A "really good shooter" usually has the content sold faster then they can shoot it, and paid for in advance.

Our Los Angeles operation nets between $7,000 and $12,000 a month, 80% of which is custom ordered reality content, and not all of it is ordered for the internet.
Our rule of thumb is this:

If no one asks us for it, we don't shoot it.
And if they do ask us for it, we send them an honest cost breakdown, shoot exactly what they ask for, edit and deliver on time to the best of our ability. This builds trust, and repeat customers.

One of the best threads in a very long time gentlemen. :thumbsup

Nice thread Shap, a jewel in the wasteland of "would you hit it?" threads.

In the last 2-3 years we have seen something disturbing happening in the content business for print. High quality photographers are selling sets to the print business but are retaining electronic rights and are putting the content on the web. So they sell a particular set for $2k to a magazine but then put it on their site, in many cases before the magazine is even published. Then the magazine subscribers write to us and tell us they wish to cancel because they are getting it faster and cheaper on the web.

The photographers are trying to monetize the content in a variety of ways but they are strangling off the print business while they chase their web revenues. I'm not privy to the revenues these photogs are getting from the web, but I can tell you that if the magazines are put out of business by this model and the photogs lose the stable revenue of selling to print this content crisis will only increase. The photographers would have to sell an awful lot of $50-100 web sets to make up the single set purchase price that the print buys at.

I agree 100% this is a very informative thread, thank you!

Have that pinned to the wall. Hell, a lot of people laught at MixPhoto's Engrish (me too, I admit) but when he shows a beautiful model occasionally - I love it!

I had a buisiness associate that got out of content 2 years ago for not making money.

Well reading this thread i've seen pretty much the reasons I think the content business is in "trouble".


1. People are still getting exclusive done in the USA - I know we are.

2. People are buying non exclusive from Europe / Russia beacause they can produce it much cheaper.

3. People have a bunch of content that they can re-use.

If you have 300,000 images and 500 hours of video for example, you can create a bunch of tgp pages free sites pay sites etc. and you don't have to run out and grab a new set each time one comes out.

4. DVD's - lots of WM's are grabbing dvd titles that are now available for web license, creating many clips and pics from 1 dvd.


5. Free Content / Hosted galleries. Many sponsors have exclusive content (reality or otherwise) and can give affiliates all the content they need to promote a site.

- Plus if you look around - Deluxepass, now ARS and others are giving wm's the content to build tours, and teaser sites to get sales.

6. Competition. - Lots more providers around these days and prices fall. Supply and demand.

So what did we learn?

There is still a market for content. That market has changed, those who don't keep with trends fall behind.

:2 cents:

Hey Shap;

Almost daily I get hit by the password assholes and I go over and check the site out, cancel the password etc.

While i'm there I also check out some of the other paysites getting hit and find a ton of cheesy, crap paysites with "content blowouts" filler content and not much of that either. Usually no video either.

Seems like there are a shitload of crummy paysites and these are the guys buying.

:2 cents:

It's great to see this thread turned out to be an informative one. That's what I was hoping for :thumbsup

Well said.

I also believe that reality will run its course and that there will be a shift back to the natural shots.

- Brent

I disagree. surfers like to know a site has photos or movies they cant find anywhere else. It sets you apart from the competition and allows you to tailor your shoots to what the members are asking for.

If you provide content to just wank off to then your going to have lousy retention as you have offered no connection with the member. Offer them something they cant find elsewhere, offer them input in the next shoots and you will have a member forever.


Paysites need to get away from the cookie cutter members areas. I was hoping the 1% chargeback ratio would help make paysite owners take content seriously. And in a sense it has as it forced ARS to shut down and reopen with exclusive content.

Dont be fooled in thinking that the reality sites are the only way to do this. Offer fresh content almost daily with a high rate of exclusive content and you will gain a huge following and rentention.

Spend money on content and be rewarded for your efforts.

