Barefootsies

I get asked this question all the time. I will tell you my honest opinion although many others may disagree depending on their background. Some people are nothing but traffic guys, and work the affiliate and traffic broker game. Others are looking to do their own pay sites, and maybe produce their own content one day. While others do not care about any of that shit and simply want to make money from their home and in their underwear.

In my opinion the easiest way to start in the adult industry is with a clip store. It is low risk, and as long as you follow the routine daily, you should easily get your R.O.I. in a few months and from there you expand. However, before you go head strong into the adult industry you need to keep in mind that your success and failure resides completely on YOU. I can give you all the best advice on the planet, 13 years of experience, what I would recommend you do based on your knowledge, cash, and skill sets. But if you do not listen. There is nothing to keep you from ending up in the shitter. Adult online is the same as any other business. You have to put in the WORK. Obviously, there are some perks. Freedom, and working in your panties from home. That said, let’s get rolling.

This is going to be a basic business outline you would follow assuming your end goal is to develop your own pay sites, and possibly your own content. Before you get to that point, REGARDLESS of how much money you have, you should follow these steps. They obviously are not going to make you millions over night. But you WILL learn the skills you need to make money online.

1. Go to your local county clerk’s office and register a business D.B.A. (doing business as).

2. Go to your local bank and open up a BUSINESS checking account, and get your credit/debit card that goes with it.

3. Research the niche you want to start out in. There is a lot of good content out there you can get for a few thousand dollars that would last you for YEARS of updates. I would recommend you get into something you like personally. You are going to have to look at this stuff daily. So it would make you life more enjoyable if it is something you are passionate about. But you can always go more mainstream hardcore if you like. You may just need to work harder.

4. After you have picked a niche(s), then you need a domain. This will be important for a pay site later, branding, and watermarking your clips. I have written a tutorial on how to find good domain names in that section.

5. I would get a virtual hosting account. This is going to be for your banners, your gallery submits, posting up pictures to forums and other things. Virtual hosting is about as low as you can go, and be dependable. If you use a free host or something similar, they can nuke you and your content at any time. There is nothing more annoying that working for a month, and then have your content killed because you broke some Terms of Service or became high bandwidth. Hosting, in time, will be the life line of your business. You need to invest in a decent one for everything from hosting your site, promotion materials, branded email and DNS/domain management.

6. Next, you need to sign up for your clip stores. There are a number of them out there now a days, but really the only two I have found that make you decent money are Clips4Sale and Clips.com. The terms vary, and I prefer C4S myself, but typically you are looking at a 60/40 or 50/50 type of split. For their end, they are taking care of the billing, hosting, and other b.s. that they take on their end. While not the best deal around, it is a decent deal.

7. Once you get your content, you are going to want to watermark you clips. There is a tutorial to do it with one of the mid range programs I use, and recommend. There are higher and lower end on the market. I also use Premiere and Sorenson Squeeze, depending on if the clip is a re-run, or a 1st release, etc.. But I digress…

So you watermark you FULL LENGTH clips. Once you have done that, you would then want to cut your clips into sections. Some do this, some do not, it’s up to you. I am giving you a very basic overview of what has worked for me. So you do say maybe two week’s worth to start. Watermarking and compressing your FULL LENGTH, and the cutting into sections. I like to do three pieces. So if a clip is 10 minutes long, I do 3 minutes per. You can’t be less that 2 minutes on a Clip Store.

Continued later…

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dchuk

so you're the bastard who cuts up porn flicks into annoying little 3 minute clips???

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J-SiN

BF is one of the few in adult still making a nice living doing this, however his advice will probably continue to be under-appreciated until he makes an ebook on the topic and has a big launch around it :-)

qualo

How can we research adult keywords? (google's tool won't search for them)

Barefootsies

Honestly, your best bet for this business model would be to do this.

1. Go to Clips4Sale.
2. Look at what are the top selling stores, and clips, on the main page.
3. Find content provider in those niches. License it.
4. Come back to this thread, and follow the steps.

