A few questions about selling prints to cafes/restaurants. Any tips?

[kearneycation]

Hi all! I work in a bar/restaurant that does live music 3-4 nights a week. The stage area is completely undecorated so I showed my boss some of my live digital concert photography and he loved it. He's planning on putting my photos up and wanted to know what I wanted to charge. Because this business is still building itself and my brother has money in the place, I told him I would donate the photos and he just had to pay the cost. As far as this is concerned, I have a few questions that I'm hoping people can help me with:

1. What's the best way, without compromising the aesthetics of the images themselves, of getting my name and contact information on or next to the images?

2. I often see prints with a pencilled in number (1/10, 7/20). I'm assuming this is referring to a limited number of prints. I would like to limit my number of prints in a similar way. Does a photo need to be accompanied by some sort of signed document in order to legally acknowledge that the prints are limited? This might be an odd question, but what writing tool should I use to number/sign the prints? Pen, pencil, marker? Finally, if I do a limited print, should all those prints be done at the same time from the same place?

3. After seeing my boss' response to my photos I've decided that I should try to get my work in other restaurants, bars or cafes. What's the best way to go about this? Should I try to sell a batch of images to them, or just offer to display them in order to sell to customers? What kind of cut would they get?

4. Finally, what are my best options for framing. Should the images and frames all be consistent, as in the same styles and sizes?

Thanks for reading all of this. It ended up being a longer post than I had anticipated. =P If anyone has any experience with this type of thing I would love to hear any tips or recommendations you might have. Also, please feel free to check out my flickr photostream:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lkearney/

- Liam

[tirediron]

1. You can either tuck a business card in the corner under the glass, incorporate it directly into the mat, or, ask for permission to put up a bio "Picture" which as your name, photo and contact info.

2. If you're doing a limited run, then yes, all at once, all at the same time. I'm not 100% sure of the legal fine-print, but generally, a label on the back of the image with the details of the limited run will suffice. I wouldn't worry about this however.

3. For other establishments, I would take in a portfolio of your best work, explain who you are, what you want to do, and see how it goes.

4. Framing should really be up to the owner/manager and should compliment the decor of the establishment.

[fante]

To answer #1: here in Norway, it's common to have some sort of notice on the wall introducing the artist or a note somewhere in the menu along with a smaller picture.

[JoeMezz]

Hi all! I work in a bar/restaurant that does live music 3-4 nights a week. The stage area is completely undecorated so I showed my boss some of my live digital concert photography and he loved it. He's planning on putting my photos up and wanted to know what I wanted to charge. Because this business is still building itself and my brother has money in the place, I told him I would donate the photos and he just had to pay the cost. As far as this is concerned, I have a few questions that I'm hoping people can help me with:

1. What's the best way, without compromising the aesthetics of the images themselves, of getting my name and contact information on or next to the images?

2. I often see prints with a pencilled in number (1/10, 7/20). I'm assuming this is referring to a limited number of prints. I would like to limit my number of prints in a similar way. Does a photo need to be accompanied by some sort of signed document in order to legally acknowledge that the prints are limited? This might be an odd question, but what writing tool should I use to number/sign the prints? Pen, pencil, marker? Finally, if I do a limited print, should all those prints be done at the same time from the same place?

3. After seeing my boss' response to my photos I've decided that I should try to get my work in other restaurants, bars or cafes. What's the best way to go about this? Should I try to sell a batch of images to them, or just offer to display them in order to sell to customers? What kind of cut would they get?

4. Finally, what are my best options for framing. Should the images and frames all be consistent, as in the same styles and sizes?

Thanks for reading all of this. It ended up being a longer post than I had anticipated. =P If anyone has any experience with this type of thing I would love to hear any tips or recommendations you might have. Also, please feel free to check out my flickr photostream:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lkearney/

- Liam


I would add your name and URL or whatever under the photo as PART OF THE PRINT. Like this

http://themezz.com/bucket/utica.htm

Then get it printed and mounted om foamcore and frame it.

I'd also put a sticker in the bad middle of the photo.

Maybe you need to concern yourself with model releases too ... not an expert with that .. but something to look into indeed.

[mindforge]

If you are putting it up in a bar try to create an ability to instantly contact you also. A great thing to do is create a mobile friendly website and make sure that viewers know they can buy prints from you.

Also, if you want work something out to sell prints right through the bar or even put a price tag on the photos themselves so someone could buy it right there and walk out with it. Donate the pictures but sell them at the same time. When one sells add another this way it creates a feeling to regulars that if they like one of the pictures they should buy it because someone else might.

I would put contact info on every picture.