i have been thinking about starting my own a pay website that features pin up and fetish stlyes, does any one have any tips on starting one? thanks in advance.
rose
i have been thinking about starting my own a pay website that features pin up and fetish stlyes, does any one have any tips on starting one? thanks in advance.
rose
You may want to check . This site has many around for a while and it might bring you some inspirational thoughts.





You're facing a HUGE uphill battle. Assuming you have a large amount of capital to work with, you may do okay. On a shoestring budget however, you may not have much luck. Essentially you are starting a business in an industry that has established competition for years. For what you want to do, you better have a monster budget for marketing unless this is a project for you to just make a few bucks here and there and advertise on Craigslist.
In a nutshell though, you should be asking yourself, "What is my site going to offer that the tens of thousands of copeting sites don't", and "What am I going to do differently to market my site and get the word out."
The ORIGINAL Stripper Sales School
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Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle. ~Abraham Lincoln





I started my own adult website all the way back in 1995. At that time, internet based businesses were readily accepted - today internet based businesses and especially adult internet businesses have a very bad rep with banks and credit card processors (because so many of them went bankrupt or disappeared leaving unpaid bills/unhappy paying customers). As a result, a new adult website online credit card processing account first requires a $750 up front annual fee, followed by a 'stem to stern' personal investigation of the new webmaster's credit and legal history by the credit card company. If you 'pass' the investigation, you then get the privelege of handing over 20% of every internet business dollar you take in to the online credit card processor in order to have Visa process online credit charges for your adult content website.
When I first started my website, search engine listings were 'free' - and if you were clever with html programming you could finagle a decently high listing for your website. However, today, in order to even appear within the first few pages of a major search engine, it takes cash up front to the search engine company. i.e. paid promotion. Also today 'corporate' websites routinely pony up hundreds of dollars per month in search engine 'placement' fees, which a small independent website has to compete against. Simple rule of business ... if they can't find you they can't spend money on you.
When I first started my adult website, persons on the internet had no legal identity. However, with today's Section 2257 'Tracy Lords Law', as a webmaster you must maintain a file containing the real name, real age, real addresss and real SS# of every model who appears on your website. Additionally, Section 2257 permits 'authorized persons' i.e. law enforcement officials to enter your official place of business at any time without a warrant in order to check your Section 2257 records (which for an independent website usually means your home address) - and allows them to bust you if they see anything 'illegal' in your home, regardless of whether it's related to your adult website or not. Also, by the letter of the law, if you as a webmaster screw up on your Section 2257 records, and are caught, you potentially face a felony charge which carries 'sex crime' status - which can potentially land you on your state's 'sex offender' list along with rapists and child molesters. If it was an honest mistake, you can probably prove your innocence rather easily in federal court - provided that you can pony up $5-10,000 for attorney's fees for an appeal (which won't be reimbursed if you're found innocent).
On top of the above you also have adult web hosting charges, which typically run a couple of hundred dollars per month. However, if some lunatic decides to post a password to your pay area on a pirate site, it's possible to run up a $1000 bandwidth bill in a single day with zero membership money coming in to cover the cost ! This of course can be minimized by only using web servers with very good security programs - which will cost more on a monthly basis or require that you shell out hundreds up front to the web hosting service.
For these reasons, and because I was also not willing to 'do what is necessary' to successfully compete with 'corporate websites' and independent websites that will do/show ANYTHING for money, I took down my pay website this year. IMHO unless you are located outside of the USA such that the Section 2257 law and the credit card processing investigation law (outgrowth of the Patriot Act) don't apply, an 'independent' adult website now involves more work, cost, and risk than it is worth.
~
Last edited by Melonie; 01-09-2006 at 05:16 PM.

Melonie is right about 2257 being a pain in the ass but it is not insurmountable especially if you keep your operation small. Below is some generalized research I did on 2257.
18 USC §2257 requires that Primary producers keep a copy of the ID form and Primary Producer Inspection form available for at least twenty hours a week. A primary producer “is one who actually films, video tapes, photographs, or creates a digitally- or computer manipulated image, a digital image, or picture of or digitalizes an image of, a visual depiction of an actual human being engaged in actually sexually explicit conduct.” 28 CFR §75.1(c) (1).
The forms that you will need to keep on hand can be found on-line. If you need additional help with this check out ynot.com.





Simply not worth it even if you are outside the USA. How the hell do you make money in a market that is saturated with websites of every shape, shade and colour? Not to mention the fact that you are competing against all the free porn and similiar sites on the internet. The time when it was profitable (even outside the USA unless you have a huge fan base) to have a pay site is gone.
This is why I'll stick with my simple free site. It is limited, yes, however I don't have to worry about anything except my online store fees and domain rego fees. Then maybe eventually hosting fees if I find that blognow.com.au won't allow me to have my site on their site (as such).
enter: E3167322D9 for your 10% discount
^ that's not true. i have a lot of friends who make very successful livings running paysites. regardless of the fact that everything has been done to death, you are still you and NOBODY else is, and there are millions of people in this world and there are still gonna be a heap of people who like you for being you.
it's all about knowing how to market yourself correctly, and making friends with the right people.





Just a question to clarify if I may ...
Are your friends actually operating their own websites, or are they providing 'partner' content to an umbrella website - that keeps half of the profits in exchange for web hosting, credit card processing, paid search engine placement etc. ?



