He didn't read my post. Or made the wrong assumption. So let me state what I was trying to say.
I'm reminding content producers
of how fucking wonderful IT used to be for shooters.
I don't blame shooters for the lousy prices they have to work for. I blame sponsors for it and their attitude that they can fill sites with low quality content and so long as they throw enough traffic at it, someone will sign up. That attitude was obvious from the very beginning.
In 2000 I met, at a show, 2 of the biggest people around at the time. One offered Eva and I a full time job and the other offered to buy all our production. The wages/prices they offered were a joke. They were clearly shocked when told what a solo girl set was worth to a magazine shooter. Those prices carried on until 2005, then mags started to suffer and a few closed, a few cut back on budgets and some employed in house shooters. Even today some magazines shooters are still able to sell to magazines. Yes the magazines listed are still buying.
So why don't some of the Internet shooters, especially those in the CA or NY go and see some editors with some sets? Either not good enough shooters or not good enough businessmen.
The excuse of "I can't be bothered" is a cover up and only the foolish believe that. There's still a small market left and it still pays money. Even if it's only $500 a set, the possibility of selling it twice makes that $1,000. The last set we sold to Barely Legal made $2400 non exclusive. We gave up because of the accident, my illness, that we had enough to retire on and not business problems. The business is still going well considering neither of us have shot for 2.5 years. No custom shooter will have that pillow to rest on.
SPONSORS ARE TO BLAME FOR THE PRICES PAID. Shooters today who can't sit back and retire or take their skills into a far better field of shooting are stuck with working for the prices offered.
If you're not reliant on sucking up to people on GFY, you can even sit back and make a fool of yourself.
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I do have a clue how it works in the Valley. You find a girl, you shoot her, you sell the work. Exactly the same as it works everywhere for shooters. If you rely on agents to find girls you're far down the pecking order unless you pay top $$$. And that's not good for shooters. If you advertise you get to see a lot of frogs before you find a princesses. If you rely on other girls to find girls, you get any girl they met on a shoot and a couple of friends. If you walk up to girls in a mall or street, you risk getting slung out or punched on the nose by an irate BF. No method comes without it's good points and bad points.
And to shoot in the Valley, you should have a permit. Maybe someone will tell me if I missed anything.