- Brent Axford

I admire how Joe goes around the world to find the fresh girls and shoot them in his way.

To many photographers have the girls pose in the same way every single shoot and that just makes them boring. Let the girls be free to express themselves and film them being that way and you will have much more erotic sets.

Well said David. I was not aware that this was happening. Kind of scary really. Do you guys as print not have the upperhand in dealing with the photographers, for delaying the web rights until a set time after your magazine is out?

- Brent Axford

it's over for licensed glamour content providers - O V E R.

if only 50% of the content on TGPs and used in hosted galleries and as sponsor content was legal licensed content providers would be rich.

and the hosted gallery thing is beyond stupidity - how could content providers not realize that it was going to kill their own businesses? hosted galleries, sponsor content, that's supposed to bought and paid for as exclusive content. but let's face it, webmasters are a whole lot sleazier and smarter than your average photographer and the providers got ran roughshod over.

DeluxePass? don't get me started. their day is coming.

Sometimes and sometimes not, it depends alot on the model and the relationship we have with the photographer. In many cases there are supply and demand market forces in play that make it so that we will purchase a set, even if the terms are somewhat unfavorable. There just is not enough new all natural big busted models for us to have a strong negotiating position sometimes. In print, the niche market is holding up alot better than the mainstream sex magazines, but one of the drawbacks is that we have a harder time sourcing content.

wait to you see what Greg-gregory.com is about to do :thumbsup

email me if anyone is interested in this type of content above
dantheman at greg-gregory . com

I understand what you are saying Mutt. I think what happened was the webmasters bought the content relatively cheap. Then went out and with their marketing skills found ways to make the most of the content. The content providers saw this and tried to get a piece of their pie. And the same time other content providers saw the need for new content, picked up a camera and charged lower rates than the existing guys. So you've got new competition driving prices lower, and webmasters innovative marketing driving existing providers to increase their price. Everybody is greedy and the top of the line content providers suffer the most. I believe there is definitely a way both can co-exist with the presence of Hosted Galleries.

The current business model does not work. Content providers tried to sell their content to large amounts of webmasters at a low price. Quanity vs Quality. Result is they got screwed. They sold to the low end webmaster who whored the content out on TGPS.

I believe there will always be a demand for Glamour and High End Amateur Photography. A beautiful babe sells. That's the bottomline. I think it's time for the top content providers to come up with a new Business model. Semi Exclusive deals at a higher price. Charly mentioned it costs in the $100 range per set. I know in the US it could cost $300 to $500 per set. So let's for arguements sake say at $300 revenue per set the provider is making a decent profit. If that provider puts the content for sale at $100 per set and only sells 10 licenses (which allow hosted galleries). That's $1000 revenue and more than $700 profit. You can't tell me there aren't 10 sites around willing to pay $100 a pop for quality content. I could round up 10 sites on my own within a day. Right there the webmaster is happy and the provider is happy. Can this business model work?


People say exclusive is the way. Yes i agree. There are a shitload of surfers who enjoy and are willing to pay to look at pictures. The key to a picture based member's area doing well is high amounts of high quality content. Exclusive is great but it gets tough to be 100% exclusive and be able to deliver the quantity expected by the surfer. It's a real toss up. You can either be like 1by day and Stephen Hicks and add 1 ULTRA high quality set a day (which will cost you more than $1000 a set) or go mostly exclusive like ATK and add huge amounts of content weekly. I still believe there is a profitable market for high end photography that isn't 100% exclusive.

Hey Shap Kevin from MediumPimpin/GlamourModelsGoneBad.com

Seems we have both done very good with non-exclusive pictures,
I think we give the surfer a little to much credit knowing what is exclusive and what is not.
If a surfer likes a model he does not give a crap if its exclusive they want it all.
We have been shooting content for the last year or so ourselves for affiliates, so we starting shooting extra which we are now selling, the store will be up later today.

