Wednesday, August 13, 2014
Tuesday, August 12, 2014
Having a solo model website, important information YOU should know!
Everyone wants to be a star and in being a star, you imagine having your very own .com personal website to feature your best work. When you work for other companies, you are one of many and not usually featured very long if at all. A personal website allows you to be the only star of your show.
The industry has changed dramatically over the years. When I first came on the scene about 10 yrs ago, you could make the majority of your income on your site sales alone. Grossing at least $1000 a month minimum, you could afford the expenses of running your own website with ease. Today, that is certainly not the case for various reasons and a whole separate post in itself.
It is necessary to be aware of the costs that are involved with your website, in order to fully understand why in today's market, it is a waste of money. Let's break down the costs included.
1. Hosting - in order to host a content based website you will need plenty of bandwidth to secure your content. Depending on what service you use, and if your site is adult material you will need to find a hosting company that provides reliable hosting services and is adult site friendly.
2. Content Management System - A content management system helps you organize your content, prepare for future updates and schedule them in advance and provides a variety of services that help you better manage and organize the functionality of your site.
3. Security - In order to protect your content from being ripped, hacked or damaged, you will need to invest in a good security product installation.
4. Photography/Video/Editing services - You will need to develop the content and updates for your website and outsource someone to film your footage for you. Quality VS Quantity.
5. Marketing/Promotion - You have to tell people about your website and although social media is helpful, the real conversions come from paid advertising. To make money you have to spend money.
6. Webmaster - Unless you are able and willing to manage your site on your own, you will need to hire someone to do this for you. It's not impossible to do yourself, but it is very time consuming.
7. Billing Service - You want to get paid don't you? You will need to purchase a billing service to process your payments for you. CCBill charges $1400 year for both Visa and Mastercard. Aside from that, you may even have to have other services as well to cover countries that your current processor may not accept payments for.
Having a successful solo website is a lot of work and can be more expensive than you think. Good luck!
The industry has changed dramatically over the years. When I first came on the scene about 10 yrs ago, you could make the majority of your income on your site sales alone. Grossing at least $1000 a month minimum, you could afford the expenses of running your own website with ease. Today, that is certainly not the case for various reasons and a whole separate post in itself.
It is necessary to be aware of the costs that are involved with your website, in order to fully understand why in today's market, it is a waste of money. Let's break down the costs included.
1. Hosting - in order to host a content based website you will need plenty of bandwidth to secure your content. Depending on what service you use, and if your site is adult material you will need to find a hosting company that provides reliable hosting services and is adult site friendly.
2. Content Management System - A content management system helps you organize your content, prepare for future updates and schedule them in advance and provides a variety of services that help you better manage and organize the functionality of your site.
3. Security - In order to protect your content from being ripped, hacked or damaged, you will need to invest in a good security product installation.
4. Photography/Video/Editing services - You will need to develop the content and updates for your website and outsource someone to film your footage for you. Quality VS Quantity.
5. Marketing/Promotion - You have to tell people about your website and although social media is helpful, the real conversions come from paid advertising. To make money you have to spend money.
6. Webmaster - Unless you are able and willing to manage your site on your own, you will need to hire someone to do this for you. It's not impossible to do yourself, but it is very time consuming.
7. Billing Service - You want to get paid don't you? You will need to purchase a billing service to process your payments for you. CCBill charges $1400 year for both Visa and Mastercard. Aside from that, you may even have to have other services as well to cover countries that your current processor may not accept payments for.
Having a successful solo website is a lot of work and can be more expensive than you think. Good luck!
Monday, August 11, 2014
1 hour of prep time before webcamming = $$
As webcam performers, it's often natural to get dolled up and get online. We think that the money will start to generate itself once we are live. In some cases, this may be true however there are steps YOU can take to notify your fans and ultimately increase your earnings in a short amount of time.
Here are some steps that will help you INCREASE earnings and DECREASE down time!
1. Set a schedule and stick to it. When you create a schedule, your fans can plan to spend time with you and prepare themselves by buying tokens and being fully ready to enjoy you!
2. If you are going to have a theme, announce it in advance to attract those viewers who may be interested in either a specific fetish, costume or look that would differ from your everyday shows. Often times they like to participate and join in the fun with their own special props and costumes.
3. Before you go live, take pictures and a quick clean video to post that you will be going live soon. Tease your audience!
4. Use social media to promote your shows and that you are live! It's a great way to get REAL time viewers involved with your shows.
5. Offer contests. For the fan that spends the most amount of money on you, offer a free short video. Personalize it and make them want more!
