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I'm going to try to explain a big chunk of running your own site.

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Nov 5, 2016
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PREFACE

If you have a service to offer please do so in this thread. If the mods are ok with it I am ok with it.

PERSONAL NOTE:

I am an amateur adult content producer. I have struggled with depression and other difficulties throughout my life. Even though I was not diagnosed with A.D.D./A.D.H.D., I believe I exhibited strong traits related to it. That will explain some of the lack of follow through you may notice. (As evidenced by my constant use of the word "BELIEVE".) I am posting this because even though I have not followed this project through to completion, I still consider myself a go-getter of sorts and figure that I will either find some motivation by helping others if this is what they choose to do or focusing my efforts elsewhere.

INTRODUCTION

You're probably thinking it really can't be that hard to get a personal website. You just click here and there, upload your files, and TA-DA! I'm going to try to explain a big chunk of it here.

PART 1

YOUR SITE IS A BOOK INSIDE A LIBRARY CALLED...THE INTERNET.

To get a website running you will need hosting, a domain, and content. I like to think of it as a book. You need the physical paper, the title, and the words on the pages.

Hosting is basically renting a hosting company's hard drive to store your files. This space is ultimately a physical hard drive except theirs is a lot bigger. That's it.* Make sure your hosting company allows adult content.

The "title" of your website is called a domain name. For example, "Google" is google.com. This will usually be provided by your hosting company. You can choose any domain name that is available with any extension that is available. An extension is .com, .net, etc. You will probably want to get a stealth add-on that lets your hosting company block people from seeing who the site owner is.

EDIT: Your hosting company may provide a website builder/website building tools.

The main portion of your website will probably consist of content. If you don't want to learn website development, you'll probably end up using Wordpress. You can get it for free from Wordpress.com* or through your hosting company. What is Wordpress? It's a toolbox for building your site with point and click ease. The specific tools you will be using are called plugins. Remember how I said you don't need to learn website development? Well, someone already did that for you. You just download (put it on your hard drive) and install (put it on your Wordpress) the plugin and it will do what it says it will do. (Probably) The plugins I have are WP Splash and Paid Pemberships Pro. I use WP Splash to get an age verification page and Paid Memberships Pro to handle membership accounts on my page which is nowhere near complete. All I can say is Paid Memberships Pro has different levels of memberships but you probably will start off using only 1 level I.E. single level members and non-members. Those plugins are free, but you may have to pay for others or upgraded versions.

You will also need a plugin to handle payments. Remember, not all companies want to deal with the adult business as it is considered high-risk so you will need to do some research as to who accepts what. You will probably need to fill out an application in which I'm guessing they will look at your credit history to determine if you are at risk for participating in illegal activities. Some credit card companies require a $500 deposit in case of chargebacks. A chargeback is when someone pretty much demands a refund for any reason and you are responsible for it. Well, actually it's to dispute a claim and credit card companies are wary of people that do chargebacks and will blacklist them so >I< wouldn't worry about it too much but that's just me and I don't even have a site up. Chargebacks can be done up to 2 years after a payment. That's what the deposit is for. :)

QUICK ASIDE:

Not all sites will be based on a membership/subscription platform. I really don't know why it's so complicated. I wanted a membership/subscription type site but if you are like me and are willing to start with something bare bones then I would imagine that you want something like a scrolling function that lets users scroll down to find individual videos or search by category in order of most recently added first. It really shouldn't be that hard so I don't know why it is! (Admittedly, I have not researched this because I really wanted a membership/subscription platform but you may be able to find something similar to the bare bones setup I mentioned. (Go be an entrepreneur!)

BACK TO PART 1

Since you are using Wordpress, you will start off with what is called a theme. Themes are usually designed around a specific interest, such as weddings, retail, woodworking, etc. Photography or Portfolio type themes might be a good place to start with this.

If you don't want to use Wordpress, you may be able to use a template. I do not have any experience with templates but your hosting company may have them and you can find them online. Some you will have to pay for.

Another alternative to Wordpress is to use a website builder. Website Builder Pro is one that was recommended to me. I don't have any experience but I would assume it is similar to a template but I really don't know.

One could also hire a web developer. I have been quoted prices ranging from $300 to $3,000. You can find web developers on freelancing sites like odesk.com and freelancer.com. I believe you pay as you go, meaning you agree on a certain criteria, the web developer will present it to you and you will pay, then move on to the next criteria. You are dealing with a person so they may be helpful or they may try to give you the run around.

Oh, yeah! I just remembered FIVERR! I did hear that people are offering website development on FIVERR. Why would people offer website development on FIVERR for such a lower rate if they can charge so much more somewhere else? Because it really is that easy to make a site sometimes. No. Seriously. Check out FIVERR. They have a rating system and you may be able to get a website built for less than the $300 mentioned above. Less than because FIVERR does allow upselling so you may have to spend more than $5.

PART 2

NOTHING IN THIS DOCUMENT IS LEGAL ADVICE. IT IS MY OPINION.

