BlogChronicles of an adult webmaster
Smut Peddler
Monday, March 08, 2004
Tuesday, March 02, 2004
Rattle Rattle
I've mentioned the Adult Webmaster School(AWS) here before, and the way that they indoctrinate you into the porn biz is to have you build and submit galleries to submit them to TGP's. I wrote an article the other day (you can find a link off the main page) about how I was VERY uncomfortable submitting to TGP's because I was in effect leaving my money making opportunity up to the artbitrary decision of a complete stranger. So I decided to pull back on the frequency of my gallery submissions to 2 or 3 per week.
It made me uncomfortable to know that just because someone didn't like the colors I was using, didn't like a banner I used, didn't like the model, or whatever reason, that they could just squash any opportunity I had to make any money with them.
Let me make this clear: TGP owners need good submitters. There's plenty of (sometimes shitty) sponsor hosted galleries, but the majority of good stuff that you're going to find is going to come from Joe Blow the Gallery Submitter. TGP owners need good submitters because good submitters increases surfer retention rate, which increases exposure to the TGP's ads, which means that the TGP gets paid. EVERYBODY gets paid in this game, but I was pretty pissed that some of the high traffic TGP's didn't include me in their updates, despite some pretty boring, standard, cookie cutter galleries. And I know damn well that my content was good because personally I would have gotten aroused if I was a surfer. THAT'S HOW I MAKE A DECISION ON WHETHER OR NOT TO BUY CONTENT! "Would I jack off to these pics?"
Monday, February 23, 2004
Adult Webmaster School becoming stale?
I may have mentioned that I signed up with the Adult Webmaster School (AWS) a couple of months ago to learn how to play this online adult game. It IS worth the money they charge you to get in it. BUT, I'm wondering if the AWS has jumped the shark.
Back when it started people were very active on the in-house message board, the instructors were very active, posting "newsletters" and bulletins on a regular basis. But now... now ARS is virtually turning into a wasteland.
A bunch of newbies signed up from the publicity ARS got from an article on CNN.com, but no one hardly speaks up. The instructors, while very good about answering questions on the message board, post newsletters/bulletins when they feel like it (which isn't often). Basically instead of the changing, dynamic environment that I think it used to be ARS is becoming stale and static.
TGP a good idea
I have just now been convinced that starting a TGP was a good decision.
I just checked my clickthru stats at ARS and right now I have 43 clickthrus. Granted, I do currently have two galleries up at Richard's Realm, but I checked and the vast majority of clickthrus are coming from galleries posted on my TGP. 43 clicks is really a piddly amount, but compared to what I've been getting for the past month, 43 clicks is very surpising.
Now obviously to make any money I need more than people just randomnly clicking on a banner, but I believe (maybe erroneously) that the clickthru deal is a game of numbers. A certain number of people have to click b4 someone will buy. And getting click thrus to my sponsor only off of 100 hits from my Google ad is very promising.
I made some money
Back to the grind, back to the grind.
Over the weekend I saw my first "real" sale. By real I mean I earned an amount of money that I'm not embarssed to discuss :-).
So far I've made two sales with Kara Davis's affiliate program. One for $3.50 and another for approx. $24. Then I a $30 with ARS (thanks to Richard's Realm). So *drumroll* I have earned approx. $58 in my porn venture. Now that I've earned some mony my appetite is whet :-)
Over the weekend I also decided to sign up with Google Adwords to get some hits to my TGP. So far it's worked. I guess the label of "Looking for free porn?" attracts a lot of visitors, eh? :-) Hopefully I can get some bookmarks out of that deal and get some regular traffic.
Thursday, February 19, 2004
Site Re-design
So I just did a major design overhaul at Sablelinks.Com, and I just wrote an article about becoming an adult webmaster. Check it out!
Musing
It's been awhile since I wrote more than one or two lines on this blog so let's give it a go.
Like I mentioned in the last post I recently started my own TGP or "Thumbnail Gallery Post". Why? Well, to make money of course, but the main reason is because after 3 weeks I'm somewhat convinced that on the EFFORT/REWARD scale submitting galleries to other people's TGP's is a waste of time.
- Everybody has different rules and runs their site like a little fifedom. Everyone thinks that they're going to be the next Hun and try to act accordingly. Sorry, but if you send me dick in terms of traffic I'm a little less likely to try and follow your draconian rules.
- Most of the "big" sites that have the ability to send you tons of traffic don't tell you if you're site has been accepted or denied. Yeah, yeah, "I get thousands of submissions a day." So what? This violates Customer Service 101, and even if you try and say "They're not a customer," then it's just bad business. Because if someone is constantly submitting shitty galleries to you and you just ban them you may have lost out on a potential superstar gallery maker because you didn't take the time to try and point him in the right direction.
- I'm very uncomfortable with placing my ability to make money in the hands of anonymous TGP owners. If they don't list my site, I don't make money. At least if I make my own site, with my own rules and list my own sites, EVEN IF I FAIL, I know I failed on my own accord.
I found a site a while back by a guy named Eric Wolfram. Besides his handy tips on how to score higher in Google he brings up an interesting point about websites having to be useful to score high in search engines.
What are TGP's? Big links of lists to free pics of porn. But can't the website be something else? Something more useful than just links to porn?
Wednesday, February 18, 2004
Friday, February 13, 2004
Yo Yo
The ol' smut peddler suffered a household injury that prevented him from typing, but I'm back now.
Tomorrow (Saturday) will usher in week # 4 of my adult webmaster career, and to date I have made a grand total of........ (drum roll) .......... $3.50. Yeah...
Friday, February 06, 2004
AVS sites
So my major affiliate sponsor is Advertising Revenue Service. Actually, they're my only sponsor.
I was looking thru their sponsoring options and was looking at their AVS (adult verification service) options and I remembered something that the Adult Webmaster School said about AVS sites--BUILD ONE! :-) Actually it was build a lot.
I have at least 7-800 pictures in my possession so meeting the minimum requirements (20 pics for free sites, 50 for Regular sites) shouldn't be a problem.
Actually...the only problem should be the design...because I suck at it :-) haha