I have to agree with Darcy above. A year and a week ago I started two sites. One about debts, the other about stock investments. Are there two harder niches to take on???
It is a lot of work, I can't lie about it but results are coming slowly. My stock site (address below) gets about 50 visitors per day now. Not mammoth traffic I know, but that puts it in the top 2 or 3 % of sites online!!!
Personally, i think it would all be about the marketing. If you don't know much / anything about marketing, don't take this on. You'd need to do on and offline promotions to build traffic. This isn't necessarily expensive, but it isn't free either. To have a good go at this, you'd need a marketing budget of several thousand to 'invest' in testing the project.
Since there are lots of people in this 'space' already, I'd guess that your best bet would be to put up a site, work hard to make an affiliate programme work, pay the highest % you can manage - at least 50% - test the sales message and process with purchased traffic and then approach all the other rival sites offering them the best deal you can.
At least that is how I'd approach it...
Alternatively, you could ask Darcy to put you in touch with her friends that are doing this well and see if they would be willing to partner you for advice on how they managed it.
^^ usually it helps to have a following in the way of fans... basically girls like brooke peaches and aussie jewel has a following of fans, they have put in the hard yards of work, they has networked and now it is paying off!
There are so many free porn sites on the net, websites that are for semi-known and well known models/strippers in Australia/overseas who have free sites for their fans to go online and see nude and semi nude photos.
Though it all depends what content your aiming for, if you are going to do a site, you would have to make it unique, and offer something that your competitors are not.. maybe even have live cam shows, online chat etc...even still then you would have to charge the right $$
There is a site in australia called nikkis girls (can't remember the site right now) will try to find it, any way here are some reviews of the site, which really shows to you that even with all of the added extra's you would have to offer something for free to get the customers on your site...
Here is the site http://www.nikkizgirlz.com/
here is what the 'punters; have to say:
'Seems like a decent website, reasonably well laid out. Can't say I'm a fan of paying to get access to this sort of stuff, when you can get the equivalent for free all over the web, though I guess the novelty of knowing someone like yourself GCG in the photos or wallpapers etc might make it a little more interesting. Pricing also seems a little steep - from reading the free pages I can't see myself getting value for money for those sort of prices.
Also not great when trying to browse the site and getting the following error message:
The server at nikkizgirlz.blogspot.com is taking too long to respond.
For what its worth, you seem to have some nice photos on there too GCG'
'I have been a member of numerous paysites, so please keep this in mind with my response...
The layout screams "amateur" to me, although being an amateur site that is understandable. There is no information on how many images each girl has, only a very general "hundreds of pictures" tagline, and no information on the resolution of the images.
I don't see any real indication if this is a softcore or hardcore site, and although it is a site in development, asking a membership price at this stage is going to drive people away. As a suggestion drop the price for the first customers, build the support community, then perhaps they can raise the price. But Laga is spot on, I can't see why anyone would pay to get images you can find for free on the Internet.
The blog is a good idea as long as it doesn't just become an advert, but geniunely reveals life behind the curtains, so to speak.
In summary, it's a beginning, but ask around for suggestions (as you have done) to find out what people want, and heed those responses.'
So as you can see, the punters weren't really racing to hand over their money!
I guess it all comes down to how you market yourself and how much time your willing to put into it! Also it would depend on what look you would be going for!
A friend of mine works for an australian online stripper site (basically you do strip shows on webcam etc)
Anyway, her biggest concern is that as the company she works for charges a standard fee, the girls are paid a % rate, the clients are always begging the girls to use toys and porn (with ones self) She makes ok money, nothing like you would in a strip club, and she puts in 3 - 4 4 hour shifts pw...
Good luck with your site!
Australian Strippers WWW.MILD2WILD.COM.AU
the site seems to be under construction..![]()
Australian Strippers WWW.MILD2WILD.COM.AU





*sigh* the site (whilst working) isn't really going to go ahead after all. NikkizGirls never happened in the end. That's how I was going to have a go at a Pay Site situation ... yet it didn't work and now both myself and Lucy Blue (aussiepunkshocker) are out because of it (as well as Brooke/Peaches).
It was a shame as it did have potential and I did put in some work for it (they have video footage that is available on the site in my section that I would like to have and use if possible).
...Can't say I'm a fan of paying to get access to this sort of stuff, when you can get the equivalent for free all over the web,...
Is the general consensus hence the reason I'm not willing to invest too much money myself into a site. I would rather do a 50/50 split with someone if they could help me provide the content (ie they had a studio set up where I could do web cam, videos and photos as well as 'look after' the site).
enter: E3167322D9 for your 10% discount





Stuart, as websites dealing with debt and investment, you escape two extremely important issues. The first is hosting costs of adult websites versus non-adult websites. The second is credit card processing fees / deposits for adult websites versus non-adult websites. If you check with any of the major web hosting services or major online credit card processing services you'll immediately see the difference in cost structure.
Yep - I have hosted a couple of adult sites on my servers and the bandwidth required can get crazy compared to sites that are more text oriented.
The couple of sites were actually owned by a gal I knew who exited the strip club business. Her biggest grief was finding online credit card processors that WOULD take adult businesses and those that DID had wild expectations about how much they were going to charge.
Given the amount of cheapo's out there who would subscribe, wget the whole site, and then refute charges (and creating chargeback fees to boot!) I don't blame the credit card processors from throwing their hands up in the air.
Stuart - ya out to try podcasting - reading is so 90's.![]()



Yeah - I know there are differences in costs. Big differences.
All I was trying to say was that you'd need to be reasonably savvy at marketing or you'll lose your shirt. And that if you are reasonably savvy at marketing and work hard on and offline, you'll have a chance.
I was just trying to be more subtle about it than that.
The odd thing about this is that we are all providing answers in far more length than the question was put. We must all have some strange / odd personal requirement to type...
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