QUICK ASIDE (ASCAP AND YOU)

There are reasons some of the following guidelines exist. I want to take a moment to encourage others to participate in this discussion. The following guideines have been provided by the Association of Sites Advocating Child Protection http://www.asacp.org to make sure that your site is on the up and up:

>Make a good faith effort to comply with the current laws and standard of recordkeeping of the US Government.

>Include statement that "All models were 18 and over at the time of the creation of such depictions" in a prominent position on the following pages: warning, home, splash, join and any other access page.

>If the models look young, include the above age disclaimer on all pages.

>Review sites that direct traffic to your site, to determine whether they use ASACP Unacceptable Terms.

>Include, on your website's home/index page, a notice that the contents of the site are for adults only. Also include all disclaimers, age verification, etc., and if your site has a warning page exclude explicit images on this page to prevent children from unknowingly viewing adult material

>Label your website as "adult" using an established labeling system such as ASACP's RTA "Restricted to Adults" Website Label or other meta data recognizable by filtering software, browsers, etc.

>Label all e-marketing material with "Sexually Explicit".

>If using chat bots:

>Adult chat bots should be used in adult-only chat areas where individuals are required to confirm their age before entering the chat.

>The first question the chat bot should ask is the age of the individual the chat bot is interacting with. If the answer is under 18 the chat bot should discontinue the chat session and not respond further.

>The chat bot cannot use ASACP Unacceptable Terms.

For the list of ASACP Unacceptable Terms, click here http://www.asacp.org/plain.php?content=terms

I personally believe that adult websites should be required to donate to/support/have approval of the ASACP.

USER AGE VERIFICATION

As mentioned above, you can use the WP Splash plugin to have an age-verification page. I would suggest that no adult material be present on this page AT ALL. This is because people below the age of 18 are not allowed to view such material and you are expected to exercise your legal responsibilty to hinder them from doing so.

18 USC 2257

Basically, if you are producing adult material you will need to have physical proof that your performers were over the age of 18 at the time of filming. ACTUAL PHYSICAL PROOF. Meaning that, if the FBI, State Attorney, or whoever it is that may come a knockin', you better be ready. This will mean proof of age will need to be held with the CUSTODIAN OF RECORDS. Who/what is the custodian of records? The custodian of records is the person that has custody over the copies of the documents that prove the performer's age. Basically, you. You can store these records at your residence, if you wish, or perhaps at a recordkeeping business. There is even an online custodian of records whose link I do not have right now. Bottom line, you need to have copies of the Driver's Licenses and Birth Certificates of the performers. These should be available during normal business hours. NOTHING IN THIS DOCUMENT IS LEGAL ADVICE. IT IS MY OPINION. One could put an e-mail or phone number to be reached should an official request these documents.

TERMS OF SERVICE, PRIVACY POLICY, ETC

NOTHING IN THIS DOCUMENT IS LEGAL ADVICE. IT IS MY OPINION. I am not a lawyer, nor am I a web developer who might have experience with this. What I have been recommended is find a Terms of Service and Privacy Policy from a site that you already visit. It does not even have to be an adult site but that probably helps. You may even be able to google it, or even find a plug-in, or get it from your web host.

RANT

Again, not a lawyer nor a web developer. You may have come across some of the more popular adult websites that have free content from more than one production company. I believe what is happening is these websites allow the users to upload videos to generate views, in which the sites receive profits from advertising. You may ask why an 18 USC 2257 performer age verification is not necessary for those that upload. I believe that in fact it is. The 18 USC 2257 applies to ALL content. I believe the reason popular free sites are able to get around this is because they claim that it is the uploaders responsibility to have custody of the records and not theirs. Pretty tricky that they get advertising money but put the responsibility on the uploader, huh? I don't know if the uploaders get paid, but it is possible they get a portion of the advertising profits. This is unethical and is a big reason the industry is not as profitable as it was before. If it gets to that point I can provide some info on how to mark your content so it will easily be identified as copyrighted and will discourage unauthorized distribution. (Now in PART 4.)

A QUICK ASIDE FROM THE RANT

Since the big, free porn sites currently exist, two methods of creating income are making your content personal and webcamming. One reason users will pay for content even though there is plenty available for free is because they have a particular interest in a model. They may value that model's creativity and style. This is important to note because you will need something to set yourself apart from the other content available. This is literally doing things the old fashioned way because a lot of the money to be made in porn is from affiliates and people who buy bulk porn and put it on their site. Since you are not one of those sleazebags, your journey will be a bit more difficult. Again, I don't have it off the top of my head and I don't want to mention specific sites because that might be considered spam/advertising but consider putting yourself into an affiliate program for sites like the one you intend to create (not the sleazy bulk type affiliates.) Back in the day they were called webmaster rings and I'm not sure how they functioned but I would guess it went something like this: You pay for a 14.95 for a monthly subscription to a certain site, and upon signing up, would be given the option to pay 19.95 a month instead and get access to over 200 sites. I mention this because no matter how good your site or content it, if people don't know about it, it won't do anything.

REMEMBER, IT IS ENTIRELY POSSIBLE TO HAVE YOUR OWN CAMMING WEBSITE.

