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Direct Debit Payment Explained
Something that is very rarely spoken about as a means of payment is Direct Debit, this is a popular payment method across Europe and, especially in the United Kingdom. Direct Debit can offer your surfers a cost effective, easy way to pay for products and services from your site especially, if they have a ‘recurring’ cost associated with them.
Direct Debit – What Is It?
Direct Debit is quite possibly one of the simplest ways to collect funds from your surfers basically, a form is filled out by the surfer, where they enter their bank payment details, account number, name, sort code. Then, the form is signed either electronically or, in person by the customer, in this case, electronically by the surfer.Once you have the direct form filled in by your surfer, you may continue to deduct funds from the bank account on the Direct Debit form until such a time whereas the surfer cancels the Direct Debit agreement.
At the present time, around 45% of the population in the UK currently choose to pay their utility bills online by Direct Debit and, around 75% of the total population in the UK have used Direct Debit at least once in addition Direct Debit is also an alternative method of payment in the vast majority of European countries and, it is also used (although not as much) in Australia.
Direct Debit – What Are The Cost?
Direct Debit payments cost around $0.5 for you as a merchant to process, however, this charge, rather than happening on the processors side of the transaction, happens when the Direct Debit request hits your banking account.This in itself is god news after all, you now ensure that if a membership or product costs $35 per month, you will get virtually the full cost of that membership until such a time when the surfer cancels the direct debit at their bank.
Direct Debit – An Overview.
All in all, Direct Debit is probably one of the only payment solutions that allow you to collect the full price from your surfer at the point of sale and, furthermore, because the Direct Debit method of payment is trusted, this offers your surfers something that no other form of payment can – Peace of mind. There is however one major drawback to this method of payment, it is very hard to find processors that will allow you to utilize Direct Debit on your sites in fact, to date, the main use for the Direct Debit payment method has been payments of utility bills, Gas, Electricity, Water Supply, etc however, many financial institutes will let you pay for goods and services using Direct Debit on ‘credit’ terms which can vary from 1 day to a year interest free or, not as the case so often is.I strongly feel that within the next 12 months this method of payment could become advantageous to the adult webmaster however, the current online payment processors need to be pushed in order for this to become as widespread as credit and debit card processing is. That said, there are a few online adult companies already accepting Direct Debit as a form of payment so, at least the ‘DD’ revolution has already started.
Article written by Lee
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Undeveloped Domains – Put Them To Use
Often when searching for new domain names, i come across what should, in theory be a golden opportunity only to find, the domain itself has already been registered and, whilst this in itself is annoying, what is even more annoying is that the domain 404’s when typed into the browser window.
The mere fact that someone else, a webmaster no less, has thought about purchasing the same domain as what you may have means there is already value in that domain and, more importantly, you have potentially lost a sale.
So how can we capitalize on this potential lost traffic from the off-set? That is what we will look at in this brief article.
The first thing we need to do in order to start making some additional potential profit from our domain is to create a ‘generic’ holding page until such time that we have the time or, funding, to develop the site we had intended to place on our new domain name.
This holding page can take many forms depending on the type of traffic you are hoping to target with the domain itself. Ideally, you will want to have as much choice for the surfer (or webmaster) on this holding page as you can so, you need to assess the nest types of sites to use, the best use of the traffic no matter how small it could be and, more importantly, the best way to maximize your sales potential.
One good way of doing this is to split the page into three sections, two equal sized sections at the top portion of the page and, one smaller portion towards the very base of the page designed, almost like a footer.
In the two top portions you should equally distribute both surfer orientated and, webmaster orientated links both of which need to be clearly separated.
For example, the left side of the page take all of your top converting paysites and list them by niche, they don’t have to have fancy or heavy graphics, text links will suffice for now as this is only a ‘temporary’ page.
On the right hand side of the page place some of your webmaster referral linking codes with a brief description, remembering that not only surfers could hit this page but webmasters themselves.
On the ‘footer’ portion of the page, the most important section, you should put your contact details, ideally an email address and, if the domain warrants, details of how you can be reached by instant messenger. The reason for the email and instant messenger details is a simple one, if a webmaster REALLY wants the domain that you have, he, or she, might just make you an offer on it and, if they have no way to get in touch with you then, you have just lost an offer on a domain that you might not get around to using for months.
of course, in addition to utilizing the traffic you have on the domain you can also use this holding page to generate more traffic, for example, placing a banner or button exchange code on the site or, perhaps a counter. The possibilities to generate traffic to these pages are limitless depending on how you use the holding page itself.
