prices etc when I'm probably the only one who has actually asked them for payment from a Facebook request. 

 

BTW: I'm not really bitter, I just thought it might make an interesting discussion here (but I could have done with the money).

Linda, reading your post, do you think I should chance my arm and try again?

 

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David, I hope you weren't offended by my criticism of 'magazines', as the one I was referring to is an advertising supported one with a cover price as well.

Your titles would attract people who wanted kudos I'm sure, and the Cameracraft deal is very generous.

 

David's paying titles were some of the best in the business, but the business changed and it was better to leave it to him to explain why.

If he still ran the commercial titles he'd still be paying, I'm sure.

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Mark - oddly enough it was picture libraries and the arrival of the first Westlight, etc, royalty free CDs which changed the business - early 1990s just as we were getting into swing. EMAP's magazine Practical was the best seller in the UK, and overnight, they stopped using reader pictures or freelance articles to any extent (other than competitions and cross-group contributions from journos on unrelated titles). They started using RF CD images with words written by their staff. Then they made a deal with Tony Stone across the group which effectively reduced the cost of any image to £25 at the most. Eventually, the non-involvement of readers and the rather predictable 'stocky' look of the images worked against them, but when they returned to their senses, the idea that a double page spread was worth £60 had been locked into the accountants' heads.

 

This all had such an influence that it became they way all magazines worked - and then there was a huge explosion of digital mags, diluting the market. These days there must be 100+ staff journalists on mags and key websites in the UK alone. When I started you could get the entire English speaking world photo press into a single bar in Cologne... also, there's a new model for free content, which involves getting readers involved by sending a staff journo to accompany them on a shoot and writing it up (still basically a fee-free exercise). And that's how it has changed, and I imagine that in non-photo mags across all kinds of hobbies and interest fields, exactly the same process has taken place.

 

I do write for the British Journal of Photography as some will know, and its apps. However what I do is like being a freelance member of an editorial team. I'm not paid for pictures and no-one is. You get paid for words only, if they happen to like the pictures and make good use of them, well enough. Most of their content is portfolio/exhibition/student/books/shows related and they don't pay for images for this either but that is universal practice - if you want free pictures, you write up a gallery exhibition or a new book!

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