I have not researched this much at all, but having your own site probably means less payouts and will give you a sense of ownership over your content. You will need to pay for the hosting costs since live streaming is not cheap but you should still look into it once you get a simpler site going.

PART 3

SO JUST HOW DOES THE INTERNET WORK?

When you access a website, what you are really doing is accessing the files stored on that sites server (hard drive).

Say your friend has a server (a physical hard drive) and let's you access it. You connect your computer to their server using a cable and now you are able to access the files on that server. That's all that's going on. Seriously. Instead of a using a traditional cable you may be connecting either through WIFI or using a much, much longer cable from your internet provider. If you send a letter to someone, it doesn't go directly to them, it goes to the post office first, and then it is delivered. A server is like a post office that holds files instead of letters.

This is is where my inexperience will really start to shine. Say you have a video of you dancing in a swimsuit. You know how if you saved this video to your computer it would give you a "path" that would look like something like "C:/videos/swimsuitdance.avi"? I BELIEVE that once you upload a video to your host you will also get a "path". I BELIEVE that you can then place this path on your site which will allow members to download the video. There is a plugin called Easy Digital Downloads that may assist with this. I have only briefly messed with it but I want to mention some trouble that you may have.

When you view a picture on the internet, your browser downloads that picture and displays it automatically. If you want to download a video the browser needs to understand that it is a download and not meant to be displayed. Web pages end in .htm and videos files end in .avi, .mp4, etc. Since browsers open .htm, and your video is .avi or .mp4, it will "confuse" your browser. This is why it's important that your browser understand that it is a strict download and it needs not try to display it. This is why I mentioned the Easy Digital Downloads plugin. It may take some fiddling to get right, but it has a function called something like "force php download". I would guess this is what tells the browser to simply download and not display. Again, I am not experienced at this and have not done it myself.

PART 4

WATERMARKS

I use VSDC Video Editor (free basic version) to add watermarks to my videos. I BELIEVE it is common practice for sites to take down videos that have a © or (C) symbol watermarked. You can put © YOUR ALIAS/SITENAME YEAR or (C) YOUR ALIAS/SITENAME YEAR. For example (C) GUITARARVIN 2016.

You do this by clicking the capital T on the left side ABOVE the red SUB button. Match the length of the text bubble to the length of the video bubble below the display area.

For the left side, I put DO NOT DISTRIBUTE and the coordinates are left 5 top 5. For the right side, I would put the copyright info mentioned above. Your top coordinate will be 5 but you will need to eye your left coordinate. A higher number pushes it right and a lower number pushes it left. This will vary depending on the length of your ALIAS/SITENAME.

You can also use the add text feature before the main scenes to indicate that all performers were 18 or over at the time of filming.

EDITING

So far, I have not done much editing. I messed around with VSDC Editor but could not get the split function to work. Split takes your video and splits it into 2. You can then delete before or after the split. I have had trouble splitting videos with both VSDC Editor and Windows Movie Maker so maybe there is something I don't get. Like I said, I have strong A.D.D./A.D.H.D. traits and never read the manual.

CURSORS AND HIGHLIGHTING

I believe that little blue triangle above the timeline is a cursor and the tractable rectangles are for highlighting but since I couldn't get the split function to work I really don't know what they do.

*A WORD ON HOSTING

Wordpress has a 50 mb upload limit so you will need to get cPanel/Linux hosting, or some kind of traditional hosting, instead of Wordpress hosting. Remember how I said hosting is renting space on a physical hard drive? You will need to install Wordpress into your cPanel/Linux hosting space. That may sound complicated but remember, it is a physical hard drive. When you install a program/application on your computer/phone, you are installing it to the hard drive. The only difference is that you will be installing it on their hard drive instead of yours. If that sounds complicated, just install Wordpress into your cPanel/Linux. It's really easy and you host should help.

Your videos will not be a part of the page itself. Remember, pages end in .htm and videos end in .avi, .mp4, etc. You will be hosting your videos on your host's server "offline" in a sense. You give them the link, then they access the file directly from the server. Make sure to configure your membership/subscription function correctly as it is a lot easier to share a link than it is to share a video.

SOCIAL MEDIA

Remember to use the "link to your social media that links to your homepage" trick whenever you can.

DIRECTORY

I am going to mention specific resources that I did not mention initially because I didn't want to sound like I was spamming/affiliated. Hopefully, having different resources will help prove that.

GoDaddy.com - Not as cheap as Hostgator.com but definitely more fun, with a better cancellation policy. Starts off with automatic renew and you just un-check the auto-renew box.

Hostgator.com - Cheaper, and maybe not as newb friendly. Requires a 3 day notice to cancel before the next billing cycle.

Clips4sale.com - Ugh, yuck. VERY hardcore content and HEAVY competition. MESSY. 40% PAYOUT.

Indiebill.com - Clean. 15% Payout. Not as popular as the guy above. Will even help you make your own site with chargeback protection. :)

Modelcentro.com - Haven't looked much into it but if you like Indiebill.com you might like this.

Ccbill.com - Requires a $500 deposit for Visa or Mastercard, seperately. This may be the norm, though.

Authorize.net - Another billing/payment processor I ran across.
 
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