Wanted to Get Out, But The Recession Kept Me In

When I left my reasonably comfortable job I had @ a big NYC law firm, I was willing to do anything to make it on my own. I realized the potential of the Internet and decided that I was going to make a million dollars online, or die tryin'.

So, yeah: I got into porn. Nothing illegal or sick, just a few adult entertainment sites that make money by offering downloadable video clips. Niche sites that served me quite for about a decade.

For the first 4 years these sites made good money. Income from these sites began to slip after 2004, due to a massive increase in competition. Big corporations with deep pockets started to get into porn in a big way. However, I was still making enough to justify keeping the sites up and updated. When you have to support a family, every penny counts.

After the banking crisis and subsequent Great Recession, income from these sites continued to plummet, but the sites still made enough to pay for themselves and to cover a few bills.

Just before the recession, I was planning on either selling these sites or shutting them down. Why? Because I had my first child in 2003, and, as a new dad, I didn't want to be in the adult game anymore.

I see porn as entertainment, and just like alcohol or gambling, too much can be destructive. However, just because some people are prone to excess, doesn't mean that everyone should be denied access to this type of fun. Those who would like to see online porn banned forever should remember how successful prohibition was. Yep.

My plan was to first stop accepting new signups by simply removing the signup pages from my sites. Then, after all current memberships expired, I was going to shut them down.

But now it's 2010, and I'm still a porn webmaster.

I don't update any of my adult sites anymore, and I won't, ever. They will simply live on, in limbo, until I can afford to get rid of them for good. I'm hoping that'll be soon.

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My Experience with Elance: A Short Review

I don't have the resources to hire full time writers, but I do work with many writers on a freelance basis. Works very well for me. I get to select quality writers from all over the world -- God bless the Internet! -- and the rates I pay are reasonable. I believe in paying a generously for quality content, so, as long as what I'm paying for is first class stuff, I tend to pay a bit more than most.

A couple of years ago, I was placing ads in newspapers in my area. This didn't work well at all. I placed numerous expensive ads, and my efforts yielded nothing. All I got were calls from from folks who were desperate to make a buck, but who were also barely literate. Complete waste of time and money.

Last year I started placing free ads on Craigslist. Much smarter. Very efficient. With very little effort, and at no cost, I was able to find some good writers. With Craigslist, placing job opportunities in the large metropolitan areas offers the best possible exposure for an ad, but running employment ads in the New York, LA, Boston, etc. Craigslist sites isn't free. So instead of going for the big cities, I opted to post ads in suburban Minneapolis and other free sections, and still got a ton of responses. I still post job opportunities on Craig's, but not as often as I used to. That's because, over time, I've been able to establish a nice cohort of quality writers that I can count on to produce quality content at a reasonable price.

Every once in a while I'll start a thread in the Digital Point Forums (in the Content Creation section) letting browsers know that I'm looking for quality writers. The forums at DigitalPoint.com (DP) are always very busy, which is great. But, because it's a free forum, it attracts way too many scammers, liars, and other dishonest folks from all over the world. For example, I'll create a thread, and the vast majority of the messages I'll receive will contain statements like "I am having excellent commanding(!) of the English languages(!!)," or "I have a graduate degree on(!) English writings (!!)." Kinda' funny. In fact, right now, there's a thread created by someone trying to sell his services as a writer:

Thread Title: Native English Speaker For Hire
First Sentence: "...Hello, I am a native English speaker living in North Carolina. I'm a second grade teacher and have a good command on(!) the English language..."

DP is a very useful marketplace for all kinds of services, but sifting through all the scammer nonsense is often too exhausting.

I've known about the Elance.com site for a long time, but never tried it.

-- dispute resolution system is better than PayPal, eBay, Amazon.

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