Good luck!

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J-SiN

If you do want to do keyword research on Google, right now you'll have to use the old keyword tool (available from a link on the new version). In the old Google Keyword tool you'll still need to expand the advanced settings and check the box to allow adult results.

I've been pinging Google to allow the new keyword tool this same functionality, and my contact says it is coming soon...

g5lifestyle

damn this is a pretty decent guide for people who arent in adult to get started. some newbs should follow this advice to a T and bank

moltar

LOL there is a farting section on Clips4Sale...

Barefootsies

....and a section for you to get your balls stomped on, or salad tossed, or cornhole.....

Yeah. Lots of niches out there. Some that most never thought of.

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qualo

[QUOTE=J-SiN;916415]If you do want to do keyword research on Google, right now you'll have to use the old keyword tool (available from a link on the new version). QUOTE]

thanks

xentech

Don't get started in adult, prob the best idea.

shakey_jake

+1

PPS affiliate programs going under almost daily due to new(ish) VISA regs regarding cross sales with other merchant accounts (thanks all you mainstream rebill peeps ). Revshare affiliate programs are all good, but member retention is alot lower than it used to be and it's only getting worse. That combined with falling ratios makes for a pretty bleak outlook.

A lot of adult webmasters are recently branching out into mainstream as another more stable revenue stream.

The only real positive thing in adult is that SE traffic is piss easy to get and paid traffic is cheap as chips

Sorry, slightly off topic as these comments are in regards to the affiliate model, not what the OP was talking about.

Barefootsies

If you are nothing more than a lowly affiliate, that is probably good advice.

For others, there is still plenty of money to be made. Not only doing clip store money, but also in content production on a smaller scale, custom shoots, among many other things.

Today, it is about setting realistic expectations, and being consistent.

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divine

Got some ideas flowing. Thanks!

What is the best way of finding a reliable content provider and licensing the content?

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Barefootsies

It depends on what niche(s) you are looking for. I do foot fetish, and tickling for example. I work with another guy who does EX-GF style content, I also work with a major adult content provider who caters to more mainstream adult niches, including gay and tranny. Plus offers HD content.

So first thing you would need to do is.....

1. Figure out which niche(s) you are looking at.
2. Work out your budget.

From there, it is fairly easy to match you up. There are only a few major, big library, providers left in adult online. There are a number of independents, but matching you up will come down to niche, and budget.

You could get by with a few months worth of content, or you could go for thousands of scenes. Which would be helpful if you want to launch a pay site, or a tube site, later after you have learned the ropes.

Here are a few decent STARTER DEALS that would give you decent R.O.I. in a short period of time. I also have some additional options, or people I can point you to, depending on #1 & 2. Once you have that figured out, I can better direct you.

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xentech

There is still a lot of money in adult. If you have big innovative ideas and resources you can make a big impression. All I'm saying is for new affiliates adult probably isn't the best niche, it's tough and getting a lot tougher and if you put the same amount of effort into other niches the rewards will likely be much better.

justo_tx

lol. This isn't directed at you, but anytime I saw some ugly dude on a porn clip linking back to a pay site I always figured it was the webmaster looking to recoup money spent paying to bang hookers.

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With sufficient thrust, pigs can fly for a short while.

J-SiN

As long as there's a business plan, it's still technically a business ;-) Oh and... YOU'RE WELCOME!

Barefootsies

Agreed.

If you are little more than an affiliate, I would seek greener pastures.

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divine

Barefootsies, I sent you a PM, am not sure if you got it. Also, added you on ICQ.

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Barefootsies

Got it.

Sent you some recommendations on content providers for your niche of choice.

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Berto

Subscribin. I don't care to get into this market, but I find it interesting.

Barefootsies

No offense taken.

I am sure some do that, and get to enjoy having patrons finance their Hef fantasies. I shoot only all female content. So I am not making an appearance in any of my stuff. Nor would I want to.