6. Whether on a blog, social media or your website, shout out your top spenders. They want to be recognized for being your supporters so give them a shout out!!
7. Blog, post on forums, and change your status on fetlife, tagged, or other sites that allow you to post a status message that you are live. Make sure that you don't post anything that violates their terms & conditions with overly xxx nature photos and messages but something that entices your audience to follow you and attend your show.
There is money to be made and every little effort increases your daily earnings! Time IS money, so put in a little bit of prepared marketing and watch the $$ increase!
Here are some steps that will help you INCREASE earnings and DECREASE down time!
1. Set a schedule and stick to it. When you create a schedule, your fans can plan to spend time with you and prepare themselves by buying tokens and being fully ready to enjoy you!
2. If you are going to have a theme, announce it in advance to attract those viewers who may be interested in either a specific fetish, costume or look that would differ from your everyday shows. Often times they like to participate and join in the fun with their own special props and costumes.
3. Before you go live, take pictures and a quick clean video to post that you will be going live soon. Tease your audience!
4. Use social media to promote your shows and that you are live! It's a great way to get REAL time viewers involved with your shows.
5. Offer contests. For the fan that spends the most amount of money on you, offer a free short video. Personalize it and make them want more!
6. Whether on a blog, social media or your website, shout out your top spenders. They want to be recognized for being your supporters so give them a shout out!!
7. Blog, post on forums, and change your status on fetlife, tagged, or other sites that allow you to post a status message that you are live. Make sure that you don't post anything that violates their terms & conditions with overly xxx nature photos and messages but something that entices your audience to follow you and attend your show.
There is money to be made and every little effort increases your daily earnings! Time IS money, so put in a little bit of prepared marketing and watch the $$ increase!
Wednesday, July 30, 2014
Facebook in a nut shell
(Image rights: KITTYBRADSHAW)
Many performers are leaving facebook due to their inability to post even the least bit suggestive photos and end up being flagged, suspended from posting and worst case scenario; having your entire account shut down.
"SO WHAT?" You say. But unless you've experienced building an audience via Facebook, maxing out on friends by hitting 5,000 and developing 10's of thousands of followers, then you clearly don't understand the frustration of watching your page burn in flames.
As performers, we spend countless hours reaching our to our fans in one way or another and social media is a great way to reach as man fans as possible without having to interact with each one individually. By posting photos, revealing private thoughts and experiences and ultimately interacting, our facebook pages allow us to truly provide a social experience.
My suggestion after having 6 facebook profiles shut down? Facebook LIKE pages.
Although you still have the same rules, it seems that facebook like pages life span is definitely longer and they seem to be less likely to shut them down. It's no guarantee, but you save yourself all the annoying responsibilities of a profile like accepting friend requests, annoying pokes and game requests to name just a few. You can link a like page to a personal page and manage it without having to expose your personal information or profile. The best thing is, you can still message and interact with your fans with minimal effort.
Another feature that a lot of people don't know about is the ability to set up links in your tabs section to redirect to other sites. Whether to other social media like Twitter, Youtube or your blog, you can set it up so that your facebook page is generally a one stop shop for directing your viewers to other profiles and pages online.
The downside? If you are a group poster and participant, you lose access to this feature from what I have seen thus far. Posting from your personal page would expose your profile and ultimately your fans will be thrilled to have access to the "real you." I am still testing what other features are available from your like page and what is not. I will definitely keep you posted!
Wednesday, July 16, 2014
Keep your domains
I learned a tough lesson over the course of the last few years. I have a habit of buying domains with intentions of using them for various projects. It's not uncommon for other projects to take priority and your domain is being forwarded to another website to make sure it is being used.
I bought a domain several years ago, and was forwarding it to someone's clips4sale store. When I no longer worked with them on the store, I decided to let the domain expire.
What I failed to realize was that I had driven traffic to the domain, therefore when it expired the value of the domain had increased. Years later, I decided to pick up the project on my own and attempted to buy the domain. Prepared with a coupon code for $1.99 from Godaddy, I was ready to buy my domain back. And then I looked it up, and found it was being sold for $$1,295.
Wow! I was confused because as I was disappointed that the domain was definitely FAR more than I was willing to pay to recover it, I was also proud of the value the domain had established. I won't be buying the domain back, but I will certainly make sure I don't let valuable domains expire.
They are expensive when you buy 20-30 a years at a renewal rate of $15 each. Make EACH domain useful. AND KEEP IT.
