There are many platforms these days that give everyone the power of being their own producer: OnlyFans, Pornhub, FanCentro, Clips4sale, ManyVids … they’re great. I got my start by producing on Clips4Sale in 2010, and it’s worked out well for me. By 2011, though, I already saw the need to build my own stand-alone website where I manage and own everything. Here’s why.
First of all: the money. It isn’t irregular to get 1,000 paying members for a paysite and some of my sites cost $34.99 per month. I only have to update each site four times a month and I can shoot four updates in one single shoot; they don’t all need cum shots. So for every standalone site I own, I just need to pay for one shoot per month. Do that math, and I can afford to pay models higher than their standard day rates while profiting quite a bit.
I actually make a lot more money now paying other people to fuck than I did when I was in the scenes myself. I’m pretty sure I can keep directing and producing for another 20 years if I have to.
Second, age happens to all of us. I’m 41 years old. I’m not the performer I was when I was 27. It takes me a lot longer to cum and sometimes my body just won’t do the difficult positions anymore. Expecting myself to be on camera 3-5 days a week isn’t realistic for me. I needed a way to work myself out of the scenes and into an executive role in my business. I could not have done that by relying on my Twitter and IG followings to join my OnlyFans. It wasn’t easy and it took time, but now I’m only in front of the camera when I really, really want to be. I actually make a lot more money now paying other people to fuck than I did when I was in the scenes myself. I’m pretty sure I can keep directing and producing for another 20 years if I have to.
Third, is equity. You can’t sell your premium social media when you want to retire. I know very few people who sold their clip stores, and not many of them found someone to pay a lump sum to buy them out. Occasionally, I’ve heard about people retiring and letting someone else run their clip stores, but there’s no real “cash out” at the end. I’ve talked to a few adult business brokers and apparently I can sell my stand-alone network of paysites (Pervout) for two times the yearly profit without trying too hard. If I wanted to do that today, I would have well over $1 million to retire on.
I’m only 41 and honestly I can’t think of anything I’d rather do, so I’m staying in the game to grow that number. I worked hard to make this a real option for me. I had to get myself out of the scenes, so anyone could buy my business and run it. I also had to build strong email lists and affiliate relationships. With a few more years of hard work and reinvesting in my network, I’m confident I can make Pervout somewhat of a household name. Of course, I had to figure out how to build my own network of standalone sites first. It’s all a little difficult, but not impossible. Spending a day reading wikis on how the back-ends of paysites work wasn’t fun. But, it was a lot easier than subbing for a BDSM shoot in a cold basement. I worry about so many of my friends who aren’t putting the work in to get equity out of their porn career, and what they will be doing in 20 or so years.
Finally, there’s financial security. What happens if a platform decides to stop working with sex workers and only work with celebrities? What happens if one decides to change the way they do payouts for ad revshare? What happens if they change the basic functionality of a site in a way that no longer works for you? Everything changes over time. So after spending however many months or years getting your game dialed in for your main platform, I get it, it wasn’t easy, and you’re scared to do anything else now. I did this on Clips4Sale. I had it all figured out after a few months and I thought I’d never need to do anything else. Then, things changed. Suddenly, I went from making $12,000 per month to $4000. If you own your own sites, all you have to worry about is keeping your 1,000 or so members happy. That’s a much easier job than competing on someone else’s platform, who may not tell you the rules of their game, or what their future plans are.
So, obviously I’m a proponent of performers building their own sites and not just relying on platforms. How do you do it? People ask me that a lot. And I’ve tried to teach over 100 performers what I do, but it’s just not scalable one on one. So, I’m in the process of completely relaunching my network site Pervout.com. When it’s done (hopefully by the time this column is published, but maybe a little later) just go to Pervout.com/education. There, you will find a complete walkthrough on everything you’d need to know and accomplish to have your own standalone paysite. I cover hosting in a video with Brad Mitchell, the owner of Mojohost, merchant processing in videos with good people at Epoch and MobiusPay and I cover affiliates, how to get them and how to manage your affiliate program (so you aren’t relying on Twitter and IG to get traffic.
I also go over budgeting and keeping your porn shoots profitable, as well as the legal aspects in a video with Corey Silverstein. Joanna Angel helped out with a video in which she tells her entire story of how she built and sold Burning Angel, while many other industry professionals pitched in, including JP from Kink discussing consent on set. Fivestar made a wonderful video that teaches set lighting. Madeline Marlowe made a video breaking down the basics of camera settings. There’s other education videos with Aiden Star, Christian Wilde and more. Ricky Johnson, King Noire, Lasha Lane, mr. Pam and many more industry pros joined in the project to guide it with helpful questions.
I started this project a few months ago in the spirit of trying to help BIPOC performers change the industry. I figured that calling companies out on Twitter is one tactic, but competition is certainly an effective one too. The project gained interest from performers who wanted to see consent violations change. Now, I figure it’s just good info for anyone who would completely lose their livelihood if OnlyFans just went away one day. I really hope it helps.
My Pervout Network is currently only three sites: ManUpFilms.com is gay content, SweetFemdom.com is mostly pegging videos and BiFuck.com is bisexual anal threesomes. I’m about to launch HotTS.com, which will be a trans porn site. I’ve bought into two other independent porn companies (a straight BDSM site and a lesbian site) to add to my Pervout Network, and I plan to add one more straight site in 2021. After that, I’m going to call it good with seven sites.
I’m funding the initial production and backend stuff for the two companies I bought into. I’m funding all the production and backend stuff for the rest of my sites. I’m just one person without any partners or investors. All of this is funded by paying members of my paysites. I make a little money each month from VOD and DVD sales, as well as a little from Pornhub, OnlyFans and Clips4sale, but all those put together make just barely enough to be worth the effort in comparison to my paysites. If any of those revenue streams disappeared, it would not move the needle much on my end. My BA is in creative writing, not business. Before I was in porn, nobody ever accused me of being smart or a self-starter. None of this is that tricky, it’s just a bit of a trudge to get going. In a few years, I really hope to see more performers doing the same thing.
