5 Resources To Help You Plan Your Successful 2013


At the end/beginning of every year I make plans for the coming year. Doing this consistently has helped me be more personally fulfilled and professionally productive.
Here are five resources that will help you do this too.
1 Make A Bucket List
Identify the actions that are most important to you.
2 Make Plans
Increase your productivity and fulfillment by making a plan.
3 Define A Project
Focus your creative efforts and create an action list to achieve your goals.
4 Developing Personal Projects
Tips on developing, completing, and releasing your personal projects.
 5 Keep Current Projects Visible
Create visual touchstones to help you focus and follow through on projects.
6 Getting Things Done
David Allen wrote the definitive resource on Getting Things Done.
Pay close attention to the section on Mission/Goals/Projects/Actions.
Learn more with my free enews Insights.

PhotoShelter's Guide To Selling Fine Art Photography


There is no definitive guide to selling fine art but this one offers useful advice from diverse perspectives.
“Packed with actionable tips, Selling Fine Art Photography delivers rare insights into what it takes to sell photography in galleries and online. Experts weigh the pros and cons of online versus offline galleries and suggest how to get noticed by each, how to use in-person events and social media to your marketing advantage, and different ways to maximize your website to generate business. This guide provides an in-depth look at how several photographers found their way into the fine art world and determined what can sell, how to price and market their work, and what printing methods serve them best.”
Find Photoshelter’s free guide Selling Find Art Photography here

Save 15% On FotoQuote Pro – Stock/Assignment Photo Pricing Guide


Looking for information on how to price licensing and assignment work?
PhotoQuote Pro is the software I use.
Get 10-15% off with this code (upgrades excluded) – JPC0111.
Stock and Assignment Photo Price Guide
“When someone wants to use one of your photos, you don’t need a number pulled out of a hat, you need help to get paid fairly for your work. You need fotoQuote, the industry standard photo pricing guide for stock and assignment photography.
The fotoQuote photo pricing guide is the only source of photo pricing information for photographers that includes powerful coaching help for every category. The fotoQuote price guide not only helps you come up with a fair price for your image license, but it also gives you the negotiation information you need to help you close the sale.”
FotoQuote Pro 6 New Features
New Markets
Over 86 new categories, including 35 video stock footage categories
New Stock Photography Pricing Categories
86 new photo pricing categories, bringing the total to 304
Updated Stock and Assignment Photography Prices
New Coach Information
38 Assignment Coach topics, including tips on breaking into the video market
Redesigned Interface Enhancements
Streamlined interface makes this the easiest to use fotoQuote ever
Quote Packs
Easy Quote Creation with Thumbnails & License by Image
New International Features
New Stock Photo Pricing Coach Information

Everything you need for pricing and negotiating is at your fingertips
Pricing Assignment Photography
With the new and updated Coach categories the Assignment Coach is so full of information that it’s like having a photo pricing seminar built into the program. You also get negotiating suggestions on how to deal with clients …”
Learn more about PhotoQuote here.
Find more business resources here.
Learn more in my Digital Printing and Digital Photography workshops.

Set Your Mission, Goals, Projects, Actions


I don’t make new year’s resolutions. I make those kinds of commitments at any time of year, whenever it becomes clear they’re useful. But I do review my plans at the beginning of every year because plans can change. The point of a plan is to empower you not to lock you in. I review my mission, goals, projects, and actions lists. The first time was the hardest because I had to create them from scratch; now all I have to do is update them. Doing this helps me clarify where I want to go, make sure I’m on my path, taking the steps I need to make get there.

Whether you’re engaged in your creative life professionally or simply as a vehicle for personal growth (That’s an important distinction to make.), I recommend you make a plan for your success and that you define what success is for yourself.

Write down your …

Mission – why you’re doing it

Goals – what outcomes you want from what you made

Projects – the things you make that accomplish your goals

Actions – the small steps you take to get your projects done

Think of this as a matter of close or from what altitude you’re looking at your creative life.
What you write will get more detailed or longer as you get lower on this hierarchy.

At 10,000 feet, your mission can be stated in a single sentence.
At 3,000 feet, you might see many goals, each with a single sentence.
At 1,000 feet, you may see more than one project for a single goal.
On the runway, you’ll have a list of many actions you need to take to finish a single project.

Here are a few tips to make doing this important work easier.

Avoid the tendency to put too much on your final list. It’s good to get it all out in a first draft, but then pare it down to the essentials. What can’t you let go of? What’s the minimum you need to feel fulfilled? Making these decisions doesn’t limit you to doing more (including surprises as you make your creative journey), rather they provide clarity and direction to make sure you get your most important things done.