Well, that’s the basics of domain holding pages explained and, hopefully you will have realized that no matter what you plan on doing with your new domains, after your host has added them to your server, the next thing you should do is to create a generic holding page that you can upload into the rot of the domain name and, who knows, you might end up making some money a little sooner from that unused domain name.
Article written by Lee
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Masters Of Discipline – Have You Got What It Takes?
So you want to throw in your day job and become a full time adult Webmaster? Well yeah, I can hear you saying, “Who wouldn’t want to be surrounded by pictures of beautiful women all day, make up their own hours, and be the master of their own destiny?” It just sounds sooo good when it’s put like that doesn’t it?
Before you tell your boss you quit, you might want to read this article first, as the reality of working in this industry and especially for yourself can be a real wake up call for many.
The main thing you need to succeed in this business is discipline, and lots of it. If there are temptations when you work for someone else to slack off, take a sick day, or simply not bother showing up, then you can double those temptations when you work for yourself.
It’s so easy to roll over in the morning rather than get out of bed, stagger to the PC, and actually work.
It’s so easy to decide to take the day off when the sun is shining and the beach is calling. You simply tell yourself you’ll make up for it tonight, and then find yourself coming home at 3am.
It’s so easy to not actually work, when you work for yourself, that at times it can be unreal.
The reality of doing any of the above is longer nights, less sleep, and almost inevitably smaller paychecks.
Structure Your Day.
The answer to this problem is to really think about your working day and give it some structure, just as you would if you worked for someone else. Work set hours and take frequent breaks. When you work for someone else they make you take breaks for a variety of reasons, but mostly, because as research has proved, you’ll be more productive after one. It’s also important to make sure others know your hours as well, and always remember to add what time zone you are located in on any correspondence. There is nothing worse than being awoken by an associate at 3am because you forgot that little detail!
Set A Routine.
Get into a routine! There are various tasks that must be done each week no mater how boring. By creating a work routine, you can control your time and structure the more boring jobs at the end of the day when for most our creativity levels are less. You can also structure that routine as I do, when I’ve finished those boring tasks at the end of each day, I reward myself with some time doing what I want to do.
Going Solo.
This can be a lonely business and if you don’t like working alone then maybe it’s not the right one for you. You’ll likely spend many hours in your own company and as someone else pointed out to me, while boards and instant messengers are great, they can also eat heavily into your working time if you’re not careful. Personally, I use the boards and chats as a treat when I’ve accomplished a goal, unless I need to talk to someone in order to get that set goal done.
If, like me, your office is in your home, in reality you never really leave work. It’s just always there and there is always something else to be done, and it’s so tempting just to work a few more hours. Having the discipline to stick to your office hours is the trick and where structure comes into play. The saying all work and no play makes Jack/Jill a dull boy/girl is really true here.
The biggest trick of all though, is learning to recognize your limits. Set them and stick to them. Unlike in the normal workplace, you won’t have the big cheese or even the little one watching over your shoulder, making sure you work or making sure that your paycheck and your bills are covered each week. That’s up to you now.
Think Before You Leap.
Another thing you need to consider is can you REALLY afford to give up your day job? Working for someone else means that for the most part you will have a reliable pay check each week or month, when you work for yourself you loose that security. There are other things to consider as well like health insurance, book keeping and how exactly you are going to pay for them. Of course if there is another bread winner in the house this may not be of such a concern, but it’s still something you should consider before you give in your slip. As a general rule of thumb, if you’re considering going it alone, don’t, at least not until you have enough cash saved to cover any outgoings you might have over a six months period.
How well do you know the law? If you think the law doesn’t affect you because your just one person working from home then think again. If you don’t know your Title 18 USC 2257 from your arse then you may be heading for trouble. Standing in front of a judge and saying I didn’t know won’t get you out of a heavy fine or even a prison sentence.
The real questions you need to ask yourself now are you up to the challenge, and do you have the personal discipline to make this work for you?
Article written by Jenne.
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Why Go Adult?
When choosing a hosting company why choose an adult host over a mainstream one?
Simple, They provide above other things, a better quality of service, affordability and, most importantly, reliability.