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Bombastic

I used to do some adult stuff but I've stopped promoting it entirely. Fucking CCBill started shaving all my new sales a few months ago. So all I get now is the recurring commissions on old sales. I mailed them once and was like "Yo what's going on?" then my commissions magically appeared for that month. Then the next month nothing again. Bought through my own links and didn't get credited. Tired of it.

As an affiliate I'm not interested in adult anymore. But if you have a real business plan and start your own project then hey go for it. I met a guy who lives (or lived) in Tokyo and was the owner of videobox.com and he was making serious bank (and spent some of it on drinks for me, cheers dude!)

Barefootsies

I currently use the following software…

Adobe Premiere. I use this to pull the video from camera, and used to use it to process my clips. This is simply too slow for me since I now process many clips at a time, but would be good for you since you do not have volume. You can pull the clip from your camera via FIREWIRE and then cut, watermark, and process the clip all in one program. You do not have the multiple options for encoding, WMV, QTM, and so on which is helpful for later use. But it is a good program for your initial needs. I still use it for pulling the video myself. However, I then use other programs to make things much faster. I also use this program in the first step to render a DVD.

Sorenson Squeeze.
I use this program to import my videos, and compress them. It gives you the option to process many clips in a que, which I love, so I can load it up and go to bed. You also have the option to easily process the clip into other formats if you like. Which is helpful for limited content library and clip store use. It has a lot of other features I do not use, but it is a very robust program.

VideoCharge
I use this program for watermarking. Since I do many clips at once now via Sorenson. I also use this program to cut up processed clips. This is done in a few seconds and wastes little time. Which is nice. When you do this in Premiere, you have to wait for it to re-render. Again, not a big issue for you since you are starting out, but it is a hassle when you are trying to rerun 20 clips on stores and sites at once.

FrameShots
This little gem is awesome for video captures. You need vidcaps for your clip store, or I would recommend it, as I have found out that is converts best for me. You do not want to have to manually go through frame by frame trying to grab 6 shots from a clip. This program you can load up the clip, and set it to pull 10/50/100 whatever snaps, and then you just roll though them and pick 6. It does a nice job, and makes it much easier.

CuteFTP Pro
I use this program for my uploading of clips. I am not sure what all else is out there anymore since I have never had an issue with this program. I just update it so often as they add in new features. It does well for your uploading of clips, whether to site or clip stores. I do not like to use web browser uploaders. In fact, I can’t fucking stand them.

Adobe PhotoShop
I use this program for piecing together my 6 shots for the clip store. You do not need anything this fancy for this simplistic use. I am not sure what all else is on the market, but a simply editor should do the trick and there may even be a free one for this minimalistic need. I also use it to crop, and clean up, the raw images from shoots so I have it for TGP submissions and such down the road. TGP submissions are how you get a lot of links, and some traffic. It is really becoming more important for SEO purposes then it is for traffic generation now a days.

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A special note for those of you who are college students. You can get a discount on a lot of software by faxing them a copy of your college I.D.. Sometimes it is as much as 50-70% off!! So it is worth your while to check into it. Especially if you have a college I.D. to fax in for those more expensive programs.

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Barefootsies

CLIP STORES: INVALUEABLE DESCRIPTIONS (SEO)

These tips and suggestions really apply to ALL sites in general. However, you are going to have some additional quirks and variations with each site and how is best to use these things to your advantage.

I would recommend you get an AdWords account if you do not have one already. Not only will this become invaluable over time for other projects, but it has some tools that are helpful for you with domain names, and SEO. Specifically, the keyword tool.

When you are writing descriptions, you have to think of the long term benefits literally. Some of the things you do today will effect you next month, three months from now and so on. Google will use these things for ranking your site and the search engine SERPS so it is best to do it right out of the gate. You will end up, or should, start a spreadsheet that has all the descriptions for your content.

For me, I have an excel spread sheet that shows clip name (ToeHee001_DV), description, models in scene, and so on. I had one of my assistants do it for me. It took her a couple of weeks to go through them all. This really is helpful when you go to launch a pay site later, or re-use clips for other clip stores. Then you can just cut and paste.