I bought a domain several years ago, and was forwarding it to someone's clips4sale store. When I no longer worked with them on the store, I decided to let the domain expire.
What I failed to realize was that I had driven traffic to the domain, therefore when it expired the value of the domain had increased. Years later, I decided to pick up the project on my own and attempted to buy the domain. Prepared with a coupon code for $1.99 from Godaddy, I was ready to buy my domain back. And then I looked it up, and found it was being sold for $$1,295.
Wow! I was confused because as I was disappointed that the domain was definitely FAR more than I was willing to pay to recover it, I was also proud of the value the domain had established. I won't be buying the domain back, but I will certainly make sure I don't let valuable domains expire.
They are expensive when you buy 20-30 a years at a renewal rate of $15 each. Make EACH domain useful. AND KEEP IT.
Saturday, April 26, 2014
Discrimination against LEGALIZED income from Porn?
You can imagine the level of anger that grew inside when my card was blocked and money being withheld. I took my money, and conveniently flipped these fuckers off.
What was the purpose of using their cards? Well, quite honestly, I could get donations, payments and money from anyone around the U.S. without having to provide my personal information and for a fee of $4.95 for every $500. Inexpensive way to receive and send money anonymously. I will admit, it was very convenient. Unfortunately, for reasons unbeknownst to me, they decided that my business was no longer wanted.
So I say good bye to GreenDot. Fuck off!!
But there's more! Shortly after the closure of my Greendot account, the news of Chase bank account holders being discriminated for being involved in the porn business and forced to close their accounts.
Luckily, there are companies that are attempting to offer a solution:
Rumors are that Wells Fargo is offering accounts for those being shut down by other banking institutions due to the clear discrimination to porn workers. As a member of Wells Fargo bank, I would recommend their financial institution for banking services as I've been quite pleased with them and a member for 4 years.
.... more information here
Another possible solution: Paxum Offers Solution for Porn Producers & Stars
I don't have Paxum so I can't speak on their services but wanted to share as many possible alternatives for those who may be in need.
I understand that everyone may not agree with what we do, being in the adult entertainment industry but to CLOSE our bank accounts and deny us the ability to properly manage our money? There are THOUSANDS of accounts that are being used for ILLEGAL purposes around the world. Porn is LEGAL and the money generated in this industry employs roughly 12,000 people in just California alone.
In an economy where unemployment is rising and people are struggling to survive LEGALLY, doesn't it make sense to allow people the ability to make money in a legal business.
In an economy where unemployment is rising and people are struggling to survive LEGALLY, doesn't it make sense to allow people the ability to make money in a legal business.
The porn industry employs an excess of 12,000 people in California. In California alone the porn industry pays over $36 million in taxes every year." *Information credit.
It's really sad when legitimate businesses that employ our community are being faced with financial institution shut downs and refusal of services. What's next? Shutting down testing services so that we are unable to get proper testing? Oh wait, that's already happened as well. But that is an entirely different blog.
Friday, February 21, 2014
Several tips on producing high quality adult content
Everyone thinks that it takes a lot of money to produce high quality porn. In most cases it does, however, there are some steps you can take to creating a very well produced product on a low budget without making it LOOK low budget.
1. Pay attention to DETAIL. The area in which you shoot is KEY in maintaining the viewers focus. CLEAN YOUR WORK SPACE. There is nothing more distracting than seeing a messy area when watching porn. If you are looking for a "REAL" effect, a little realness won't be a REAL dirty room.
2. Use a HIGH QUALITY camera with LOTS of lighting. You want your viewer to see everything possible (hence the clean work space as mentioned in #1) therefore you MUST have a high quality camera that captures your images and video in the best possible resolution. With today's technology, you can get a good HQ camera for less than $1000 and closer to $500. Lighting is inexpensive with a beginner photography set being about $300. It's WELL worth the investment. The finished product will reflect your investment and you will be proud of the work you are releasing.
3. Wear bright colors, and outfits that catch the eye of your viewer. It's pretty simple, you want to catch their attention and keep it.
4. If you can't do your make up very well, then hire someone to do it for you. Make up is key in presenting quality production. If you want to sell something high end, you need to PRESENT everything high end. A make up artist can be found for around $50, and will do your make up so that it looks great on camera. It's WELL worth it to pay someone to do it so that your face comes off FLAWLESS on film.
5. Props are awesome. Even if you just throw a bright pillow on the bed, or lollipop on the bed stand, props are key in adding to a bland scene. Whether to use in your production as something to play with or just for show, props can be a very useful tool for ideas to stretch out your time and give you a more fulfilled scene.
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