Anyhoo (yes "anyway" was already taken).

Dan commented on his blog that he'd sold some prints. His other website says he sells his pictures at £10.99 for 10x8 print. He mentions using Photobox printing. Photobox's website shows they charge £1.99 for a single 10x8 print, plus £1.50 for 1st class post and packaging. £10.99 less £1.99 is £9.00. Take away postage that's £7.50.

Seven pounds fifty [short term*] profit on one image? I think I ought to take up selling mine. He also mentions selling rights to images for reproduction elsewhere. Suddenly I'm interested (well, I was anyway, but...). So how much does he charge? Does print come at different from electronic copies? Does he charge a blanket rate? A graduated scale depending on number of copies or pageviews? Is there a minimum charge? Does he give discounts and freebies if he thinks it will increase his kudos (for want of a better word)? Being able to include the City of New York amongst one's customers does have a certain appeal.

Not that I'm asking because I want to buy his pictures (although...), but mostly because I'm curious and completely unaware of the commercial side. Part of me thinks "I could do that", and then the rest of me remembers I'm not that good, and, oh, what's this? Someone on Flickr has just invited me to join a group where, as far as I can tell, the point is to encourage other people to delete their photographs, when not heaping insults and criticism upon them. Like I need any one else to do that. Depressingly the photographs subjected to such treatment all seem to be pretty good. Besides, I'm getting better (at not posting the truly awful). I think I have come to accept the unusual weather features do not necessarily make the best subjects (especially not when the I only notice two thirds of the way through that the exposure compensation is on +2, so the sunset looks distinctly more nuclear than normal).

And have I mentioned Flickr to you? Because it has come to my notice that if I mention a good photograph of mine, and provide a link to it, very few people follow it. Whereas if I provide a small version, with a link to a larger version, then about 5 times as many people follow it. How lazy are you people? Don't you actually read this? Er... don't answer that. But anyway, do you really need big colourful splodges, which preferably say "Click here", before you'll either notice something or click on it?

Anyhoo,

PS. Will they never learn? The link was sent out to a group in an effort to cheer up someone who was complaining about most things American and: imagine Milton Keynes in the middle of a sauna during a golfing convention and this is Augusta.

I'm not sure how the article was supposed to cheer up her (worse things happen in Texas?), but it made a change from the unable-to-be-repeated-in-public jokes.

*Because I'm overlooking the costs of equipment, time, archiving, website creation and hosting, tax, insurance and God knows what else. Although camera equipment and time spent taking photographs can be written off under hobby/preserving sanity. His website is a glorified CV holder and sampler of his computing skills, so has benefits in terms of his future career (and, Dan, you might want to stick an apostrophe in "peoples" - it's on the first line of ~/photography/usage/). I'm not sure quite what tax applies, so I'll just ignore it (nice healthy attitude to have). And insurance is usually a good thing to have anyway. [Up]