Album cover fee?

Could anyone give me an idea on the following.

 

To increase my portfolio and try to gain in-roads into the music biz world, I took a portrait of a rising

musician, just before he performed in the UK. The deal with his agent was that they could use (without

charge) the image for promo but not CD/album covers. Without this concession they would not have

agreed for him to sit for me, and I would not have his 'name' on my website.

 

I have now worked on the image and composited it into a mock-up CD cover with his name etc, as I

now realise that he has a new album out in three months...

 

They seem interested in using the image (but not my design) for the CD, and want a price from me. Any

thoughts how much I could charge for this, considering I did the original image for free, and they can

use the same image with there own artwork for posters etc (but not the CD).

 

This is new terratory for me, as normally I would just charge a flat portrait fee, and have not provided

anyone images for album covers before. I also want to consider future 'return' business from this record

label and the ability to show on my website an 'album cover'. Swings and roundabouts, but any ideas on

a fee?

 

Thanks so much

 

David

You need to find out how many copies they are going to manufacture. That will give you some idea of what level they are at and where to aim for a license fee. You will also need to know this in order to license the photo to them for use in the CD up to XX units. That way if they're only manufacturing say 5,000 copies and are on a budget you can maybe keep within their budget, but won't lose out if it' a hit and they need to manufacture more... they can license further use for a further fee and you get your fair slice.

.... also be fairly sure that you'll be knocked down a bit with regards to the fee you suggest, so aim slightly higher than you think.