Adult hosts face a variety of technical and support issues, this coupled with the points mentioned above makes them a far superior choice to standard mainstream hosting providers. This is one of the main factors why more and more mainstream internet based companies are now turning to the adult business forum to provide their hosting solutions.
Mainstream going adult? Yes that’s right, more and more mainstream companies are turning to our industries hosting providers for the fast speeds, security and, reliable infrastructures they can offer after all, adult sites are amongst the most prolific on the internet on average gaining more daily hits to their sites than mainstream websites so, they need to be cost efficient, not only to the hosting companies but, also to their clients, the webmaster.
Our industry strives on the use of heavy graphics, coupled with streaming media files to secure sales and longevity, this is why the adult hosting companies need to be able to provide not just a single, heavily laden server but tens of them, sometimes even hundreds all producing gigabytes of traffic on a daily basis.
Adult hosting companies are constantly upgrading their equipment in order to improve not just their servers, connectivity but also the smaller things that are often overlooked by webmasters, hubs, routers, switches and the likes along side the not so technical aspects of running a host, The staff.
Along with all of this technical equipment they also need to maintain a high level of technical knowledge, after all, not just anyone can install operating systems capable of running multi-million dollar industries. They need the knowledge to maintain, upgrade, repair and sell their services to the best of their capabilities.
What does this mean to you? Well, we all want to make money and, through the use of faster servers, e-commerce solutions and the technical support your hosting provider can give you, you will be fattening your wallet on a daily, weekly, monthly basis.
Adult hosting, quite simply, is the crème de la crème of the hosting world, they offer solid, solutions whether you are starting in the adult industry or, operate a mainstream e-commerce site.
So how do you choose a host that is right for you?
You need to ask some basic questions of the host and, do your homework. Not only should you find out what hosting solutions they can offer you but, you need to find out what their support service is like, how affordable they are in comparison to other companies who can offer similar or the same service. Whilst on the subject of hosting support, before you sign on the dotted line, give your host a call out of office hours, if they answer, then you can almost be certain they are a good hosting provider.
Of course, not all hosts will have 24 hour phone support, however, that said, some offer 24 hour icq support, email support and more.
Another sure fire way to find out if a hosting company is any good is to ask on the heavily traveled webmaster message boards, after all, you are not the only webmaster out there who will have tried this company, if they are no good, someone will know about it and point you in the direction of a reputable host like http://www.webair.com.
Hopefully, this article will have given you some insight into the world of adult hosting companies and, will assist you in making the right choice of host for your site, whatever type of website you might be hosting.
Article Written By Lee
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Building Your Own Opt In Mailing List
Despite the constant launch of ‘new and improved’ email collection programs one of the more popular emails I receive each month ask how webmasters can actually start their own opt-in email list for surfers. Surprisingly enough, this is a fairly simple process and, should only realistically take a webmaster 10-15 minutes to have an opt-in email script installed.
However, the second type of email I get from webmasters who have already installed one of these scripts is asking how they can ensure that surfers sign up to their lists this is what I will approach in this article.
One of the easiest ways to make sure surfers join your opt0in list is to offer them a financial gain by doing so, I don’t mean you should literally pay them for their email address but, why not offer them something for free? A daily picture by email, free porn site access etc etc.
The next biggest mistake I find are that webmasters simply place a collection box saying something like ‘enter your email address here for our newsletter’ and, lets be honest, it isn’t very enticing. Ideally you need to have a ‘headline’ that will catch the surfers attention and actually ‘make’ them want to join your list. Be specific yet be vague (bit hard I know) and you’ll soon see your list grow from one new subscriber a week to hundreds of them!
The next thing you need to take into consideration is how quickly, not only your site, but the page with your collection box loads, if you are using a pop-up console, make sure it is heavy in text not graphics with the first words at the top not saying ‘free porn’ but a similar meaning text, everyone and their dog has seen the words ‘free porn’ on countless other porn sites. Yours NEEDS to stand out!
You should use an effective title if you are going to be using pop-up windows for your email collection. in the title bar don’t have the window called ‘pop-up’ have it named appropriately for the niche you are trying to collect the surfers email address from. Make it relevant, make it concise.
Balance the collection page, any type of page you build for your site should at least be appealing to the eye. Meaning that your fonts, colors and actual text need to contrast together perfectly. If you do use images on this page try to have them prominent yet not overbearing to the surfer.
