It's just the damnedest thing.
I have a few posts up on this blog that have individually gotten thousands of hits, presumably to download the pictures in the post. To me this means people are interested enough to bother downloading at least some of my work. Yet only a relatively tiny number of people sign up on my paysite.
I know I'm moving good traffic through here. I know hundreds of people a month move through my paysite. But I'm too embarrassed and disappointed to say how few actual subscribers I have over there. I've actually lost a third of my business over the last year since the first month I started.
I dont think anyone's even really pirating my stuff. I'm almost insulted!
We've gone on ad infinitum about how most visitors to my blog are only interested in free porn. But after a year up, my paysite has had less than .001% or less of it's visitors part with 12 bucks to see more. The percentage of subscribers is almost non existent, statistically speaking. It isn't traffic that's lacking, certainly. It isn't lack of depth at this point either. I don't think my work sucks that bad usually. I post every Sunday without fail.
What's missing? Is my work too boring? Is there too much of my amateur work up on my website samples?
Making more ISM stories has had zero effect on sales and ISM is some of the most heavily downloaded work on this blog
This is really baffling.
I have a few posts up on this blog that have individually gotten thousands of hits, presumably to download the pictures in the post. To me this means people are interested enough to bother downloading at least some of my work. Yet only a relatively tiny number of people sign up on my paysite.
I know I'm moving good traffic through here. I know hundreds of people a month move through my paysite. But I'm too embarrassed and disappointed to say how few actual subscribers I have over there. I've actually lost a third of my business over the last year since the first month I started.
I dont think anyone's even really pirating my stuff. I'm almost insulted!
We've gone on ad infinitum about how most visitors to my blog are only interested in free porn. But after a year up, my paysite has had less than .001% or less of it's visitors part with 12 bucks to see more. The percentage of subscribers is almost non existent, statistically speaking. It isn't traffic that's lacking, certainly. It isn't lack of depth at this point either. I don't think my work sucks that bad usually. I post every Sunday without fail.
What's missing? Is my work too boring? Is there too much of my amateur work up on my website samples?
Making more ISM stories has had zero effect on sales and ISM is some of the most heavily downloaded work on this blog
This is really baffling.
part of that may be me and peeps like me. i check your blog more than your website.
ReplyDeleteyou may want to watch this yahoo group. some of us are members of it.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/invisiblesex4/
You may want to check the post there Will. He joined a while back. As for subscribers, people can be fickle. You had some issues when you first started, but you've sorted those out and have made things run quite smoothly. However, that first few months of pitfalls may have hurt you more then you think. Still that isn't something to fret too much about.
ReplyDeleteWhen the BE Storyclub started they took the same format as what people now call kick starter, where they made HUGE promises to pre-paying subscribers. The one that comes to mind first was that if you signed up and paid by a certain date, you would get founding member status. This entitled that any story idea you had could be sent to their "... vast team of professional writers and artist, and turned into a comic to be displayed on the site." Looking back now I wonder who was more naive, me for thinking they WOULD actually make my idea, or them for thinking they COULD fufill such an overwhelming promise.
Well suffice it to say, they got more than enough of us to sign up to create their wing and a prayer company. Only problem was they didn't have the means to do what they said. In fact it was almost a year from the date that they promised the first comic would be released before any content was published.
"There's a point to me saying all this, which I'll sum up now."
Initially, they made a lot of mistakes. But they hung in with it and made it work. It took several years for them to get a decent foothold on how to sell themselves. In recent time they, like many online games have shifted away from monthly subscriptions and instead adapted the pay for content method. Not saying you should do the same, but they followed what the current market is trending to.
Your an artist, you focus on the creative side. The business side may not be something you can control like pen and pencils when you draw. So don't approach it in the same manner.
I do admit that I'm nobody's idea of a business person. I'm coming at this website with a lot of naivety and the results others have gotten led me to expect the same result, which was silly in retrospect.
DeleteI hadn't thought about the damage I may have done myself initially. That makes sense. It can take a while to recover from that I'm sure.
I'm doing some Catfight work for the first time in a year along with the Sector13 stuff for MBC. Maybe that will help remind people I'm here.
opps i missed that. i guess if nothing else my post there is a reminder that slid does ism.
ReplyDeleteThanks Will.
DeleteSlid, I'd also point out that we are in the middle of a nasty recession that isn't picking up with a damn and won't for at least another election.
ReplyDeleteLot of folks just don't have much discretionary income right now. I had to choose between your site and MBC for the time being and decided to stick with you.
Hang in there.
Slid, I'd also point out that we are in the middle of a nasty recession that isn't picking up with a damn and won't for at least another election.
ReplyDeleteLot of folks just don't have much discretionary income right now. I had to choose between your site and MBC for the time being and decided to stick with you.
Hang in there.
