Correct. If you do not process enough (some require a certain dollar amount)to get a merchant account, then you could use paypal (or many others) as your gateway, third party processor. However, if you do a good chunk of business. I would definately get a merchant account. There is nothing more frustrating than having your business frozen because someone pulled fraud on your company, or there is one of the infamous 'paypal investigations'. Plus you get to keep more of your cabbage.
Excellent reading! May hit you up with a pm to discuss another kind of websites like my main one (see sig). Would love to talk to you about how to make money from that, or: How YOU would do it. We can always learn from eachother, or from eachothers mistakes. Thanks, and maybe, if you have some time left, we really can discuss this more.
Whoa nelly.. You are thinking on the end game. Big budgets, make up artists, wardrobe, etc. I would recommend you do it on a much smaller scale. Most importantly, get in your mind what you want to shoot, and how. You are going to need to explain this to your model recruits. You would want to try and use sites like modelmayhem.com, and MOItalent, etc. where you can find them for TFP (trade for prints) if you are not doing anything too raunchy (lingerie, implied nude, etc). I do not use any of that. We occasionally have props, or outfits. But a lot of times I have the girls bring them. If I need to buy something, I will. But the key is maximizing profits. Next, equipment is not that important. Regardless what anyone tells you otherwise. How you shoot, your lighting, and what you shoot is most important. Followed by processing. If you know what you are doing on the backend in Premiere, and Photoshop. You do not need thousands of dollars in gear. You can get that later. Keep your costs down, and return high. Once you have some cashola rolling in. THEN do your big budget production, or work in one a month until that too becomes self sufficient. Most important in this game is keeping costs low, and profits high. You can later add in more models, more outfits, more fancy crap if you want to. But in the meantime, you want to be able to make some dineros for yourself. You are just starting out, and we would all love to be some well known company, or photographer. But in reality, we would prefer to get PAID.
Yea, my appologies, i like to goto the end and skip the middle, that will be something i need to work on, which is another good reason to bring the gf in on it since she will keep me level headed. When you started shooting all those years ago, what equipment did you start with? obviously times have changed, but im trying to built a picture in mind of what i should aim for as far as shooting location, im no expert with a camera, at least not yet, but as you say lighting and shooting techniques are whats important, ive done a little research on it and from what i see, a basic setup will cost me in the region of $1500, is that needed? As you stated before, maximise prophits, have you learned any tricks to bring down apparatus costs? Can i ask, on one of your more "average" earning paysites, what would your monthly income be? low-mid $xxxx? or less? more? - trying to estimate what ballpark figure i should be aiming for. Obviously you dont need to disclose any information about your earnings, so if that question is unacceptable, i appologise. Im going out after this message so you wont need to read any more of my questions for the rest of the evening Thank you once again.
$1500? No way. I started with a Canon Rebel (used) and a Canon Camcorder XR90 I think it is. I process the photos in Photoshop, and the video in Premiere. I encode them in DivX to get the file sizes down. An average site? I would have to look. But keep in mind, I am not just doing memberships. I have custom orders (patrons pay for their scripted scenes), DVD's, individual clip sales, and then memberships. Of course there is always upsells, and other things you could work in if you like. I would say even the lowest site makes a grand or two a month between all revenue streams. Clip sales alone bring in a nice chunk of that. I would say to get started, do your lighting on the cheap. Shoot around mid day to get some natural lighting. Add in some of those construction lights from Menards or wherever. Read up on some photography, or take a class at the local CC to get some tips. Or find some amateur photographers off the same modeling sites to come in and help you on 'trade'.
When I get a free moment, I'll take a look at the site in your sig and see if there are any ideas that come to mind.
Very interesting read Barefootsies. I have a couple of membership sites (mainsteam) that earn me a part time income, but I confess I really am lacking at promotion (work allot of hours at my full-time job) and could probably turn them into a full-time income. You have given me the inspiration to work more at promotion Thanks! Robert PS-Do you ever do any consulting work? I would be interested in learning more in-depth ideas and methods for increasing my profits.
I made that same mistake. Should have left telco YEARS before I finally did. I am so much happier now, AND make more. I have, and do consulting on occasion. Both membership sites, and adult. I am not cheap though. But if I have free time, and the price is right, I take an occasional gig. Generally I try and help people with some advice, and experience in the forums. I think most would like to be doing it full time, but do not know how to go about it. Few people give real good, up to date advice, for fear of competition (I guess?). Maybe it's lack of time. Either way. I give you the seeds, the rest is up to you. Sounds like you have some coals in the fire. Just need to add the miracle grow.
Besides sitedepth are there any other scripts you would recommend? I'm not into the adult niche but found this thread had some very good information in it. sitedepth is more oriented to the adult market, I'm interested in a basic script with some of the functionality but I'm not worried about having a central location to link multiple sites.
There are a number of good cms scripts out there. It really depends on what you are looking to do. Looking for just cms is too broad. You need to give me some ideas of what you are looking to do. Or You can always have a custom one made. I would recommend putting bids out on rentacoder, or getafreelancer.com if you go that route. I've used both. Pretty good, and you get a decent price. Make sure you pick a coder with reviews is my biggest suggestion.
I'm actually very familiar with the freelance sites. I get work done on them every once in a while. To be honest with you I'm looking for a free or cheap membership script. I was thinking about using WordPress with the membership site plugin, but wanted to see what else is out there. After a little more thought that whole central location idea is genius. I could make several small sites and have them all link to tons of content. Are there any other scripts like this? I don't really want anything custom made because I don't want to have to keep updating. I'd prefer something ready made that is updated every once in a while and under $100. I've been looking at several membership site scripts and actually own several but some of these things have a sharp learning curve or don't have the functionality I want. I just want something that someone pays, they have access, they don't pay they're cut off. Also an easy way to upload, add images, and a WYSIWYG editor for posting descriptions.
There are cms scripts like sitedepth I have seen, but they are even MORE expensive. I can't say I have seen a mainstream cms like you are looking for off the top of my head, in that price range. But I'll ask around and keep an eye out. SD is genius. Upload ALL your stuff to one site, then break out into different niches. One upload, but all running off the same content management. It really is slick.
I vote this best thread on DP, ever. Bare, what do you think about viral membership site scripts? Something like: viralmembershipscript.com
Thanks for the kind words. Always appreciated. I am glad to see some people are gaining some ideas, and direction from the different thoughts on the subjects being discussed. Let me take a look at it when I get a moment, and I will give you some feedback.
Very interesting thread , I read it all from start to end. And I have to say very inspiring too. I think most of the important things about porn sites have been discussed , but what about the law issue? I am very interested to hear some opinions on this matter. How can we make these sites legal? What are the legal issues ? Do we have to pay taxes ? In my place many people just got arrested because of porn sites. Any ideas are appreciated
I pay my taxes quarterly as I am self employed. What legal issues are you referring to? You mean 2257 laws where you need to have docs on all models?
Everyone seems to be selling membership sites, is this the future? I guess?? But what is an acceptable monthly price for a PLR ebook site...I have something in mind!
For those who want to make a living in the online world. It's one of the best sources of income. Hands down.
This is excellent information - thanks for posting this! I've been wanting to start a membership site for years, but I didn't really know how to go about it. This thread at least gives me a place to start.