Getting back to what I was saying about keywords in your descriptions. You want to make sure when you are writing out your descriptions, each one is written out like you are trying to entice members to whip it out and go to work off your description. That includes using good keywords for your niche. If you do not know the niche, research it.

I know what they are for mine, and I will use them not only in my descriptions for each scene and try and mention them, or different ways (foot worship, toe sucking, foot licking, etc..) I will use them in blogs, youtube, and other things as well. I will make sure that over time I start ranking for those keywords.

If you are in a niche you do not know go to Google. Start researching some of the better sites in a niche. Use "View Source" and view their meta tags. Go back to your Google Adwords and type those phrases and keywords in to see how many searches they get per month. Over time, you start narrowing in on key words and phrases that are the 'hot ones' for your niche. You want to try and work those 'hot words' into your description when you can. Do not force it. If you are writing out quality descriptions, you will get them in over time.

Remember, when you are doing keywords and descriptions. These are long tail SEO and SERP tactics that will help you with algorhythms later. The number of times they keywords and phrases repeat on your website, in your descritpions, in your title tags, and so on.

They are not going to work SERPS by themselve, but they will give you a good solid first step.

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Barefootsies

Personally this is what I do for new clips in regards to FS.

1. Process, and compress videos from DV AVI to WMV. Including watermarking.
2. I then cut the full length into 3 minute pieces, or three parts and put in three folders.
3. I then use FS for each partial clip. Snapping 30 stills per clips.
4. I then will then review the 30, and look for 6 I think sum up the scene from beg to end.


5. I do this for all three parts. Making a six shot preview.
6. I do not close the images after I am done with each six shot. I will need them for final.
7. Once done with all three 6 shots. I then will pick 2 images per section, and make FULL.

I personally think this works best for converting sales to do it this way. But it's is a little work. C4S has added in some new features in the past year where they will make an animated gif of the scene for you. Also allowing you to set a preview of 10 seconds or whatever per scene.

I personally do not care for these because they are not accurate pertails unless you allow full video play of the scene. This is where your description is 'key' to the selling part of it. You need to write a good description for each piece. Not just, "Some broad gets her toes sucked", or, "Some skeezer enjoys foot love", or "A bunch of heffers tickle fight", etc...

Hope that helps.

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Barefootsies

Picking Your Niche:
One of the main questions asked is about which niche to pick for running a clip store.

On my examples, and screen shots, I used foot fetish and tickling content. That does not mean you can't try other niches out there, including those you have more of a personal interest in and understand. However, I can't speak to ALL niches and their performance on a clip store.

If you want a good guide for what is selling. I would look at the main page of Clips4Sale, and see what niches and stores have a lot of sales. Then look at how they are doing their clips, descriptions, etc..

Warnings:
I have actually tried a few secondary niches myself. Results may vary depending on if the model(s) are actually answering emails, and doing any interaction with your patrons.

I mention this, because a lot of times I get an email about some guy who has local girls wanting to do solo, or wanting to do this or that for extra money and they think that they can do it and make a mint. You are not, unless she is directly interacting with the potential buyers.

I have had little real success with solo girls. That includes EX-GF content, even solo other things of fetish content. A solo girl, especially one who is not talkative and chatty through the scene is not really going to sell a lot IMHO.

Also, you need to keep in mind the length. Solo girl clips tend to be a lot shorter. So you could sell 200 of them, and not make a lot of money. It's hard to get these girls to do things on camera for 5-10 minutes.

I personally feel that grouped scenes work best. The scenes are longer, you can cut into pieces for additional updates, there is more action for you to write out tasty descriptions with keywords, and so on. I know it sometimes sucks writing out those descriptions, but they make a huge difference I have found.

So I would stay away from the EX-GF type of material, at least for clip stores, and almost all solo girl stuff unless they plan to interact (i.e. email, cams, etc.) with those patrons.

