"FORMER Penthouse pet and stripper Bree Maddox hit a $1.6 million jackpot thanks to her boyfriend Malcolm Day's pornography business."

"I've just built my first site – how much money am I going to make from it?"

"I'm an out of work web designer and I know I can make money doing adult."

A quote from an Australian newspaper article and two quotes from newbie boards around the net, examples of the hype and expectation that still surrounds the on-line adult industry. Newbies are still flocking to this business with unreal expectations built on half-truths and downright bullshit.

"Newbies are still flocking to this business with unreal expectations built on half-truths and downright bullshit."

They come in expecting to make a fortune in just a couple of weeks, all they have to do is to grab a few pics from various sites around the internet, throw them up on a site on a free host with some sponsor banners and the money will just roll in and along the way they will get to screw every bimbo they come across. When they appear on newbie boards and hear the truth from more experienced webmasters they don't believe it.

You can almost hear their brains ticking over; the on-line adult industry is a gateway to wealth, we know, we've read about it in the paper and in men's magazines and the sponsors tell us we can make squillions so why are these people telling us it isn't so? They must be telling lies to protect their income, maybe they're sharks wanting to rip us off. We won't listen to them.

And so they go on trying to make a buck with sites that do nothing but feed the leeches out there with free porn. In a month or two they're gone, their dreams are shattered, they have wasted their time and they are looking for the next get-rich scheme that may come along.

It all sounds brutal and unfortunately it is. Maybe once you could throw up a junk site and make money off it but not anymore and it probably hasn't been that way for several years. There are numerous reasons why the good times and the porn streets paved with gold have gone and it is pointless now to point fingers and make accusations. Instead its time to face up to reality and if you are a newbie its time to decide whether or not you are prepared to put in the hard yards and make decent money or to get out before you have wasted too much time, money and effort.

What is reality? Reality is that there is still very decent amounts of money to be made here. Reality is that the girls are usually untouchable and after you have been building sites and optimising pics for a month or so you won't notice the girls in them much anymore. Reality is that if you are in this for a quick buck or a quick fuck then you're going to be sadly disappointed.

So now you have faced reality and you have decided to stay how are you going to make a success of your business? First accept that this is a business and normal business principals apply just as much here as they do in the normal business world. You're job is not to entertain the surfer with bucket loads of free porn, your job is to market your sponsor's sites in such a way that the surfer will gladly run to that site with his credit card drawn and ready for use.

You also need to be aware that, just in the normal business world, if you screw other webmasters then they and their friends are going to step on you like a bug. Treat them with honesty and integrity and many of them will be your friends for life. Unfortunately there are some that will shaft you as quick as they can and you have to be wary of these people and treat everything that you are told with some reserve. Always remember the basic principal, if it sounds too good to be true then it very probably is.

Secondly you are not going to succeed without lots of hard work and long hours and your ultimate success depends entirely on you and your resolve to succeed. When you deal with other webmasters you are dealing with competitors so keep that in mind when you land on a newbie webmaster board and start asking questions.

Most experienced webmasters who hang out on those boards do so because they want to help newbies. They don't want to do the work for the newbies but they do want to help. I say that because there are some people who think that they can drop into a newbie board and get help without making any effort themselves.

There are mountains of resource material on the net for newbie webmasters, just have a look on Cozy Academy and you will find tutorials on just about everything that a newbie needs to know. Make sure you spend the time researching the industry before you start asking questions because most experienced people can quickly spot someone who isn't making an effort for themselves and they will treat them accordingly.

Thirdly you are going to have to realise that your first site probably won't make a buck, it took me three months to get a sale off my first site, so don't think that your fortune is assured with just one site. Instead be prepared to build at least a hundred of them before you start to make real money and then you have to go on and build a hundred more just to keep the money coming in.

Don't think for one moment that choosing to do TGP is any different because it isn't, in fact it is even harder because a TGP gallery has a very finite life span while a free site or an AVS site has the potential to go on making you money for years.

You also have to realise that all this site building is going to cost you money. Sites need content and you're going to have to buy that. Of course some sponsors provide free content but most good traffic sources won't send you anything if all you use is sponsor content. So you are going to have to be continually buying content and it seems that the fresher your content the greater your chances of making sales so it is a never ending cycle of buying content, building sites and then buying more content. Of course some people try to cut their costs by taking content from newsgroups and pretending that it is in the public domain. Unfortunately public domain images are a myth and there is no short cut here. You must buy your own content if you want to succeed.

Fourthly, you are going to need paid hosting. It may be possible to make a start on a free host and many do suggest it but once again, your major sources of traffic are not going to send you any traffic if you are on a free host. Free hosting is never genuinely free, there is always a cost to you somewhere whether it be through losing your best advertising spots to banners put up by your host or through re-directs that mean surfers never get to see your page at all. Hosting is one of the foundations of any successful on-line adult business and when you can get good paid hosting for as little as $9.95 a month why build on the shaky foundation of a free host.

Paid hosting is going to give you extremely important things like 24/7 technical service, server stats that will help you grow your traffic and sound advice from people who know the technical side of this industry. I guess it is really up to you but can a newbie really afford to be without paid hosting?

Well there you go, if you are a newbie I hope this has proved to be a reality check for you and I hope it has given you some confidence to make the effort to succeed. Success is possible, it just takes time and effort. I can tell you that there was nothing quite like the thrill of getting my first sponsor check and there was nothing quite like the thrill of walking out the door of my day job knowing that I would never be back because I could now cut it in the on-line adult marketing business.

At the same time there is nothing quite like the weariness that comes upon you at 3am as you try to finish a site and upload it and you remember that when you worked your day job you were never awake at 3am.