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I've recently been lurking on GFY.com (the adult industry forums).

A lot of disillusioned folks over there claiming porn is dead - courtesy of tube sites.

The money has shifted more into live cams and dating sites over the last 5+ years. (But even those aren't doing as well as they used to).

But surely- the market of horny people is just as large as ever?! There must be a way to monetize that thirst.

Ideas?

(I'll go first...)

How about instead of charging people to view porn - offer it for free in exchange for an opt-in.

Basically, create an amateur porn site as a means of building an enormous email list. Adult traffic is CHEAP. You could built a large list rapidly.

Then, send out offers to this list. (Adult dating, PE, gambling, fitness, etc..) Affiliate marketing essentially.

Eventually, you could segment this list - and even rent it out to other email marketers if you fancy.

I've scouted the playing field - and I don't see any adult sites doing this. They're still set on selling something that has become completely commoditized. Many of these guys have absurdly large email lists which they never mail to.

Seems like they're leaving lots of money on the table...
#sell
  • You're still competing against free sites, so the email opt-in is still more than they have to do elsewhere.

    You'll probably have to go niche to even get a decent opt-in rate. Give them some kind of value compared to the free sites - rather than sift through everything, they can go to your site and get exactly what they want.

    If you want to monetize any demographic, you need to figure out a value proposition that's better than what's being offered for free.
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    • Profile picture of the author JulianC
      Originally Posted by Benjamin Farthing View Post

      You're still competing against free sites, so the email opt-in is still more than they have to do elsewhere.

      You'll probably have to go niche to even get a decent opt-in rate. Give them some kind of value compared to the free sites - rather than sift through everything, they can go to your site and get exactly what they want.

      If you want to monetize any demographic, you need to figure out a value proposition that's better than what's being offered for free.
      Yes - certainly.

      It would have to be niche.

      Just speaking from personal experience *ahem*, there is a niche I'm into (quite vanilla actually)- but it's a royal PITA digging around the net to find decent quality stuff.

      If you could conglomerate it all in one spot, I think most people would be willing to part with their email address. (A whole lot less resistance than asking for a credit card# anyways).

      The value of this is the ease and speed with which you could build a mailing list - compared to the mainstream where it's quite difficult.

      From there, it's your salesmanship and the relevancy of your offers that would determine how well you did. But I think this could work. Gonna try it myself...
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  • Profile picture of the author fernandocortes
    Sex always sells, and will always sell!
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  • Profile picture of the author art72
    Look into DRNights... 10% commissions

    Top package sells for $100,000 - commission = $10,000

    That's if your cool with being a travel agent pimp, not my thang... But, to each their own.
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  • Profile picture of the author dmaster555
    Ask the people banking on the sex category if sex still sells.

    Even with tube sites offering free porn, there are subscription and niche sites banking.
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  • Profile picture of the author [Justin]
    I read something about a month ago saying that Playboy went from 5,000,000 subscribers down to 800,000 subscribers because of free porn, so now Playboy is going to actually stop doing full nudity and start having classier pics that leave something to the imagination. So, the Adult industry is definitely being affected but of course there's always going to be people making mad money in it.
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    • Originally Posted by [Justin] View Post

      I read something about a month ago saying that Playboy went from 5,000,000 subscribers down to 800,000 subscribers because of free porn, so now Playboy is going to actually stop doing full nudity and start having classier pics that leave something to the imagination. So, the Adult industry is definitely being affected but of course there's always going to be people making mad money in it.
      I may be the only person who read that news and thought "oh cool, maybe they'll go back to publishing awesome short fiction."
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    • Profile picture of the author EelKat
      Originally Posted by JulianC View Post

      I've recently been lurking on GFY.com (the adult industry forums).

      A lot of disillusioned folks over there claiming porn is dead - courtesy of tube sites.

      The money has shifted more into live cams and dating sites over the last 5+ years. (But even those aren't doing as well as they used to).

      But surely- the market of horny people is just as large as ever?! There must be a way to monetize that thirst.
      .
      Originally Posted by [Justin] View Post

      I read something about a month ago saying that Playboy went from 5,000,000 subscribers down to 800,000 subscribers because of free porn, so now Playboy is going to actually stop doing full nudity and start having classier pics that leave something to the imagination. So, the Adult industry is definitely being affected but of course there's always going to be people making mad money in it.
      I write porn & erotica and sell them on Amazon. I'm friends with about 30 other authors of it, and know via social media about 3,000 other authors of it. Here's what I've seen:

      In 2010:
      you could sell porny stories on Amazon at a rate of $1 a page
      - I had a 74 pager - yes, people DID buy it with a $74 cover price
      most authors sold it for $7.99 for 10 page stories.
      $24 for collections of 5 ten page stories

      In 2013:
      Most authors sold it for $4.99 for 10 page stories.
      $7.99 for collections of 5 ten page stories
      (Authors could see as much at $10k a week, though most averaged $1,000 a week)

      In 2014:
      Most authors sold it for $2.99 for 10 - 30 page stories.
      $7.99 for collections of five 10 - 30 page stories
      (Authors could see as much at $30k a week, though most averaged $4,000 a week)

      In 2015:
      Most authors ARE CURRENTLY selling for .99 for 50 page stories.
      $2.99 for collections of three 50 page stories
      AND are struggling to make sales
      MOST Erotica authors in have reported averaging UNDER $100 a week in 2015 (before June) and have had to take on part time jobs.

      After June 015:
      Since Amazon made drastic changes to how they paid authors (in June 2015)
      MOST Erotica authors ARE CURRENTLY reporting averaging UNDER $10 a week since June 2015 and have had to take on full time jobs.

      ----------

      Why the change?

      In the case of Amazon, in 2010 Amazon had a 18+ Adult Only section. In 2012 Amazon added Google Adds to their site and was immediately blacklisted by Google's Panda. To get the Amazon website re-indexed on Google, Google DEMANDED Amazon remove the adult section, so Amazon deleted the entire section, books and all. Thousands of Por authors had their accounts banned from Amazon in the process.

      In October 2013, Google decided it did not like Monster Porn and un indexed every site on the net offering it for sale - including Amazon once again. Amazon responded by deleting all Monster Porn off it's site and banning author accounts.

      In February 2014, Google decided it didn't like BDSM and un indexed every site on the net offering it for sale - including Amazon, yet again. Amazon responded by deleting all Hard Core BDSM off it's site (allowing Vanilla BDSM look-alikes like 50 Shades) and banning author accounts.

      In June 2014 Amazon rolled out Kindle Unlimited, a program that paid authors a huge royalty every time someone read 10% of their book, and authors gamed the system by flooding Amazon with 10 page porn - every time some one looked at the front cover, without even opening the book, it counts as 10% read in a 10 page book.

      In March 2015 - Amazon sent an email out to authors requesting them to please remove all books under 5,000 words long ( Amazon counts 311 words per page so a 10 page book is only 3,110 words long) and stating that Amazon would begin reviewing all books under 50 pages before allowing publication. Ending to say that if authors did not stop publishing "Scamlettes" (Amazon's term) that they would be forced to change the KU payout system

      In June 2015 Amazon did as they threatened and changed the payout system (which now pays .0003c per page read and authors require readers to READ a whopping 500+ pages in order to earn $1 now.

      ----------

      So, I can't speak for other areas of the adult industry and why sales are down, but I know why sales are down on the segment of the industry I' working in.
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  • Profile picture of the author Cam Connor
    Yea, it still does
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