This is just a little check-in about making progress on a slower site. Its a lesser-mentioned (sometimes controversial) one but hey, it works for me. So, here's a little run-down on how I got started and how its been for me, over the last two years.
I was sooooo burned out on my primary chat site, due to constantly butting heads with management and playing politics with the Admins. The traffic was pretty sweet in the Fall of 2010 but the site crashed for a minute and everything went completely to shit. The new management became really over-zealous about the amount of money models were making and were micro-managing how they behaved in chat, sometimes even scrutinizing models' private shows. It was more than nerve-wracking but I really needed the money to pay for the bulk of my reconstructive dental surgeries. I was desperate and this site was bringing in an average of $2500-$3K a month, almost guaranteed. I had to ride the wave, as long as I could. I literally cammed, in chat, forty hours a week (often more), doing Feature shows every single day for as long as I could. When the well dried up, management started pulling shows from the schedule and my guaranteed earnings became less and less. I stuck with it for a few more months but in the Spring of 2011, I collapsed under the pressure and told management I would be taking a hiatus. I cancelled all of my remaining shows, got a local dancer's license with my last cam check and started moonlighting, at a nearby strip club. I saved the bulk of what I'd made for my last few dental procedures. I cammed very rarely, doing Fin Dom work for particular regs and barely even touched NiteFlirt. I felt like I had divorced the entire internet.
I finally completed my remaining treatments and surgeries, late last summer. I had two beautiful implant teeth installed and treated myself to a cute, well-cut diamond embedded into the canine. It was something to remind me of how hard I had worked to get to that point. Something to give me a reason to smile, every time an obstacle came up because I knew where there's a will there is a way and I would get what I wanted, come Hell or high water. Also, to make me further appreciate even the smallest accomplishments.
I was ready to go back to camming. After trying a variety of sites to see if there was any new scene that was worth the hype, I decided last winter that I was ready to go back to my special, little home-site with a more zen state of mind. It doesn't have the best traffic in the world but hey, the crappy manager of last year was gone and even having one or two Feature shows a week gave me prime placement on the front page and along the margins of every live chat window, clicked! I figured the exposure alone would make me more money than going into it blind. I told the Admin to turn my Feature account back on and was happy with a few hundred bucks extra, per period. Keep in mind, I was also working pretty steadily at a peepshow, so this was just supplementing the cash in-hand that I was bringing home.
My reception was rather warm and I found many regs to my Feature shows were now visiting me in chat and getting privates, easily. I was impressed! Having my shiny, new grill helped in that I was now grinning like an idiot and effortlessly playing the super-psyched, bright-eyed chick every time I was tipped, in chat. I had never tried tipping games but I started and began really seeing results! Basically, taking all of the tips used to endure chat-sites like MFC and applying them to this smaller pool was giving me the "Big Fish in a Small Pond" effect and having a better (but also, more realistic) attitude with less of a sense of urgency was really helping my endurance. I could play tipping games and wait for privates and if I got bored or fed up with jack-asses, I would just log off! I knew most of the real spenders and would never waste time with "open BB"-dudes, blocking them immediately. As long as I made my minimum to maintain my Features (40% gross), I could limit my efforts to that and anything extra is extra.
I've been doing really well, since January. I've even brought in more than what I was making at the peepshow (must be a slow season), finding myself back in that place where I make more money staying home than when I bother to leave the house. I've been given more shows by the Admins, incrementally and have been able to keep up with the minimum earning requirements, often surpassing them by twice as much. I budget a fair amount of time (anywhere from two to five hours), a few times a week but its never at an inconvenience and I'm not as tired or frustrated by the interactions as I used to be. Every once in a while, I may have a slow day or fall a few dollars short of my goal but I don't let that carry into the next day. Overall, I'm finally happy with my little home-site and although the cut sucks (37.5%… ouch), the Features help make up for it. Its my little comfort zone.
I guess I'm sharing to let everyone know that chasing the money just isn't worth it, to me. I've found that if I make a niche for myself and maintain consistency, I'll always make the money I want, wherever I go. I've found my special chat-site, just like NF is always my phone-site. I just had to buckle down and know everything there was to know about it to make it work for me. Knowing all the ins and outs of a choice site is key to relaxing and finding your groove to make the same good money every time you log on. Newbs, stick with what works of you!Whether its the interface or a feature you really like or the way you can communicate with Admins and tech support. As long as the payments are legit and on time and guys know where to find you, you're going to do fine. Learn to relax and let the money come.
If anyone else wants to share stories about feelings around relaxing into a long-term, sustainable cam routine that has worked for you, please share! Endurance is the key in this business and I think we should post reminders of how to keep momentum. :)