Offer a way to close a pop-up if this is what you are using to collect the emails after all, they (the surfer) may decide they don’t want to give you their email until they have seen what your site can offer. In the same way, make sure you have a link from your sites to your collection page so, if a surfer decides they do want to give you their email address they can do it without the need of closing your site and reloading it afresh.
Overall however, the best rule you can follow is to keep to the point and keep it simple. This way you will gain the surfers attention quickly and easily and, the surfer will not be distracted from the main purpose of having them on your site – getting to your sponsor.
Hopefully the information above will enable you to start having some more success with your traffic and, once you have the surfers email address make sure you treat it with the respect you would want your own to be treat with, an email address is a sacred thing to most surfers, if you Spam them daily they will leave your opt-in list quickly however, if you send them a ‘newsletter’ once a week / month filled with relevant information you will soon find your list growing exponentially.
Article written by Lee.
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Blogging For Traffic – An Alternate View
Just recently the adult industry seems to have gone ‘blog’ crazy in fact, it is almost a daily occurrence that webmasters mention a blog of some description on several message forums however, when it comes down to it, does blogging really matter at all? This is what we will take a look at in this article.
What Is A Weblog Or Blog?
A Weblog, or ‘Blog’ for short, is a kind of website or a part of a website. It is usually, but not always, run by a single person and they publish bits of writing on the Weblog. These bits of writing, called ‘entries’ or ‘posts,’ generally appear on the front page of the weblog in reverse chronological order, that is, with the newest entry at the top of the page, with older entries progressively further down.So How Can Blogging Help Me?
Quite honestly, I don’t think it can. Think about it for a moment, you spend an hour or so a day writing a page in your online journal only for it to be erased or archived at a later date, doesn’t that seem strange to you? Instead of blogging why don’t you actually do something constructive such as making a .html page out of the text you were going to use for your blog, keyword it up and upload that directly onto your server? After all this in itself will benefit you in the long term much more than a quick page that will eventually disappear from existence. Of course there will always be those people who do successfully use blogs as a part of their marketing strategy and, kudos to them however, looking at the bigger picture, it makes much more sense to have a fresh HTML page which will remain indefinitely on your site that you can keyword and SEO for the search engines rather than something that is going to become relatively short lived.Blogging – Overview.
To be perfectly honest with you, all of this talk of creating a blog to get additional traffic is, in itself just ‘hype’ unless you have a source of blog owners to link back to your blog or, an hour or so to kill each day wasting your time writing your blog your time really would be much better served coding HTML pages. After all, HTML pages have worked for the last 30 years, why all of a sudden have webmasters stopped using them?Article written by Lee.
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So That’s What It Means!
Often you will hear other webmaster talking about things such as unique hits, banner exchanges and, AVS systems. The article below is a simplified glossary of those and many other terms that you will begin to hear day in and day out of your working life as an adult webmaster.
AVS (Adult Verification System)
The protection system that was designed to prevent minors from accessing adult sites. AVS services usually also have a large network of sites that adult surfers can access with one password. You can find a list of Age Verification Systems at Adult Sponsor ProgramsAVS Site
A site that uses an AVS system.Banner Exchange
A program that enables an exchange of traffic between a whole variety of adult sites. They provide you with some coding which you put in your HTML in order to get additional visitors to your adult site. You can visit: Porn Client for a highly respected Banner Exchange System.Blind Links
When you place a misleading link on a site that will encourage the surfer to click on it. They will be sent to a new site that has nothing to do with what they expected to see. For example, if you had a text link saying ‘Free Porn’ and they get sent to a paysite when they click on the link.Browser
A program that displays and navigates web pages you are using a browser now to view this page.Chargeback
A chargeback is what happens when a surfer changes their mind or decides they don’t like the site or service they signed up for and tells their credit card company they will not pay the fee for your sponsor or paysite charges. Chargebacks are bad for everyone concerned because do you not only lose income for the sale, penalties are applied and sometimes they are applied to you.Click-Thru Program
A sponsorship program that pays you an amount of money for each and every single visitor you send to their site. You can also find a list of per click sponsors at Adult Sponsor Programs.Content Provider