Lastly, I would say that starting out you are better to pick a niche that SELLING instead of your own preference. This allows you to recoup your investment on content purchases, and learn the ropes. At least you know the niche, and content is in demand. Once you have learned a trick or two, then add in some of your own flavor and see if you can sell it.

Some markets are going to be overly saturated. They could be yours if you are into mainstream, vanilla, run of the mills stuff. So it's better to be a bit more nichey, or sub niche to start while learning.

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J-SiN

One idea ive heard for picking niches is combining saturated (but selling) niches to create micro-niches... like 'mature latina' or 'asian lesbian'. What do you think of this strategy?

Barefootsies

Well, there are sub niches to every niche out there. They are not going to sell on volume like the main one, but you can typically target buying, decent recurring members.

For example in Foot Fetish. There are endless sub niches. Some lesser known..

Cast Fetish
Peddle Pumping
Crankers
Crushing

Then you have the higher selling, and bigger markets like Foot Worship, Foot Jobs, Stocking/Pantyhose/Nylon, FemDom, etc..

I can't speak to all niches and their sub niche markets, or their popularity because frankly I do not try and appeal to everyone. I stick to what I know and understand. Not only in production, but also in regards to selling.

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JoshTodd

This is all good advice for starting a content site in any niche, really.

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Read InsideAffiliate.net

Barefootsies

Some Additional Tips or Q&A:

About Content Licensing:
1. You want to have licensed content, with 2257 docs.
2. Not all content providers will provide descriptions for scenes. I do, most do not.
3. Typically content is delivered by FTP, and you have to download it. HDrive costs more.
4. You do not need exclusive/semi exclusive/HD to make money. Especially on clip stores.
5. You can re-run the content over and over for years and make money.
6. Not all content providers allow clip store, or tube site, use. Check restrictions.
7. Most licenses are non-transferable.
8. You cannot license purchased content to others. But can sell to customers.
9. Not all content comes with images. Or vice versa.
10. Bit rate, and size or dimension of videos will vary with different providers.

Clips.Com:
1. They are another clip store type of site you can use. Hardcore will typically do better.
2. They default charge .25/50ct per minute versus C4S charging $1.00 per min.
3. They typically do not sell as well as C4S, but you can still make money with them.
4. Their interface, the approval process, and admin is a bit different.

Additional Quick Points:
1. You want to watermark all clips. Point domain to your clip store.
2. Schedule your updates once per day, and have them run through the day.
3. You can increase traffic with minimal promotion using TGP and other submits.
4. Use short clips or trailers in promotion (if allowed).
5. Clip stores pay once per month. Check/Wire/ACH.
6. You can start a clip store as an individual. I recommend long term you form company.
7. I would recommend you have at least three hundred, 5-10+ minute, clips to start.
8. Maximize your content. Pay sites, clip stores, DVD (if allowed), mobile, free sites, etc..

The clip store should be your first baby steps to making money with minimal risk in adult. Once you learn the ropes in a few months, and start understanding the how's and why's, you would want to either launch more stores. Or start upselling your pay site. At those point you would then point the domain to your pay site, instead of the clip store. Some people will want to pay on a per month basis, instead of on a per clip. So you would want to cater to both segments.

If you have minimal time, and simply want to do 2/5/+ clip stores alone, that's fine. Some people never open a pay site or sell DVD's etc.. It comes down to your time commitments and what you can ultimately do on a CONSISTENT basis. However, ultimately, you would want to provide these other revenue streams to get more business and sales.

This is a starting point for low risk, and R.O.I.. Not the end all, be all, to adult.

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Barefootsies

I have had a few people ask me about camera gear because they are DETERMINED to shoot their own.

Mind you, I do not recommend this until you have learned how to drive traffic, convert a sale, as well as some other things involved in just RECRUITING girls. Which does not get into filming them correctly, and planning out your sessions.

But for those who've asked, here is what my buddy recommends.

