KELSEY ALPAIO: OK.
Let's talk about money.
Let's talk money.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
LINDSEY REDD: If you're in one of the coastal locations--
out of college, if you are not making $100,000 at least,
you're probably being underpaid or could at least
find a company that would pay you more.
I'm not sure what that looks like.
If you're finding a job in Atlanta, for example,
it might look very different down there,
and I'm not familiar.
What else I'll say, talk to your friends.
I think people don't talk about how much they make enough,
which I think lends to a lot of pay inequity in the industry.
It's what needs to happen in order
to like hold these companies that a lot of times
don't want to pay you fairly accountable.
KELSEY ALPAIO: How should you go about valuing your work,
especially when you're just getting started,
and what have you found helpful for you,
as you've grown throughout your career?
KIT MILLS: There is actually a decent formula
that you can use in order to figure out how much you
should be charging hourly.
KELSEY ALPAIO: There's a way to calculate this?
KIT MILLS: The-- oh my god.
I know that there is a stereotype about artists
not being good at math, and I am sad to say,
but I fit right in there.
All right.
So you think about how much money
you would like to make in a year and think
about how many hours per week you would like to work or find
as a reasonable amount to work.
So let's go with 40, and you multiply that by 50
for the number of weeks in the year
that you'll probably be working, because you
should take some time out for a sick days and vacations.
Just be kind to yourself.
If you multiply that, that comes to 2,000 hours
of working per year.
So if you divide your yearly earnings goal,
so let's say 60K, by that, you get about $30 an hour.
You should also--
30 is pretty low, honestly.
I usually start at least 50 an hour.
Often, clients will want to buy the commercial rights
to your artwork, which means that they
can use it and reproduce it as they see fit.
You should charge a lot more for that, at least twice.
KELSEY ALPAIO: You've brought up kind
of this concept of advocating for yourself a few times.
Can you talk about, first of all,
like what that means in this industry,
and second of all, how do you go about actually doing that?
KIT MILLS: Yeah.
So it all comes down to self respect.
So if you are negotiating with a client,
and they quote you a rate that is much lower than the figure
that you're looking for, push back on it.
Don't just accept what they're offering you.
I think most people forget that negotiation
is and should be a part of all of these contract agreements.
STEVE SARUMI: Twitch is really good at giving the streamer
opportunity to make money.
There's the Subscribe button which is 4.99,
and then that money gets split.
Half the money goes to Twitch, and then half the money
goes to the streamer.
For I get a different portion, depending
on if you have a specific contract with Twitch,
which I'm sure somebody like Ninja is not getting 50-50.
I'm sure he's getting a lot more money.
And then there's another way to give the streamer money
which is bits, and bits is a currency
that you buy with real money.
So I think it's like $12 or $13 for 1,000 bits,
but one bit is one penny.
So when you're paying like that $12, you're getting $10 back,
but that $10 can fully go to a streamer, and then the $2
up front is what Twitch taking.
And then there's ad revenue, although, I
think the ad revenue on Twitch is like no one ever depends on.
But that's like the biggest-- that's
the best way to make money on YouTube is ad revenue.
And then the last way to make money on Twitch--
purely on Twitch, because obviously,
you can have outside partnerships and stuff--
is there is a bounty system that they have.
So like Twitch will reach out to video game companies,
or like they had an Adidas one at one point.
So I'll use the Adidas one for an example.
So it was watch a one-minute ad of Adidas with your audience,
and if you have 200 people here, you will get this much money.
And if you have 500 people here, you'll get this much money,
and so you just pull up the ad.
You hit Start Bounty.
You play it, and then after like an hour,
it'll process how many people were actually there,
and then Twitch will pay you accordingly,
but that last option was only for specific partners
on Twitch.
JONATHAN MOY: When we started the food truck
in the second year, we made $15,000
between my wife, my dad, and I. So that was just like, OK.
Like I was 26 at the time during our second season.
I'm like, all right, that's OK.
We can eat the extra dumplings we don't sell, and we'll be OK.
And then right now, actually, we had our best year,
in 2019, where we did over a million dollars in revenue.
And our margin on our bottom line is about 20% of that,
and then we actually started paying ourselves.
So my wife and I pay ourselves $75,000 a year
right now just from the business.
And so our total like take home income
was probably around like 300,000 in 2019.
KELSEY ALPAIO: And then COVID came and ruined it all,
I'm sure.
JONATHAN MOY: Oh, yeah, and then we were back in the negative
again.
It was like, yeah, this felt-- and that's in a lot of ways
how it felt like year one again.
KELSEY ALPAIO: What should you charge as a photographer?
Like especially if I'm just getting started, like how
do I know how to value my work?