This is what M9 keeps saying too. This is the worst time to be starting a website. It's the definition of discretionary income.
DeleteI'm hanging in, btw. I may need to get a day job, but SSSC will keep on going.
DeleteDo you know that guy at Deviantart doing daily Wonder Woman stories with Poser or Daz? You could try something similar like adapting old WW episodes just to create buzz about your business. It's very rare for me to see people talking about you in the Superheroine forums even thought you be one of the best artists doing fetish stuff imho. In the art business the *buzz* is your best marketing tool.
ReplyDeleteI guess I had kind of dismissed the buzz idea since I seem to move so much traffic through here and at the website. But yeah, if I google my name or the website name nothing much comes up. I need to do something like that, that's for sure. I hadn't really thought about Deviant Art. I haven't done much Superheroine stuff either and that's supposed to be the most popular genre.
DeleteThanks for the compliment, Mazz. I appreciate it.
or multiple artists may need to team up to make something like this work? or be more profitable
ReplyDeleteHard to make that work. One artist can end up carrying the load or being more popular and hard feelings can ensue. I've talked this over before with another artist and at the end neither of us really liked the idea. Thanks, though RPGirl. Welcome, btw.
DeleteI'd prefer paypal option for payments, I don't feel comfortable typing in my credit card details to every site I subscribe to.
ReplyDeleteThis may sound obvious, but lowering the price could help more people sign up. Lower cost and easier forms of payment could increase your business.
If you think about it, even for something like netflix that has lots of great entertainment value, people think long and hard before they part with even 7.99.
I really do believe lowering your price to something more reasonable would get a lot more people on board.
Anon
DeletePaypal is an issue that comes up periodically. The problem is that Paypal has a strict no-porn policy. If they see you signing up subscribers to an adult site they'll pull the plug on you and keep whatever money you may have in the system. In other words, they are hostile and unreasonable to folks like us. As are Visa Mastercard, Amex etc. etc. We can barely do business with any middleman as it is. There aren't a lot of options we can make available to customers, unfortunately.
I don't think that lowering prices to get more customers would actually work. I might indeed get more customers but loose money in the end. My prices are competitive with other artists doing the same thing. Netflix does a lot more volume than almost anyone and can offer streaming at a low price, so I don't feel that you've made a fair comparison here. Go look at Smudge who is making real money doing this and charges $15 a month. The recession never affected his business because his fans are so dedicated to the site and rightfully enjoy his excellent work. But why that is? Good question with elusive answers.
Dear Slid, I think your art is awesome, The Mom's Weekend Visit being my favorite, and your membership fee is reasonable.
ReplyDeleteI actually subscribed for a month once, was a little disappointed that
I was not able to download some of the comics to my computer.
I personally would like to see more MILFs on lads and M/son stories
more in full color and less Aliens,Superhero, less torture and all kind of unrealistic characters.
What gets me going is more realistic stuff with realistic characters.
Hope this input helps
Bman
Bman
ReplyDeleteGood to hear from you. It seems to me you've posted before, am I wrong?
You should be able to down load from the website onto your computer. Nothing I post is in Flash so it's basically wide open to you once you pay 12 bucks. I can't imagine why you might be prevented from downloading freely.
I may be making the mistake of trying to please too many people in terms of content. I did experiment a bit with the M/son story. In the course of doing that story I lost about a third of the business I had. I truthfully don't know why but the change in subject matter and solidifying my schedule at least stopped the bleeding. I've kind of been leary of the incest thing since then. I only heard negative reactions to it as well, if memory serves, which does get my attention.
While there is a demand for Incest/MILF work, Superheroines are probably the most reliable and stable attractor of subscribers in the small industry we have.
Have I done torture?
Thanks for the vote on realism. I tend to like to go back and forth between realism and cartoony work just to keep my sanity. Specialization in one style and subject matter runs the risk of burnout over the long term and I don't want to feel trapped in one way of working. I'll keep your preferences in mind, though.
Hey Slid, I am surprised to know that Incest/MILF work is not in demand for you, seeing that "Jab", "Milftoon" or "Taboolicious" or "Pandora" for example are some of the most popular adult cartoons out there doing just that type of work.
DeleteYou might want to post some samples of your work out there onto a few different thumb posts, I just don't think that many people out there really know who you are.
And it really sucks to know that you not having too much success with you site because your drawings are really good.
I've actually tried to get work with Milftoon, but got a rather odd response to the negative for reasons I don't understand. I don't recall them being very clear at any rate.
DeleteYes I'm beginning to get the idea that no one knows about me in the various communities that are out there. You're not the first to mention that.
My intention is to put my work on Hentai Factory and some pin up stuff on Deviant. I just need to get regular time to produce drawings on a regular basis. I'm gonna have to loose some sleep I guess.