A company that offer adults pictures, video clips for sale or lease. For a complete list of the best content providers head over to http://www.adult-content-providers.com.Dead Or Broken Link
A link that is no longer valid or isn’t working. When you click on the link you get a page not found error.E-Zine
An E-Zine is in simplified terms and online magazine.FTP (File Transfer Protocol)
You need to upload (FTP) your web pages from your computer on to the web for everyone to see. One of the most well known FTP clients is Cute FTP.Hits
Number of times your page was viewed over a specific period of time.Hit Counter
Tool used to track the number of surfers that click onto your adult site. A good hit counter can be found at: http://www.sextracker.comHot-Linking
When someone links to an image on your server to display it on their site instead of linking to the image on their own server. You can prevent Hot-Linking by having a .htaccess file on your server.HTML (HyperText Markup Language)
This is the language used to write web pages. This page is written in HTML.ISP
Your internet service provider. AOL is a well known ISP.Java
A programming language used by programmers to build and create programs. Not to be confused with JavaScript (see below).JavaScript
A scripting language you can directly insert into HTML documents. They only work with surfers that have Java enabled on their browser.Legal Content
Adult content for which you have rights to display on your site.Model Release
Document that a model signs at the time the photographs of them are taken.Message Board
A message board is a place where you can ask and offer advice about the industry or just generally chat with other adult webmasters for example the message board at: http://www.europeanwebmasters.com.Newbie
A new adult webmaster.Partnership, Sponsor or, Affiliate Program
A revenue program that pays you a percentage or fixed price for every member you send to your sponsor’s site.Pay Site
An adult website where surfers have to pay a fee for access.Pic Post
A site where you can submit a picture and your ad on a daily basis.Plug In
A plug in is a ready-made type of web “CONTENT”. Many plug in providers will even host the content on their servers and allow you to change colors, Fonts and, add a logo graphic, so the plug in matches your site. Plug In content is generally more expensive than image content.Ratio
A ratio like this refers to click throughs and actual sales made from them. When a webmaster says they got a 1:250 ratio, they mean that out of 250 people who clicked on his sponsor banner, one of the surfers paid for memberships.Signup Ratio
The amount of surfers that paid to view your adult site (See the example above headed RATIO).Spamming
Promoting a site or service to newsgroups or e-mail addresses that have not given you permission to do so. Spamming can also mean posting your referral codes on message boards constantly inn order to get other webmasters to sign up beneath you.TGP (Thumbnail Gallery Post)
A site where you can submit your gallery pages. They in return put up your gallery and send you additional traffic.Thumbnail
A smaller version of an image used to link to a larger version of the same image.Turnkey Site
An adult site that is already designed and finished with logos, content, billing solutions and, hosting. All you have to do is maintain the site. Newbies often make the mistake of buying a turnkey site before they properly know how to market them.Traffic
The term used to refer to the amount of visitors to your adult website over a specific period of time.Uniques
Number of visitors to your site. If 10 surfers visit your site on any given day and 2 of them click onto your site 3 times the same day, it will be referred to as 8 unique visitors for that day.URL
A web address. Actual address to a page would be a URL. For example: http://www.adultwebmasternewsletter.com is the URL to our Adult Webmaster Newsletter Site.Warning or Entry Page
The page before a surfer sees the main content of your site.Web Host
A company that will provide you with a hosting account so that you may upload your website on their server so that surfers may see your site. For a reputable host you might like to try http://www.webair.com.Article written by Lee
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Gay Industry Networking – The Gay Boards
Gay Industry Networking – The Gay Boards.
With so many ways for webmasters marketing straight sites in the adult industry to network I started to look at the various alternatives available to those webmasters who market gay sites to network and, although there are a few different ones about, they still seem to be few and far between.So What Boards Are There For Gay Webmasters?
Presently, to my knowledge there are four dedicated gay boards that webmasters can utilize for networking purposes in the adult industry with several straight orientated resource sites having a gay board also these are as follows:The Gay Boards:
Rock Me Hard
Triple X Gay
Gay Webmaster Chat
Gay Wide WebmastersThe Straight Sites With Gay Boards:
Obviously my favorite is The Gay Board at Gay Wide Webmasters but i am slightly biased towards that seeing as its one that we own privately however, the other boards are almost certainly worth a visit in addition to the GWW community forums.
So what do these gay boards offer those marketing to the gay surfer that the straight boards cant? Simply put, it can offer you a place to network without fear of ridicule from your colleagues and peers in addition you will find that a lot of these gay boards have a wealth of information about the gay market being posted on them on an almost daily basis.
