Monday, June 4, 2012

Summertime thoughts, reader email.

I recently got an email from a reader and it got me thinking about why I started this site and it got me thinking about why I blog about what I do and why I think girls who work from home/work online/cam should all help each other out.

I think the reason that camgirls/models in general don't help each other out is down to two things: first because in a lot of ways we have no idea what the hell we are doing when we start. I know I didn't. And compared to girls who have been really, really successful at camming, I probably still don't know much. Second, we see other girls as our competition. We know a guy opens MFC and sees that big page of girls load up and it's intimidating, unless you are one of the power cammers at the top. Or on MGF when a guy clicks on the girls page, we all wonder if he just doesn't skip immediately to to the Featured Girls page.

There's also a third thing in there, I bet. How tiring is it when a new girl pops up all cheery and new and excited and asks the same ten stupid questions that every noob asks? But back to my main point:

Why should we work together? There are two main reasons: first while in some ways we are in competition with each other, in many more ways we are all unique, as are our customers. (Okay maybe that's giving them more credit than they deserve.) But the custies that you will make the most off of, and develop the best relationships with are the ones who have a specific like in mind, a specific fetish, type or kind of play and you are the girl who does it better than any other girl they've ever come across (cum across? LOL.) This is why it's important to find an identity that suits you and market yourself appropriately.

I know that's not earth shaking stuff. But I think this is:

Guys have all kinds of interests from the vanilla to the most disgusting kind of chocolate, if you know what I mean, and there is no use trying to develop a guy into a customer if he isn't crazy about your thing. However, in addition to being crazy about you, you need to get guys USED TO THE IDEA OF PAYING FOR ACCESS TO YOU.

Does that sound whorey? Well it IS the point of working online, guys want access to you, and are willing to pay. The more you help educate new girls, the less time guys will spend looking for freebies or plying rip off scams and more time paying what you are worth for the unique, exotic entertainment you provide them.

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Chaturbate 'Adult Social Network' Update

I posted about Chaturbate a while back wondering how well it worked and if it really was an adult social network or just a cam site-

http://girlsworkfromhome.blogspot.com/2011/07/another-new-site-chaturbate.html

My judgement was basically that it was another cam site, lots of ads, not a lot of cash, not very social. Some people chimed in that they were scammers, which was neither here nor there as the site was so new, it was bound to get hit by a few people trying to hustle the owners. Honestly, I'd give the owners the benefit of the doubt before I'd believe the random anons claiming they were scammed.

My biggest complaint about Chaturbate was that there wasn't much traffic and too many ads.

So in the few months since then has much changed? Well, there are still a lot of ads. There are slightly annoying pop up ads from the bottom - you know those annoying chat/IM style messages? Those. There are also some banners. But there is always the option to surf the site ad free - for just $19.95 per month. Now this SORTA trickles down to performers, since you get 200 free tokens with the $19.95 signup. But according to my math tokens cost between 8 and 11 cents, which means that of the $19, $16 goes on to the performers eventually.

Which is damn good, anyone who has tokens is going to use them for sure. But you don't get 200 tokens PER MONTH, just initially. So month 2, the whole lot goes to Chaturbate and their partners. 

To take a closer look I have been surfing the site a lot and I'm still suspicious about the number of viewers they state for each room. For example I was in this room tonite:


And you can see she's putting on quite a show, while the site says she has over 400 viewers in her room, she's only pulled in $13 in tokens for a hardcore backdoor cucumber show. That said, regardless of the numbers she IS making money and god bless her for keeping it organic with veggies.

But, one great thing I have noticed is that on some occasions the folks in charge over there have been hiring real, live pornstars to put on shows which is much different from an adult social network or most current cam sites. While in some ways this sucks if you are NOT a star, they do attract a lot of new guys to the site in the form of fans, and more guys = more money = more tips = a very good thing. I think I'm going to give it a shot, see how it compares and report back.

So, keep up the great work Chaturbate!

And I think I'mma pick the cucumbers off salads for a while...

Thursday, February 2, 2012

Resources

On occasion I get emails from girls in the same situation as I was and they are looking for information on camming, working for yourself, being self employed online and there is one place I always send them, Stripper Web. It's one of the best online communities for girls who have sexy jobs.

There are a few places I always look for advice and info before I send a message to tech or admins:

MyGirlFund thread part one.

MyFreeCams thread about stuff.

Reading those two should tell you about everything you need to know about these popular sites.

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

New Year, New Plan?

Holy cow, can you believe that my blog has been around for a whole year? How about some history and a quick update are in order before I crack open a bottle of bubbly to celebrate being 1 years old.

So the history first. Last year in November or so I lost my job due to "downsizing" and while I missed my paycheck every two weeks I sure as heck didn't miss that stupid job. At the time I decided to see if I could make a living working for myself and soon after that I started this blog, which has been a big help.

