Not true.

Problem with porn today? File download sites, torrents and tubes somewhat are a problem for sure. Free has been and always will be a problem.

But what has happened to porn is what use to be a shared experience among 100's and 1000's of webmasters has been isolated to the few. Once upon a time TGPs, MGPs, Link Lists, Blogs and all the sorts shared traffic. Sure you had the big guys but the little guys still had traffic.

Now the traffic goes very much to the tubes. They dominate the search terms, pick one and they're tops. Some of the free site guys still get some traffic but it's is so low now it's almost non-existent. You have tubes sites getting 20 million visitors a day, 20 MILLION. And not just the top tube, several hover around there for daily traffic.

Tons of people enjoy the free content out there but keep in mind there are 10x the people online now than there was in 2007 so it's all relevant.

Problem is simple, traffic is king and so few control the traffic.

This is sometimes referred to in the main media sectors as "the HBO solution" - make better content, that people WILL seek out and pay premium prices to get before it gets shopped out to the "free" (advertisement supported) suppliers.


It should work, but, the porn production companies have been slow to adopt the principle.

It does not necessarily solve the problem of the small independent sellers like us.

OK, here is where I make myself unpopular again:

The problem with porn today is simple: Most (not all) webmasters are too busy blaming someone/something else for the problem to do anything about it.

Things like tube sites eat traffic and spew out free porn, but they are not the problem. The economic downturn means that there is less money on the table, but that is not the problem. The problem is that webmasters moan about them rather than change their ways to avoid them, they just say "it is impossible" and hide their little heads in the sand.

Bottom line: if it is not working, change things, if it is still not working change things some more, then keep changing things until it works. Just moaning about the economy, tube sites, etc and doing nothing to fix things for yourself is the first sign that you are truly incompetent.

There are four types of adult webmaster:
1) The hobbyist who is just here to have fun, and any money he/she makes is a bonus.
2) The webmaster who has found his/her way through their downturn and is making good money.
3) The webmaster who has not yet found his/her way through the downturn, but is actively working on it.
4) The webmaster who accepts that the downturn is irreversible and that he/she will never make as much money as they used to make in the "good old days".

Types 1, 2, and 3 are in the right business - but type 4 should give up running their own websites and hire themselves out as a contract webmaster. They do not have the mind set necessary to make money themselves and can save themselves a lot of hardship and heartache by quiting ASAP.

Sadly, reading this thread, there are a lot of people here in group 4.

I'm curious ecchi, who do you figure buys those ebook things?

I think of erotica as being mainly for a female buyer.

ecchi, awesome analogy. Although a hobbyist, agreed, I will chase the money when the money comes in; a benefit of being my own boss in everything I do, I can put my time to the most benefit. This job, the Adult Webmaster I keep open because I do enjoy it, and prefer it; so if I find the "honest" money I'll be here dedicated.

Bill, "the HBO solution", cool name. But that is a solution, because it IS something we can build from nothing, and with nothing. All's we need to do is team up and invest what we do have, our time. We already have the cameras and websights, that's production and distribution nipped in the bud, all we lack is the team.

Nowadays all the accounting is done for me by a third party (A1 Adult eBooks) and I have no buyer statics other than which books sell, quantity of sales and what website makes the sales (which, thinking about it, is a bad thing). But when I started out selling eBooks I was selling them on eBay so had better feedback. Back then the majority of customers were men, however I did also get a reasonable number of women customers and a few couples. I never took any age demographics.
Yeah, but eBooks don't have to just be "erotica", they can (and mostly are) hardcore porn. Most of the books I sell are bondage. This is because I discovered way back in the 1990's that bondage sells better than "vanilla" porn, a hell of a lot better. For example, I convinced one of the authors whose bondage work I publish to do a non-bondage teen porn book. He has never forgiven me for doing so. He makes good money from the bondage stuff but feels that the time he spent writing the teen porn book would have made him more money if he had got a part time job flipping burgers for McDonald's instead!

However that said, some women do like bondage too. When I was selling via eBay I had a reasonable number of regular women customers for the bondage stuff. And the writers whose bondage work I publish include two women and a group of co-authors who include one woman in their group. Also the most sadistic person I ever knew was a woman. She was a lesbian, and way back when I was younger and more innocent she shocked me by telling me that although she preferred women-on-women porn, she was also turned on by man-on-woman porn provided the woman was being raped.

a woman after my own tastes, lol.

I find myself wondering why surfers would buy ebooks rather than join a paysite with stories.

The recurring thing maybe, avoiding an unknown future cost, preferring a fixed cost for the expectation of a certain experience.

In bizop, ebooks were all the rage - probably still are.

Bill, I'd bet the eBooks sell for the same reason PPV sells: it gives people the ability to pick and choose, buy just what they want without a monthly subscription. I use B Bee-Tokens, where I can see what is selling at least, and everything seems to sell in ten dollar chunks.

Ecchi, Bee-Tokens parent sight is Bondage Tokens, let me highly recommend them to you. Highly Recommend! I do seriously think you would find another income with them.

EBooks sell in the same way real books sell. If you were after a particular Harry Potter or James Bond book, you would buy that book (either hard copy or Kindle), you would not go and join a website publishing Witchcraft or Spy stories. Same with eBooks. If someone sees an ad such as the one below and likes the book they buy that book, they don't go and join a website full of bondage fiction.

Thanks, but last time they looked they wanted 50% to process each payment and they did not have facilities for running an affiliate scheme. 50% is ridiculous and not having an affiliate option is also a deal breaker.

(Screen grab of an example of an eBook ad - reading it through reminds me what a hack I am!)

http://www.hardcore-porn-stories.com/fred.gif

Na, they're something like 10%, I forget exactly. And they will divide payments. But to work that with affiliates, don't know.

But I was thinking more about their customer links. As almost nobody spends that whole 20 on one page. I have heard those residuals are pretty good. I don't see them, for like your friends scenario, I am soft core, certainly not bondage, and not even teen. But hey I like naked girls, and I don't want to see the guy at all. Hard market to make money in.

Fans of domination, bondage, are loyal, sub niche categories do very well.

Is it safe to say the popularity of ebooks can be linked to the rise of tablets and smart phones?

I have not noticed any improvement, however that may be because the "economic downturn" is counteracting it, and in reality my sales both improved as tablets/smart phones became popular and at the same time decreased because people were economising on luxury items like porn books, so stayed about the same.