It is also worth mentioning however that just with the numerous straight orientated message boards, the gay boards do have their own individual feel to them, for example, Rock Me Hard is what I would personally classify as a ‘fun’ board and Shelmal does a great job keeping the spirit of the board going likewise, Gay Webmaster Chat is more a board geared towards webmasters who operate traffic sites such as TGP’s and Link Lists which becomes apparent after reading a few threads. Gay Wide Webmasters is more a board with a wide reach but, primarily, it is a business orientated gay webmaster community and Triple X Gay, because it is fairly new is still, imho, trying to identify the direction it wants to take but non the less, a lot of the forum members posting there also post on GWW.
The Gay Board – An Overview.
When all is said and done, no matter whether you are gay, straight, black, white or any other demographic, focusing your attention to one type of board can become counter productive after a while, I mean how often can you hear from the same people over and over again before being given the same information again and again? Diversify your posting activities to include some of the gay market community forums and at the same time, you will also diversify your business knowledge which, im sure you will agree, is good for everyone, especially you and your bank account.Article written by Lee
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Using Full Page Ad’s
Full page ad’s can be used for more than just ‘adverts’ in fact, there is a wide and varied range of uses for them, below I have detailed some of the uses that I have tried in the past and from my experience, they seem to work well enough.
Creating A ‘Hub’ Site – By interlinking FPA’s together in a range of niches and, offering your surfers a money bar linking to other FPA’s in different niches, you can actually get some good rankings in the SE’s and, if you utilize banner exchanges or counters on your FPA ‘hub’ site you can also ensure you get a fair amount of additional traffic. One thing I like to do with my FPA hub is use it as the ‘exit’ page when a surfer leaves one of my sites. This ensures that I am getting optimum traffic for my time spent a) building sites and B) building my hub.A lot of people I have spoken to about ‘hub’ sites simply forget about them once they have been built, personally, I do not see the point in doing this, if you build something like this why not send your exit, top list, counter, banner exchange traffic to the first page of your ‘hub’?
Doorway Pages.
FPA’s also make exceptional SE doorway pages, by optimizing your image names, meta tags and text on the individual FPA’s you are not only ensuring they WILL get ranked by the SE’s but, if you ‘hub’ them together as explained above you will also get some premium listings from them.
Filter Pages.
What I learnt to do early on is rather than send my surfers directly to the sponsors using the ‘standard’ linking codes is to send them first to an FPA with a money bar (or table ad) on it, this way, if they click the link in error and not realize that they are going to a pay site, you can give them an option, not only to use their ‘back’ button but also, to go to a different niche or, to continue into the sponsors tour. Now that you can link directly to a specific tour page on ARS sites, this method is a good way to give your surfers a ‘fresh’ tour front page.
PPC Listings.
An FPA is an ideal way to get sites listed in the PPC engines, not only do you show the surfers EXACTLY what is in the site they have just clicked on but, you also have the added option of being able to utilize blur consoles and exit consoles on them.
One other thing that I will mention, is that often, you will find that FPA’s that you have made yourself, no matter how ‘amateur’ looking they are will work better than the ‘pretty’ sponsor built FPA’s.
Hopefully, this article has given you some ideas on how you can better utilize FPA’s and not just use them in the same manner as every other adult site on the internet. If you have some good results from using FPA’s in this manner feel free to post about it on the ARSR Support forums and likewise, if you can think of any additional uses that have not been mentioned here let us know on the forums.
Article written by Lee
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Anime Adult Content – Why Is It So Hard To Find?
I have been asked by many people to explain the Anime/Toon niche, why the content is so hard to find, and why it is more expensive than other content. So to that end, I am writing this article in hopes that it will answer those questions and perhaps others.