Think long term – 1 year, 2 year, 3 year, and end of life. When you know your ultimate goal it’s easier to reverse engineer your way to get to the successes you defined for yourself rather than just letting it happen and hoping you’ll be satisfied with what you get.

Break important projects down into smaller actionable items and place them in chronological order so you know what to do next and don’t run into delays in your progress.

Review your plans every year and also when major changes happen. I review my past year’s progress before I set a new year’s projects and action lists. Over time, I’ve found I’ve become more realistic about how much to take on and how long it will take to get things done. (But don’t be afraid to dream big! Blue sky thinking is important for connecting with your deepest values.) I always find a few things on my list that have been postponed (and I ask why) and a few get dropped altogether – because I decided to prioritize even better opportunities along the way. I also find that things get added to my past year’s list that weren’t on it at the beginning of that year. It’s important to be open to new opportunities along the way. For that reason, I recommend you review your lists periodically, especially when new major projects are considered. You’ll find this process gets easier every time you do it. The first time you do it is always the hardest; it requires a lot of soul-searching and some setting up; once you find your answers and you set up your system it’s much easier to do the next time. A plan is a work in progress. The best plans can be flexible.

Making a plan for your creative life makes it easier to decide when to say yes or no to new opportunities. Does the new thing help you achieve your longer-term goals? If yes, do it. If no, pass.

The plans you make are there to further your progress. But if you don’t make plans, life just happens and you may not make the time for the things that matter to you most. Make that time.

 

David Allen does an excellent job of describing this process in his books Getting Things Done and Making It All Work. I highly recommend them. They changed the way I live my life. And they’ve helped me be even more effective and fulfilled. But don’t wait to read his books to get started! Just get started!

PhotoQuote Pro – Stock / Assignment Photo Price Guide


Looking for information on how to price licensing and assignment work?
PhotoQuote Pro is the software I use.
“When someone wants to use one of your photos, you don’t need a number pulled out of a hat, you need help to get paid fairly for your work. You need fotoQuote, the industry standard photo pricing guide for stock and assignment photography.
FotoQuote is the only source of photo pricing information for photographers that includes powerful coaching help for every category. FotoQuote not only helps you come up with a fair price for your image license, but it also gives you the negotiation information you need to help you close the sale.
FotoQuote Pro 6 has just been released and it’s our biggest upgrade in the almost twenty years since the original version of our photo pricing calculator was written. We’ve added 86 new categories bringing the total to 304. The new version now includes both still and video stock footage categories, assignment pricing, thumbnails, international currency and much more.”
Learn more about PhotoQuote here.
Find more business resources here.
Learn more in my Digital Printing and Pro Portfolio workshops.

Publish Your Photography Book


Industry insiders Darius D. Himes and Mary Virginia Swanson demystify the process of producing and publishing a book of photographs. They survey the current landscape of photography book publishing and point out the many avenues to pursue and pitfalls to avoid. Himes and Swanson provide an overview of the publishing industry; an intimate look at the process of making a book; a close review of how to market a photo book; a section on case studies, built around discussions and interviews with published photographers; and a final section presenting a wealth of resources and information to aid in the understanding of the publishing world.
Their forthcoming title Publish Your Photography Book also includes a number of additional interviews and contributions from industry professionals, including artists, publishers, designers, packagers, editors, and other industry experts who openly share their publishing experiences.
Read more with my Bookmaking resources.
Learn more in my Pro Portfolio and digital printing workshops.
Read More

Gallery Contract


Sign a contract with anyone who exhibits your artwork.
Putting verbal agreements in writing produces something tangible that all parties can refer to if memory fails – and it will. You and your representatives need a contract to work professionally together. If someone is unwilling to put something in writing, they’re not likely to honor it. Contracts are not about taking people to court; when they work best they keep you out of court.
Below is the contract my lawyer wrote for me. He’s graciously agreed to let me share it with you.
Change this basic contract to reflect the specific nature of your agreement with the agents or agencies who represent your work.
Don’t change clause 2. This key clause changes the nature of the consignment agreement. If the entity (individual or business) doesn’t reimburse you for sales or return your work you’ll be able to involve local law enforcement agents more easily. I’ve only had to do this once. So far, I’ve always been paid for sales of my work and I’ve always had my artwork returned. Many artist’s can’t say the same.
Do include a termination clause. Contracts should be revisited periodically – I recommend annually – to confirm that the nature of a relationship has remained the same. If it has evolved, change the contract to reflect that evolution.
Find more business resources for artists here.
Read more to see the contract I use … Read More