You could probably escape with a $500.00 consumer camcorder like I did for years. But this is a middle of the road recommendation from him, and what I am looking at for myself. So you can opt to go a consumer camera route to minimize your start up expenses. But just giving you both options.

When I started years ago. I started out with $3-5000.00, a consumer DV camcorder, still camera with a couple memory sticks, a lot of batteries, some blue gels from the camera store, construction lights, a house with nice sunlight, and I shot during the middle of the day.

Unless you are looking to directly produce and license content to programs, brokers, I do not think you need to be shooting on the highest of high end to start. I have made plenty shooting like I did. Not only on clip stores, but membership sites, DVD, among other things later.

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Barefootsies

Some misconceptions about adult, and especially if you are producing your own content. Many mom and pop, or small producers seem to fall into these.

1. You can reuse girls. Some patrons want more of certain girls.
2. You SHOULD proactively be asking for feedback, and scripts from patrons.
3. Most of those model sites, for recruiting, are major time wasters.
4. Not all models shoot on a 'per scene' basis. You should pay per session.
5. Your model recruiting close ratio 1 in 10. Cast a bigger net.
6. You should proactively offer to shoot custom for patrons (for fee).
7. You should try and shoot pictures and videos for licensing purposes.
8. You should have 4-10 key popular scene scripts you repeat.
9. Solo girl sites will only sell if the girl is proactively involved.
10. Content does not have to be hardcore, or nude, to sell.

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Barefootsies

Models, models, models. Everyone wants to know where to find them.

As I said previously, you really need to learn how to make money before you are out spending money. To do that, you need to license someone elses content and learn to monetize it in a clip store format IMHO. That will minimize your risks.

However, for those who are insistent. Some more tips for you before you recruit models.

1. Have business address, business cards printed, and simple website up with examples.
2. Do not provide too much information up front... On sites, or ads.
3. Develop a three step interview process. Each step provides more info.
4. Make sure you have your model release drawn up. Each girl needs to sign one.
5. You will have more success recruiting from social networks, and secondary sources.
6. I would recommend you have a phone number other than your cell, or home.
7. Filter out models before any face-to-face interview. You want to 'test them' in email.
8. Only 1 in 10, if you're good, will work for you. So expect everyone to be a, "no".
9. Meet the prospects in a public place of their choosing.
10. Models are expendable. They are only as loyal as the $. So always be recruiting new.

There is more to it, but that gives you some basic guidelines for those insistent on recruiting their own models. Having learned the hard way through trial and error, probably thousands of interviews, and the better part of a decade and over 1000 scenes. I would strongly recommend you walk, before you run.

But in the end, it's your money. Good luck!

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wiredniko

Aside from TGP and gallery submits how do you generate traffic?

Barefootsies

One thing I can't stress enough is newsletters. Even if you only have 30 patrons to your clip store, you should still be sending out a newsletter every time you update. Including daily.

Sure, some people will turn it off or remove themselves. But most will not. With the huge variety or clip stores out there, you need to make sure you keep your people in the loop. I still buy clips from my favorite stores weekly, and if they did not send me a newsletter. I would not check them 9 out of 10 times either.

Additionally, as you expand your network, you really should consider adding in a newsletter to every site you have. All of my pay sites have them. All of my clip stores have them. I do not always use them enough, but when I launch new products, new sites, or run new offers. I always announce it in my newsletter and it will get you some nice sales for a day or so.

Since I produce my own content, I also use it to solicit scripts and ideals from the patrons so I shoot material more tailored to their likes. I am not going to produce custom if I am not paid to do so. But if people keep asking for the same stuff, it does not hurt to slide some in for added sales.

A newsletter is a powerful tool. Over time, with your network of sites, you gather a huge list of followers. Which is lovely for when you launch new products and websites. You could take it a step further and even start charging people for access to your weekly mailing.

Start thinking of all the patrons you can reach out and touch between your message boards, clip stores, pay sites, and other ways to gather their info. You simply need to take all of that information, and centralize it into ONE across ALL your sites.

