I had a conversation with my boss at one o'clock this morning. Then I worked for an hour or so and went to sleep. I woke up today at 1:30 PM. I have been working ever since and I haven't left my bedroom except to visit the toilet and get something to eat. Yes, I washed my hands.
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"The fact is these people work like machines. Always doing something new. Always improving on the old. Always working the net and always in business mode." |
Some of you would gasp: "Your boss expects you to work and be available at one in the morning?" To those who gasp, I have something to say:
Welcome newb.
Welcome to the not-so-glamorous life of the adult webmaster. You know how the TV tells you that we spend each day on our yachts, with a glass of Cristal and a pornstar girlfriend? Yeah. Right.
I want you to stop that fantasizing right now. Get those damned scripted dramas out of your heads. When you work as an adult webmaster you work whenever and all the time. That is good and it is bad. Sites are never perfect. Promotion is never done. New pages and galleries must be built. One day you're at the top of Google listings for your keyword, the next day you fall back to page three. Your sponsor opened up a new paysite for an untapped niche market. Now you gotta go think up a new domain and register it and then set up a new hosting account. Can't forget those submissions to top lists and TGPs. The work never gets done no matter when it's done.
You know those webmasters and mistresses that grace the photos on F.U.B.A.R.? Do you really believe that's how they spend every workday? Oh sure, the big players have offices and employees but they don't get to that level by drinking and whoring around - at least not every single day. They save that pent up funtime for convention parties. Even at shows, the players and playettes come for the networking, not the groovy scene. The fact is these people work like machines. Always doing something new. Always improving on the old. Always working the net and always in business mode.
The cyber world is different. It never closes. Websites stay open twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, all year long unless (god forbid) a server goes down or the bill doesn't get paid. As well, because the web is always open, people will visit your adult site at an hour.
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You may like to hit the sack at midnight CST, but in Athens, Greece, folks are just waking up. They'll be coming home from work and surfing for porn by the time you finish your breakfast. It may be 10:30 PM where you are but in Hawaii, it's just 5:30. The web doesn't run on a delay. Your site will receive visitors morning, noon and night. If you own a paysite, you have to be prepared to take customer service calls at any time. If you have a webmaster affiliate program you're going to get Instant message alerts and support emails in your inbox at any given hour. Prompt response is the cornerstone of good business relations, so keep that in mind while you drift off to dreamland.
We can't leave our fellow adult webmasters and colleagues out of the mix. I think it's safe to say that at least half of the people in our industry work during the wee hours. For so many of us, the nighttime is just easier, quieter. There are less distractions. No spouses, no roommates, no kids. If we live in big cities, the noise dies down. Some of us have day jobs and we are building our porn empires in our spare time.
You newbies are probably reading tutorials and practicing with software after you get home from your paid jobs. Granted, there is still the understood notion of business hours within our profession but only barely. One might expect their favorite content provider to be online at four in the afternoon - as opposed to 11 o'clock at night - but that's not the adult webmaster reality.
If you want to make money as an adult webmaster, you are going to have to redefine the very meaning of normal work times. There are no normal work times. If you want to be the first gallery submitter in the queue for review, then you'll have to keep hours more fitting to your favorite TGPs. If you want to work with that designer in Italy then you're going to have to sync up your conference times. If you've managed to befriend a wise webmaster that lives half way across the world, then you would do well to be awake when he is awake so you don't piss him off and drive him away.
The payoff comes in the form of cash in your bank account. The more you gear your hours to surfers and peers, the faster you'll started being able to afford that precious time off. While you can't live without sleep, you have to work hard and at very strange hours. Accept that the Internet is open 24/7.