A couple of people have asked for more info, so here goes. A lot of this is just my opinion, but if anyone is interested in making AVS sites there are a few tips here that I've learned through the years. BTW, AVS sites are not the only thing I do, but I spend a couple of hours a day on them and for the time I put in, the income is higher than most of what I do proportionate to time spent.
About AVS's, the beauty is that a lot of the truly great wm's left that area of the biz around 2002 when Adultcheck ripped everyone off, now it's unsaturated and the money is improving, whereas since free sites mostly all look the same, and everyone is doing them, I'm not surprised that sales are dropping. I would hate to rely on doing the same thing as everyone else, using the same sponsors, and competing with everyone and their brother who think it's the only way to get started. The fact that a ton of pros here don't know much about AVS sites should tip you off as to why they are worth looking in to.
The other beauty is that it takes about the same amount of time to build an AVS site as it does a free site. and if you have your own content you're not tied to any sponsor and can do what you please (within limits) for advertising.
If you don't have your own content it's still a better deal than building a free site for a couple of reasons. On your splash page or pages the surfer still sees the banner or text link for your sponsor. They are no less likely to click on it than they would be if it was a free site. You also get more traffic to your front page from the AVS linklist, which is mostly visited by AVS members, who have credit cards and have paid for porn in the past. High quality traffic. Also, limited ads are allowed inside your protected area (the rules vary between AVS's), what you advertise in there is seen
only by credit card porn buying surfers, the best surfers in the world to sell to.
Top that off with the chance to sell a membership in the AVS itself, which gives the surfer access to thousands of sites for less than what a paysite charges, and you've got part of a pretty good business model

It works for me to the point where I haven't made a free site in about 3 or 4 years.
There are about three different ways you can work AVS's.
I mostly do premium sites now, recurring income, a bit more work but you have the freedom to have some fun with them and rebills are far better than any single paysite rebills are. Premium sites generally require around 300 pics and a professional looking design.
I used to have 3 paysites and sold them because they were too labour intensive, had to keep adding content, etc.
Premium AVS sites, ya build 'em, promote 'em, forget 'em, and keep getting paid for 'em. I like that

Premium sites are best done with your own content since one major AVS, ProAdult, won't allow you to promote any paysites inside the protected area of your ProAdult Quantum (premium) sites unless they own them. I do a lot with ProAdult because I have my own content and members rebill better than any other AVS I know of. If you're using sponsor content though, and need their ads, CyberAge Platinum and Netverifier Elite give you more leeway with the advertising, and are still well worth the time to build and promote. I sometimes mirror premium sites with some changes on different domains with different AVS's, nobody's told me I can't, and if an AVS was to say no, then they would just have one less site. It's a very symbiotic relationship that way.
The second way is basic sites, l do a lot of them, generally 50 pics minimum and very reasonable advertising rules, about the same as free site rules. If you're used to turning out a free site a day then basic sites are probably the way to go. No recurring income, but you can put one together in less than an hour once you have your content ready.
Third is Free AVS's, the AVS makes it's money by giving free access to all of it's sites in exchange for the surfer taking a free trial on a mega paysite. You generally only need 20 pics or so but I use 50 anyways. No recurring income, $15-$20 a signup and you can advertise AVS sites with other AVS companies from inside their sites, which is a huge plus if you have some premium AVS sites to promote. These are still surfers who have whipped out their cc to join a site, even if it didn't cost them anything.
I use all three ways, I try to make one premium site a week and two or three basics or free AVS's. I'm working on a large project right now that will likely take a year to build, but if I wasn't I'd be doing 3 premiums a week and around 10 basic or free AVS's and still have time to promote them all. That's with a link list that takes up an hour or so a day of my time.
If you want to get into these there are a few tricks I'll share with you.
1) diversify, don't just use one AVS, use a lot of them, right now I use ProAdult for masterpiece type mini-paysites, Netverifier for high quality stuff that's not as spectacular, Cyberage for stuff I want recurring income on, but don't want to work so hard for, Sexkey, FreeNetPass and Cyberage basic for one-off quicky sites where I don't have a lot of content and advertise sponsors heavily. Sexkey works best for me at that at present, but that may change.
2) Have a hub!! As soon as you get 3 sites together make a hub, use any free sites you have in there as well, but list the AVS's higher. If you have a link list you've got it made, but if not, build a hub!! Human nature says that the grass is always greener on the other side, and if you feed traffic from inside your AVS sites to a hub that has other AVS sites from competing companies in the same niche, you will sell memberships!! This is very important and ties in with what Mr MaryLou was saying on "On the Bench" on Saturday. Build little "traffic traps", not actual traps, but keep the surfer interested and fucking around with your smut longer than the next guy's and prosper. I have a hub (that needs work) at
http://www.hotwetvagina.com Inspired by MML I'll be working on that all day tomorrow to make it perfect and adding links from every ProAdult Quantum site I own, just below the signup script. Then I'll do hubs for outside traffic only, for every AVS I deal with. Have a link to them as an SSI I can easily add to or modify and put 'em up on every AVS site I've got.
3) Never use an AVS's freehost, they all suck. Although I used to use ProAdult's and still have some sites hosted there I don't use them anymore.
3) For some reason the scumbags who run sites that give away backdoors love to pick on AVS sites, so I have a buddy give them my backdoor every now and then, then wait until I see the traffic spike, then change the name of the first protected page on my site and with the AVS so that paying members can get through, and put up a redirect on the original url to wherever I want to send traffic.
That's about all I can think of off hand, I'm sure there is more. Anything you want to know about that end of the biz if I can answer I will.
For examples of my style, and I do things a little different than most folks even in the AVS part of the biz, take a look at
www.youngsmut.com in the categories, most of the AVS sites are mine, tho I didn't design them all, used to work with a crew, and some of the sites listed frankly suck IMO, and have been there for years. I keep them though because they either have PR or sell for reasons that escape me
If anyone wants a backdoor to a site to see that end of it just e-mail me, and if I know you I'll send it.
Also, if you decide to give AVS's a try follow the link in my sig for a growing list of link lists that will list you (don't forget mine
