I get asked this question all the time. I will tell you my honest opinion although many others may disagree depending on their background. Some people are nothing but traffic guys, and work the affilate and traffic broker game. Others are looking to do their own pay sites, and maybe produce their own content one day. While others do not care about any of that shit and simply want to make money from their home and in their underwear.

In my opinion the easiest way to start in the adult industry is with a clip store. It is low risk, and as long as you follow the routine daily, you should easily get your R.O.I. in a few months and  from there you expand. However, before you go head strong into the adult industry you need to keep in mind that your success and failure resides completely on YOU. I can give you all the best advice on the planet, 13 years of experience, what I would recommend you do based on your knowledge, cash, and skill sets. But if you do not listen. There is nothing to keep you from ending up in the shitter. Adult online is the same as any other business. You have to put in the WORK. Obviously, there are some perks. Freedom, and working in your panties from home.  That said, let’s get rolling.

This is going to be a basic business outline you would follow assuming your end goal is to develop your own pay sites, and possibly your own content. Before you get to that point, REGARDLESS of how much money you have, you should follow these steps. They obviously are not going to make you millions over night. But you WILL learn the skills you need to make money online.

1. Go to your local county clerk’s office and register a business D.B.A. (doing business as).

2. Go to your local bank and open up a BUSINESS checking account, and get your credit/debit card that goes with it.

3. Research the niche you want to start out in. There is a lot of good content out there you can get for a few thousand dollars that would last you for YEARS of updates. I  would recommend you get into something you like personally. You are going to have to look at this stuff daily. So it would make you life more enjoyable if it is something you are passionate about. But you can always go more mainstream hardcore if you like. You may just need to work harder.

4. After you have picked a niche(s), then you need a domain. This will be important for a pay site later, branding, and watermarking your clips. I have written a tutorial on how to find good domain names in that section.

5. I would get a virtual hosting account. This is going to be for your banners, your gallery submits, posting up pictures to forums and other things. Virtual hosting is about as low as you can go, and be dependable. If you use a free host or something similar, they can nuke you and your content at any time. There is nothing more annoying that working for a month, and then have your content killed because you broke some Terms of Service or became high bandwidth. Hosting, in time, will be the life line of your business. You need to invest in a decent one for everything from hosting your site, promotion materials, branded email and DNS/domain management.

6.  Next, you need to sign up for your clip stores. There are a number of them out there now a days, but really the only two I have found that make you decent money are Clips4Sale and Clips.com. The terms vary, and I prefer C4S myself, but typically you are looking at a 60/40 or 50/50 type of split.  For their end, they are taking care of the billing, hosting, and other b.s. that they take on their end. While not the best deal around, it is a decent deal.

7. Once you get your content, you are going to want to watermark you clips. There is a tutorial to do it with one of the mid range programs I use, and recommend. There are higher and lower end on the market. I also use Premiere and Sorenson Squeeze, depending on if the clip is a re-run, or a 1st release, etc.. But I digress…

So you watermark you FULL LENGTH clips. Once you have done that, you would then want to cut your clips into sections. Some do this, some do not, it’s up to you. I am giving you a very basic overview of what has worked for me. So you do say maybe two  week’s worth to start. Watermarking and compressing your FULL LENGTH, and the cutting into sections. I like to do three pieces. So if a clip is 10 minutes long, I do 3 minutes per. You can’t be less that 2 minutes on a Clip Store.

Continued later…