I thought I'd look back on the year and try to put together the top 5 things I learned this year into a list. So;

1. CUSTOMER SERVICE IS HARD. At the heart of anything, camming, chatting, making custom stuff, you are providing a whole lot of customer service. But you have to go into every interaction like it's going to be the best ever. If you let your pessimism get the better of you you will get into a self defeating loop. I learned this because of item number 2.

2. LEARN YOUR CUSTOMERS. Some custies are worthless freeloading losers - cut them loose as fast as possible so you don't waste your valuable time trying to get something from a guy who won't give it up. Some custies are the nicest, most generous people in the world who genuinely care about helping you out.

The hard part is learning to tell the difference. I'm getting better at it, but I still think I spend too much time putting in effort on guys who turn out to be an empty wallet. But it seems like everytime I make a vow to quit, one of these guys that I thought was a deadbeat will surprise me with a huge contribution or a monster tip or a really easy, high dollar purchase.

3. TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF. Sitting at a computer for an extended period of time no matter if you are camming, chatting, typing, plotting world domination or fingerbanging yourself, is not a healthy thing to do. I know it feels like every minute you aren't in front of your laptop that you are losing money (and you may be) but is that small amount of money with your health? No, no way.

4. DON'T GET ISOLATED. Working at home and for yourself means that you are very much cut off from soem of your social networks - think about how many of your friends you met at work at one job or another, or how many people you hang out with at happy hour. It's a lot. In my case it was almost everyone. When I realized I was becoming a shut in after a few months I hit the Facebook hard and I remembered one thing - just because you don't work at the office doesn't mean you can't hit up Happy Hour! And hey, since you are self employed you can work drunk, have a few and then some money!

%. DON'T SWEAT THE SMALL STUFF. Whenever I am worried or feel bad about my situation, I wake up extra early and go to the Starbucks by my house and I watch all the people who are hustling into work and gearing up for their long commutes to their own crappy episode of The Office and it usually makes me feel better because I don't really answer to anybody. No matter how tight money is, as long as the bills are paid and I don't have a boss, I'm winning the game.

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

My all time favorite song.



Sabotage! Okay it's not really my favorite song. But it did happen to me this week!!

Some fool tried to A. take over control of my blog and B. get my blog deleted. I can't help but wonder who it is. My guess is that it's either some stalker fan that I might have told about my blog (only a few candidates, probably not one of them unless he's a sociopath) or some pissed off site owner who doesn't like me preaching the truth (yep).

So firsties, this wannabe saboteur tried to get control of my Google account. Fortunately for me I have two step authentication set up, which means that if you want to steal my goodies you have to figure out my password, which is nice and long and random and also have access to my phone. So thankfully nothing bad happened.

Second, this bad person flagged my blog as spam and got it suspended for a few days. Fortunately for me in this case, Blogger is very fair about readdressing complaints like this and after a few friendly emails, the people at Blogger tech support realized what happened and restored my precious little rants.

Thanks Blogger and fuck you, thief.

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

New site - Aleful, Another scam, a free pic hustle or a creepy stalker??

If you post on Tumblr you have probably gotten a message from a guy/site called "Aleful" who is setting up a photo set selling site much like, I guess, Clips4Sale or Extra Lunch Money.

I signed up to be notified of the launch and got an email today which prompted me to do a little research. If you haven't seen the email it's just this:

The time has come! For all you sexy women to start snapping your photos! The first thing I need is proof of age all it has to be is a picture of you holding up your id so that I can verify you are over 18 years of age. This will be only on file on a secure hard drive. Now for the fun part. Follow this how to and submit your pictures to Aleful.net !!!!

Okay, nothing wrong there, some random stranger off Tumblr wants me to send him my real name, address and driver's license number. Seems perfectly logical, I do that all the time anyway, what harm could come of it?? /sarcasm.

I went and checked out the site at aleful.net and there isn't anything there, just a Wordpress install with a free theme attached. Checking the Whois information doesn't provide any additional verification either, which leaves me wondering...who or what is Aleful and why should I send him my driver's license?

Attached to the email was also this image, giving a run down on how the site works:


Seems pretty straightforward, send in a few pics, answer a few questions and get free money right to your PayPal! Nothing wrong there either, we all know how great PayPal is to work with and how much they respect and treat cam girls, models and webmasters/mistresses in the adult entertainment industry, right?? /sarcasm (again.)

I think Mr. Aleful has a little ways to go before his site becomes the next Clips4Sale, so use caution, as always, with new sites that pop up from nowhere.

Anyway, signing off for now, I gotta go take a nice clear picture of my driver's license and send it to a stranger!!