RAVEN B. VARONA: OK, Kelsey, let me tell you
something is I've been working for a decade,
and that is the hardest.
I tell you, you can ask any creative person.
It is the hardest thing to put a value on your work.
Like even now, like I'm trying to figure out
my prints and my prices, and I'm just
like this is so uncomfortable.
I'm definitely probably an under bidder,
when it comes to my work.
Like some people go by hour.
They say I charge 100 an hour.
I charge 200 an hour, 50 an hour,
but this is include-- like the deliverables are
like I'm going to give you 20 edited photos
or whatever the case is or two looks.
So there are people that go about it that way.
There are people that just have a day rate.
I would advise people that are starting,
first, think about how much money do you need to live?
Like what is your budget?
What would you-- if you were looking
for a regular 9:00 to 5:00 job, there's
a certain criteria you go for with a salary.
I say apply that to your photography as well.
So maybe you're starting out, and you're like,
you know what, I just need to make $30,000 a year,
let's just say, and you factor that out.
And then you're like, OK, if I'm trying
to do three shoots a month, I will price point it
at this, because I feel like this is what my work is worth.
But I also feel like when you're working with companies,
or you're working with brands or people that are seeking you
out, you should always ask them what is their budget.
Chances are it's probably a little higher than what you
were going to ask for anyway.
So you might have done a photo shoot for $300,
and then you say like, hey, what is your budget,
or what are you looking to spend for this shoot?
And they might say, oh, I'm looking to spend $600,
and now you've doubled what you were
going to ask just from simply like having that
back and forth.
And also, I would tell people, especially new photographers,
to factor in the post work that you do.
Like you might be on set with somebody for two hours,
but then you're home for five hours editing the photos
and retouching them and those things.
So definitely don't undersell yourself.
People will pay for work they want.
There is money to be spent, and there
is a lot of money in the world.
So please, do not feel like you can't ask for it,
especially if you are a woman and especially
if you are a woman of color.
JESSICA LEWIS: As a fellow, my starting salary
was 60,000, which was I think very generous.
As an attorney, and I checked, I can actually say this,
so ACLU Massachusetts recently unionized,
so our floor for incoming staff attorneys is 70,000.
But on the other side of this is big law.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
The starting salary for first-year attorneys
is $190,000.
I would never make that in my current career path,
but my friend, also, his starting salary
was 225,000, so literally twice the amount of money
I can ever expect to make in my current career path.
And be for most public interests or non-profits,
our salaries are actually disclosed,
not like bottom level attorneys or staff people
but the legal director or the executive director,
they're required to disclose their income
on tax forms, et cetera.
So you can actually see what they make
and what you can like the highest amount that you can
expect to make in this field.
So that's pretty much the norm.
KELSEY ALPAIO: That is such a bigger disparity
than I ever thought.
That's wild.
JESSICA LEWIS: My friends were like texting each other,
and we're like on a group chat about their bonuses.
If it's a lot, or like, oh, like I just got like a pay bump,
because I'm now like a second year, and I'm just like I
don't want to be included in this.
KELSEY ALPAIO: What is a fair starting salary?
Like what is typical in this industry, and then what
should you actually strive for?
NATALIE BELL: It depends what city are in I think.
The American Association of Museums
has done a salary survey of the industry for a number of years.
That's a useful resource.
KELSEY ALPAIO: I've got the survey.
Starting from, if you're just entering the field
as a curatorial assistant, it says
in the low range is around $25,000,
and in the high range is around 46,000.
For assistant curator, low end is 31,000, high end is 68,000,
and then senior curator 42,000 is on the low end,
105,000 is on the high end.
And then for chief curator, which seems like the top dog
here, it's 34,000 on the low end,
and 107,000 on the high end.
Someone who's interested in this profession
wants to take an internship, but it's unpaid.
Would you suggest that they take it for the experience
or look somewhere else?
NATALIE BELL: It's a personal choice.
I would say no, and I wish I had held the line years ago,
but it was just not--
it was not something that people did at that time.
And I was really accustomed to just trying
to make things work, irregardless
of how difficult it was, but yeah, it's a personal choice.
I think it depends on your own situation.
You might do an internship, where you're just researching
provenance, or you're looking at images for a catalog that
will be published in two years, and you're
writing artist biographies for a show
that you'll never get to see.
So internships can give you some insight
behind the scenes in an institution,
but you might not really get hands-on experience
making a show.
KELSEY ALPAIO: Thanks for watching.
Do you have a career crush?
Tell us about them in the comments,
and we'll see if we can talk to them for you.
Subscribe to our channel to see more interviews with people
actually living the dream.
Bye.