Do not abuse it however, and remain CAN SPAM compliant. Otherwise you will piss off your peeps. Which is never good.

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yuriko

+1

Mainstream is far larger than adult.

But lots of good info on here have been asking some of these questions myself earlier. But problem is where do you find models ? Strip clubs ?

Barefootsies

No. That is one of the absolute WORST places to find models in my experience.

No matter which strip club, all these women will take whatever was their best night EVER and claim that is what they are making EVERY night. So they want you to pay them the same $300/500.00.

They also tend to feel they are something special. Just because some old drunks, and lonely desperado's will flip em a few bucks. They think that online that will make a difference. It doesn't.

Many of them also do not want to be 'forever online' or have people know about their activities. While I rarely have any customers from around my area, or even this side of the state. They feel that being online would 'out' them to some degree. As well make them a public record. Where working in some shady strip club they feel they have a harder time to be found out, or they can 'out' you for being one of the desperado's. Kinda of like some fucked up power thing.

Have I used strippers every? Yes. Old business partner brought me a bunch of them when we first started out. Nine of 10 were the absolute worst. Same for the Model Mayhem and OMP type sites. They all 'talk' like they want to work, but when you bring them in they suck. Some want to fight you the whole time because they do not like your style compared to some other gumshoe photographer they worked with.

I have had the BEST success recruiting from social networks. I have never been one to walk around like a guido flipping business cards. I set it up in a way, that THEY would come to me looking for work. Then I would go through my three step process before the interview, then do a face to face, and then schedule them.

This solved the no-shows, and other b.s. you would run into.

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Barefootsies

Sorry to hear about your experience.

We have had that happen as well. Not with the skeezers, but with some of the other girls. Whether they do the shoot and then change their mind later. Or the BF finds out whatever because they never told them and wants the content down.

We have a very simple policy since we always shoot 2-4 girls at a time. If they want to retract the original agreement, especially since most have cashed the check immediately after the session, we will give you 48 hours to come up with the FULL MONEY for the entire session.

That means all of the girls involved, and any other fees and aggravation. They do not simply refund us the money for her. She was in other scenes with other girls. So we have to scrap everything from that day. So she pays for everything. Not one has ever accepted the offer. They just drop it and disappear.

You have to remember, this is a business. It involves more than them. Although, this has really been a non-issue the past 5+ years for us. Partially because I became much better at the three step weeding out process. Part of that is just getting the right mindset you do not care. The second half is the economy. There is always someone else next in line. You simply have to take the emotion out of it.

This is really not where someone new, even with deep pockets, should start as I have said before. There is so many other things I have not yet discussed that go into managing models and even the sessions themselves. You should really start with learning the basics with someone else's content and a clip store. Learn to sell, drive traffic, convert, etc..

It is less costly, and will save you a ton of money. If you have success there, then slowly tinker with producing your own content. You can burn through that money fast. If you do not shoot the scenes right. It will be worthless.

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Barefootsies

1. Clip stores accept all major credit cards, and they also have some sort of clips4sale gift card type of thing. My guess is that those who use this prefer their privacy or are from countries where credit cards are not an option or easy to get. There are plenty of 2nd, and third world countries like this.

2. Your clip store is yours alone. No one else can sell on your clip store.

3. You can contact me. I have content producers I work with, and broker for. Or I can refer you to some places. Or you can get them from WM forums. You want to make sure your content is licensed. Whether using for your clip store or adult pay site(s). Make sure those you are buying from provide you a license, and 2257 docs.

4. Correct. They pick which clip(s) they want. Pay. Then receive an email with a download link.

5. No. You have to have licensed clips to sell in your store. Again, it's like running a shopping cart. You buy or license goods to sell in your store. You then market that store, and make sales. Same concept. You license content from a broker or producer. You upload it into your store. You then market it, and get paid.

You can't simply download clips you buy off someone's store, and then turn around and resell them. You need to license material.

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Barefootsies

You can't buy from Clips4Sale and then recut and redistribute. No.

