Concluded....
People love to drop the tired adage "Adapt Or Die" but very few really adhere to it, I myself HAVE adapted time and time again and each time it has lead to what I consider to be success, keep in mind the term "success" is different to each person.
When I started selling content I just made packages, listed them on the various boards, contacted content buyers of various companies and that worked fine.
Since July that method has changed, companies slowed WAY down on their buying habits (some companies even told me point blank "It doesn't matter if we update the content" (wonder why some of your sales suck these days??)
I switched up and adapted again, instead of spending weeks (or months if it's video content) creating content that might not sell I instead created spec works and 'pitched it' to companies, IF there were interests (AND DEPOSITS) I went forward and created the package and then invoiced / delivered to the companies.
For months now NOTHING has sold, and at last count I have over $10k in "PENDING INVOICES" (These are invoices from people who contacted ME and said "I want this, this, and this package what kind of deal can you give me?" I say $___________ they say "_______ Send the invoice over and lets do this!" (or words to that effect) Some of those invoices go back over a year as well, and every few weeks I'm told "Oh sorry been busy, I forgot, I'll get that to you first of the week"
I can't "call them out" since they have not gotten any content, and as they say... a deal ain't a deal till money changes hands.
MOST of my long time buyers (People who bought from me every month for example) have now disappeared "Last seen X months ago" is shown on their ICQ status, and emails being returned with "no such address" or "mailbox full" and standing invoices sit for months without being paid, ALL OF THIS tells me it's time to look at my current business model once again.
IF the buyers are not buying, updating, or even around anymore and more and more sites are just running on "auto pilot" (which is true even away from the toon industry) one can think one of two things....
1) There's no more money in porn
2) There is a global thinning of the herd
While BOTH are true
to a point there is
LESS money in certain types of porn (IE less in memberships, but maybe not less in micro payments) not "NO MORE" and the herd is indeed thinning, we all (should) know that it hasn't been 1996 - 2004 for quite some time now and one needs to WORK for every sale they get now, and they really need to work even harder to KEEP every sale they get.
Irregardless it puts me in the position where I need to adapt or die once again.
Now I'm weighing out the pros and cons to decide IF I want to relaunch a program (With MULTIPLE SITES and a "Pass site" IE buy one get access to all 5)
WHY MULTIPLE SITES? to better serve both the surfers AND the affils, giving more options to affils to send their traffic to and more ways to convert my content to sales for them, for the surfer I can cater to their specific tastes and not loose sales cause I'm running the wrong niche or a cluster of diff niches. (As I've said many times here and over the years the toon market is a totally diff animal then your "real" teen, reality, anal, milf etc sites.
Also processing plays a HUGE part in "doing it right" because as some of you are totally unaware of back in 2006-2007 companies like CCBILL decided that "anything not 100% "human" was now banned and dubbed bestiality" that made a third of my content unusable since I had content with wings, tails, fur, monsters, tentacles, and aliens were now a no no for MANY billing companies.
indecently THAT content SELLS and CONVERTS like mad, and IF I can't use it (or even sell it to buyers who run via CCBILL) what do you do then? do you throw away hundreds of sets and miss out on a big chunk of sales? Or do you use a 3rd world processor who could fold and steal your cash at any moment (it's happened how many times now in the past?)
If I bank up the cash and use my own merchant accounts how do I protect myself FULLY from carders and fraud?
It's NOT a "failure mindset" or "negative energy" type thing, these are all serious things that need to be considered before taking a leap of this nature, so I use the words IF, MAY, MIGHT because I've not fully weighed all the options and risks out yet.
The other option for me is to FIND a company that will scoop me up and add me to their team, THAT is my best case scenario if you stop and think about it,
I have the skills, damn near EVERYONE in this thread has typed/said/inferred just that, even the people who have "trolled" me in a roundabout or direct way have all said "You have the talent"
But no one seems to be hiring remote workers, OR seem to be hiring at all.
The final option is to just pack it up and call it a day, I've deff had a great run in this business and I'm sure I could have many more years ahead of me given the right circumstances. I also deff don't WANT to call it a day BUT If I can't get clients to pay their invoices, can't find new buyers, can't re-launch and or can't find a job then the final option just might be the option I have to go with.
Sorry for the long winded rant as it were, but I wanted to take this time and try to lay it all out there and 'correct' what I really never should have corrected in the first place, but hell I'm human and I have flaws just like the rest of you lol.
If you read this far you win a virutal cookie and a virtual glass of milk
Oh and to Tam: no need to worry about me, despite others in this threads versions of my life & Biz I'm fine, and the kids are fine (as they have always been) things can be better (as they always could be lol) But it was YOUR POST that made me realize just how much of a trainwreak this thread was turning into so I felt I had to step back in and make one loooong ass post to try and explain everything one last time.
-Loki-