It sure takes time and it is harder than it use to be. Over the years I have gotten burnt out or lazy, more times that I can probably count, but my adult stuff has always made more than any regular job would pay. I believe any one can make more than say, walmart pays. Just one sale a day would pretty much cover that. But, the biggest drawback of this business, any business for that matter, is you dont have a boss hanging on you to make sure the work gets done. We all know, though we dont want to admit it, that it's real easy to get distracted, the net has a million distractions. It's too easy to find out 3 hours later you have'nt gotten any "work" done. You sure have to be disicplined.
When I started in this biz, my motivation was to get away from the job, I was SO sick and tired of working for some one else, working when they told me to, taking the crap pay they wanted to pay me. Same went for my wife having to take stupid crap at a stupid job. My wife was'nt thrilled with the idea, but I told her I was going to do it, it was going to work and that was that. It did'nt take long to make more than the job was paying, because I knew it was going to work.
It is harder in this business than it use to be, so we need to work smarter, more efficient and most important, get the most out of what we do. It amazes me every day to see people not getting the best out of their work. We all have a limited amount of traffic, so it is in our best interest to squeeze every cick out of it. How many people even track their ads? Not many from what I see. If you want to get the most of your traffic, how can you do that when you dont know how your ads are performing, or how they are not performing?
Every day I see sites that would not get listed anywhere, yet the same people keep doing it ever day. I still see people using ads I know do not pull crap for clicks, yet they keep doing it every day.
It use to be you could throw up a crappy site and make money. I use to churn out crappy avs site after crappy avs site and every one I made would make at least one sale, every time. Being that it's not as easy as it use to be, I believe, more than before we need to treat this like a real business, not really a bad thing. If you had a real life brick and mortar store, would you keep trying to sell products that customers did'nt buy? Or sell products that did'nt make a profit? More importantly would you keep using ads that did'nt bring many customers in your store? If you did google adwords, would you keep using an ad that did'nt get clicks? Would you keep paying for clicks that did'nt make you any sales?
Blogging is the big rage right now and it does work. Yet I see far more crap blogs than good ones. Some people believe if they mass produce enough, they will get enough traffic. On the other hand what if you did one really good blog instead of 10 crap ones? Could save you time and make you more money. I have one blog that out pulls all my other blogs and really dont take that much more time.
How many people read marketing or sales books? We are in the business of marketing and or sell porn, well actually a fantasy, but it's still selling and marketing an idea/product. Can we say we do our best to sell it?
Most people making good money do it by having multiple streams of income. If one slows down or dissappears, it wont be as much of a big hit. The same could be said for traffic, the more sources, the less one loss is going to hurt.
So often I see people complaining they are not making any money, yet they have a high post count in a short time on a message board. Dont complain if your not doing the work. By the same token, networking is so important in this business, more that most realize, yet few do it. But moderation can be the key.
If you dont like doing free sites, dont do them, or at least do other things like blogs or hubs, ect, or to build up other things so you might be able to get away from free sites. It's been said over and over, the more you enjoy something, the better chance you'll have at success. The opposite can be true.
I think that most would agree, besides galleries, free sites are the best avenue at getting descent traffic if your new or not networked. I have done some free sites and I know the traffic can last quite a while, longer than I thought. If we know they produce traffic, are we doing all we can to get sales out of the traffic? Or we getting the most traffic out of each site? Many people dont get listed everywhere like they say.
Lets face it, we all KNOW this business is making billions, we all know that for a fact. The money is there, we just have to do the best to grab our share. Every one has the opportunity.
None of the above is directed at any one in this thread or on this board, just my rambling and observations. And I'll be the first one to admit, I have been guilty of it all at one time or another..