You would need to license some content like this.


or this


You would then have licensed material from a content provider. You would then...

1. Compress the clips with your watermark or url.
2. Cut the watermarked clips into segments.
3. Write a description of the scene.
4. Catalog description of the scene in a spreadsheet for later reference.
5. Upload the clips to your clip store.
6. Schedule the update(s).

Most of this you would do before you go to bed. Loading the clips into a program, and watermarking them. Uploading them into your store via FTP. You really only need to be at your computer for the descriptions, scheduling, and maybe cutting segments as that can be done fast without re-compression.

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Barefootsies

Here's the very first thing you should be doing. Planning.
1. Budget for content purchase. How much can you spend?
2. Niches you are interested in. Keep in mind, they are 2nd to availabiltiy.
3. Amount of content. 100/300/500/1000 scenes?
4. If you want pictures and video. Pictures are handy for promotion.

Answering these questions will get you started on narrowing the field. There are many providers out there, and things are going to vary by answering those simple questions.

You do not need HD quality content for a clip store. You can always buy it, but I would advise against it. When you get into HD content, you will want to make sure you have a copy of Sorenson Squeeze. Which makes multiple formats for content during compression.

You do not need exclusive. I have been re-running my fetish content for years. No matter how many times, new or old store, the results are the same again and again. I have been doing this little 'experiment' for years. Always the same. So you can use semi or non exclusive. You can also re-run your content for YEARS.

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Barefootsies

Hi

With clip stores in general, you do not need an HD camera. I personally think that most clip store people, myself included, are not interested in HD. As they are already at the site, dick in hand, and do not want to be waiting 45 minutes for a download. You can film in HD if you like, and encode for SD to cater to the clip store market as a work around.

HD is nice to have, and give you the option to go up or down on the quality. Where as, you film in SD, and you can't go up. Just get worse or the same. If you can afford it, go HD. If not, short term you can get buy on a cheapo. Look at most of the stores. They appear to shoot in night vision.

You break clips up because some people will buy only a certain piece, but more importantly so you the update 'pop'. One update, one bite. More clips, more bites. The dollar amount is irrelevant. You are looking for those 'pops' on updates and eventually you would be pushing these buying customers to pay site(s).

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Barefootsies

Correct.

Also getting those repeated 'pops'. Some people will make multiple versions, or renders, of clips instead of breaking into pieces. It is essentially the same thing.

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yuriko

anyone using zombaio ? the chargebacks are 12.50 ! this sucks.

Midas Touch

Hi BF, nice thread.

A while back I decided to start looking into expanding into the adult market. (Just now starting to see a window of time where I can start to seriously check into this.)

Fetishes & Gay mostly, since the customers seem to be willing to pay a higher premium for the content vs. mainstream stuff.


I joined up at GFY Webmaster Board and JustBlowMe.com Adult Webmaster Forum to get a feel for what is going on in the industry. Are these sites decent like here at the Wicked Fire or are they like Digital Point and Warrior Forum? Just asking since I really haven't had the time to go through their sites very much yet.

If they are bogus, can you recommend some decent Adult Forums for Adult Webmasters?


Thanks for sharing your knowledge.

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VVVVVVVVVVVVVV


"Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." - Dr. Seuss

effer

GFY basically represents the entire adult scene. If you can filter all the crap, you will learn everything/anything you can possibly learn there.

The adult industry is (and will always be) freakin' huge, but the game changes fast...
A lot of people are ignorant of just how much money this industry makes and their influence on the Web in general.

In 2010 it would seem a bit daunting to enter the adult scene from scratch. But if you have a killer niche/talent that you can develop, you'll definitely have a chance of getting noticed.

TylerT833

I think the main issue would be the fact that people don't really pay for this stuff like they used to. Probably because of the fact that it's so easy to get on the internet for free. I'm anything but an expert in the issue, but that's just my 2 cents, regardless.

NWCougar

Does anyone have experience with adult toy drop ship stores?