Where Do You Belong?
  Written By Titmowse

Everybody is good at something. Some of us are talented artistically. Some of us know how to write good sales copy. Some of us can code programs in our sleep. We all come into online porn knowing something but not everything. The adult web attracts all kinds of people with all kinds of pre-existing skills. The adult web teaches people all kinds of new skills they never had.

The deeper you get into this business, the more you realize how much there is to know and learn. You have to know HTML and how to FTP. You have to understand marketing and layout design concepts. You have to decipher cryptic legal text as well as create your own. You need to be able to delineate a niche from a fetish and a click-thru program from a partnership program. You have to know where to get answers and from whom to ask questions. You’ll be checking your stats and calibrating your counters and all the while you gotta learn how to play "the game".

The new adult webmaster who confronts this industry with open eyes sees the vastness of the task. The adult Internet is not a pyramid scheme or some bullshit multi-level marketing scam. We don’t deal in hollow promises made through infomercials. The adult net is a real field with real vendors, artisans, billing companies and lawyers. Our timeline may be short but it’s successes and failures are solid history. Anyone who is starting out in online porn has to accept they have much to learn and much work to do in order to achieve prosperity.

The daunting road to riches and fame in online smut seems overwhelming to some newbies. Some resort to cheating out of greed and the frustration it brings. Others quit as soon as they begin when confronted with this industry’s work-ethic reality. Still more make the mistake of taking on too many sponsors or venturing in too many directions marketing-wise. They sign up for every affiliate program they can find or build sites in niches they know nothing about. They get overeager and lose site of their goals. They try to take on software they don’t understand or buy content they don’t know how to use properly. They get caught up in the flux of the adult web and get lost in a barrage of information.

Are you a new adult webmaster who’s feeling a tad confounded? Do you see potential all around you but not one path to follow? Did you enter the scene full of visions and ideas only to find your plans were unoriginal and your proposals unrealistic? Were you surprised when you found out the special skill you brought with you simply aren’t enough to build a career upon? Are you grabbing at straws because you don’t know where to turn? Are you ready to chuck it all because it’s harder than you expected?

Before you delete all the files in your site directory, email your sponsors with nasty missives and tell those bastards at the message boards to go to hell…take a breath. Clear your head and think about your true goals.

You entered this industry for a reason. You came with life experience no one else has. Ask yourself: If you could sell one thing and one thing only, what would you sell? Examine your sponsors. Decide which ones work best for you and pay you the way you like to be paid. What marketing methods make the most sense to you? What kind of adult content gets you excited enough to inspire you? What part of online porn fits your best talents? Try to judge for yourself what feels wrong and what feels right.

Other adult webmasters will tell you to build gobs of sites or recommend niches about which you know zero. Even more will insist you buy certain software you’re not ready for. They say to use scripts like circle jerks when you don’t even know how to code a submit form. Your fellow adult webmasters mean well but they can’t hold your hand while you figure out what you really want to do. Their wisdom is sincere but it comes from their experience, not yours.

Listen. Ask questions but decide for yourself what road is your road. Simplify your vision and increase your knowledge of it. Forget programs and genres that aren’t making you money. Keep and expand on whatever is garnering you profits. If banner ads are getting you sign-ups, ignore those who say text ads are better. If you are weak with design skills, make sites that aren’t supposed to look slick like amateur porn sites. If you’re good at programming, try bartering your skills for content or hosting. Instead of killing yourself trying to market the "next big thing", why don’t you just sell the kind of smut you personally like?

Financial stability in the Adult Internet is a realistic goal for all types of individuals. If you study the field, stick with your endeavors and push your strengths, you’ll find there is a place for you in online porn. It’s up to you to figure out where you fit!