First of all, it might be good to review the terms used for this niche. Some of these you may be familiar with, others may be new. In Japan, the term used to discuss or describe “pretty young girls” is “bishoujo” (pronounced “bee-shoh-jo”) This term can be seen (or heard) in any advertisement or publication that covers such works. This literally means “pretty young girl” or “pretty girl” – or, if you like, we might also translate this as
“fair lady”. In Japanese, “bi-” means “beauty” or “beautiful” and “shoujo” means “girl” or “young girl” (note the long “o” sound… the short “o” word, “shojo”, means “maiden” or “virgin”, so it has a different meaning altogether.) With respect to terms such as “ecchi”, “hentai” or “sukebe”, the meanings tend to be a matter of degrees. The first term is the most commonly used – we’d say “naughty” or something similar, meaning naughty in a sexual sense of being naughty. “Hentai” or “sukebe”, on the other hand, are extremely rude terms to use – they do not mean just “adult” as some people think, and they do not even only mean “perverted” or “perverted in a sexual sense”. They imply “sexual pervert” in an extremely negative connotation – the type of thing we might scream “LECHER!” or “RAPIST!” or “STALKER!” about, for example. Since Japan places great importance on levels of politeness, speaking out loud about “hentai” or “sukebe” is not something that is normally done – it’s perhaps equivalent to walking down a street or sidewalk in America and swearing out loud like a trooper. In Japanese popular culture works such as anime, manga, and games, the terms tend to be used as exclamations of insult or disgust to elicit a comedic response from the audience – we do the same in some of our mature comedies that contain comments or situations that would never truly happen in real life. The common misuse of the term “hentai” is somewhat similar to the formerly common misuse of the term “Japanimation”. It took a lot of work over many years to get the general public to learn the simple term “anime” and get stores to replace signage to read “anime” rather than “Japanimation” – to this day, there are still various dealers or stores or sites that use “Japanimation” and do not understand the term “anime”. Manga refers to “comic books” or illustrated erotic stories; most manga that is created in Japan is done in the traditional black and white, or pen and ink style.Now here in the United States we commonly use Anime or Hentai to describe all art that is done in the Japanese style, and use the word cartoon to describe what we traditionally think of as American animation, such as Disney, Batman, Tom & Jerry, or my favorite The Road Runner. J In the Adult business however, “toons” basically covers anything other than Anime. It is difficult to change the traditional mindset since it is so embedded in our vocabulary, so much so that I even list content under hentai on my site, simply because no one knows to look or ask for ecchi or bishoujo. But webmasters are learning through research and articles such as this, to market the products by their proper names more and more, which will make it easier to break into markets other than North America.
Now on the subject of why the content is so rare and hard to find with legal web license. Japanese artists and companies are very hesitant to strike deals outside of their country when it comes to their artworks. The reason for this has a lot to do with the enormous amount of piracy on the web of these images. In Japan, single images which we think of as normal content for galleries, is extremely rare. Most images that can be seen throughout the net and the newsgroups come from Japanese Animated movies and video games. These images or stills are lifted directly from the movie or game and are traded freely among fansites and newsgroups with total disregard to the artists or developers. Unfortunately, there are also places out there that sell or lease these images as well, so know your provider! Now of course, this is not a phenomena that plagues only this niche as we know, but the Japanese are very sensitive about it, and that is why they hesitate to license out their single image artwork. There are a few content companies out there that have such images available, but the number is limited. Of course there are hopes and plans to expand their availability soon. J
Because such content is not readily available in large amounts from Japan, other content has to be created to fill a need for legal content in the adult industry. And the creation of that content is what makes it more expensive than your normal picture content. For anime or cartoon content, an artist must create an original image from his or her imagination, they must sketch the image, and color and shade the image, then scan the image and ready it for display on the net. With the obvious exception of what is known as CGI (computer generated images) each image is hand drawn and colored and can take an artist anywhere from several hours to days to complete. He or she can not just click a button on a camera and walk away with 200 or so images for a days work. So when you are buying anime or toon content, you are truly paying for a piece of art (with web license!). If you spent all day designing, building and painting a birdhouse for example, would you sell it for less than you put into it? Remember to, that the return on an investment in high quality anime/toon content can much higher than average photo content, simply because the niche is so hot and members are very loyal when they find what they like. It only takes one per sign up sale at any of the big sponsors out there to pay for a set of 25 images, and there are a lot of sponsors to choose from now too! The past year has seen a huge addition of Anime and Toon pay sites; because the sponsors know there is money in this niche!
Another great source of revenue from this niche is the very games and movies of which I wrote earlier. RPG Adult Anime games are hugely popular as are the large libraries of animated films imported from Japan. Translated into English and affordably priced, up sales on these items are great way to add income to the traffic you already have! For more information on this, just drop me an email.
I hope this has helped you understand this niche a bit better, and helps you appreciate the work that goes into it. I love this particular niche, and not only because I sell the content, but because of its uniqueness and beauty.
Article written by Bestat.
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