We are not blowing it out and we don't need to sell a crap load, this is good high end glamour style content,
Here are some samples,

Just my 2 cents worth :)

http://www.pimpincontent.com/33.jpg

I'm going to contact you today Kevin....1. to buy :thumbsup and 2 to pitch another idea to you :thumbsup

Cool let me know when you are in town, we can get a drink :)

Mutt, you are correc tin many ways here. But Matrix, and others will continue to provide the best quality product on the market, and yes it will costs just a little more than that crap that is taken by the guy in a hotel room with some cheap ass digital camera. No end user wants to see shitty photography. Shap is right in what he is saying. If you look at the big sights they are either shooting reality content or they are getting high end content from companies like ours.

The name of the game here is retention and you are not going to retain users if content looks like something they shot of the girl next door.

:2 cents:

Marc
Owner
Matrix Content, Inc.

i know who the better photographer here is. :Graucho

http://www.pimpincontent.com/33.jpg

http://www.wanton.com/babes/img4/bre2.jpg

Damn it Mutt, I wish I could sell your stuff :)

Since I have a shit load of it,

Matrix shot themselves in the foot.

Shap if you want to put together a small buying group for semi-exclusive glamour photosets and videos let me know. There's no magic to shooting glamour, it's budget - it's a location rental, a good makeup/hair person, an assitant and some additional lighting.

You decide how many people are in the buying group.

Mutt how can i contact you? :) We've got some business to discuss, buying group or not :thumbsup

I think you are missingi it. If every affiliate gets free content, then all the tgps will have the same pictures on every line. How good will that be? The guy who puts up a different high-quality pic will get the traffice. How are you going to distinguish yourself from the others?

Agreed:(

Here is somemore of our stuff,

http://www.pimpincontent.com/nc.jpg

I also think the Semi Exclusive way eliminates the big hassle of monitoring who is using it illegally. It's alot easier to monitor 10 people than it is to sell $10 sets to 150 webmasters.

Natalia is yummmmmy

Marc do you honestly believe that statement?

As far as I know there are only TWO people in this biz who have made big bank in the glamour niche and they're both in this thread. And I'm glad for them.

Girl next door content has made hundreds of millions of dollars for people.

Mutt is right, high end quality costs more to produce. But it is not a matter of just having more staff and more money. If I put a paint brush in your hand, you dont become a Van Gogh. Talent matters.

You both love our content and you know the quality of the work can provide. Our content is the best and I believe you think that as well. Shap and Kevin if you want to put a group together to buy exclusive content for your sites, we can do that for you.

I'm thinking of doing my own content...a kinda girls gone wild feel to it.

still have print up a relase form though. I just think "real" content sells better than professioal shot content. guys want to see what they could REALLY see in life..part of the whole fantasy.

It's nice stuff Kevin. That's Nathalie Cruz?

It's minimum $400-500 a set to shoot good glamour content with top models. I worked it out with a glamour photographer, i asked him what is the cheapest we could produce original glamour photosets. And honestly it's not as profitable a way for a photographer to spend a day as shooting 'amateur' niche stuff.

Shap hit me up on ICQ 174676830

or email at [email protected]

my favorite photo and no pussy in sight :Graucho

http://www.wantongirls.com/tj_1.jpg

I agree with this... In any business you are taking a big risk if you are producing a product that you aren't sure if anyone will want. Just look at the automotive industry.

There is also a lot to be said for being professional, building customer relations, and developing a style or reputation. Why try and compete with every guy that has a camera, do something unique! That is why reality stuff is selling right now, but I think it is about at peak, or close to it.

Business is cyclic, and that is just the way it goes... Plan ahead or die..

I've got a question for content providers. Why is it that you usually charge a set price REGARDLESS of the model. That right there seems to be cutting your own throat especially since the top models charge top dollar. If a provider releases a new set of say Zdenka (like matrix did) why charge the regular price? Why not charge double and set the standard for premium models?


Another thing that killed most content providers is not having a set price. You email a content provider and they'll reply with here's 15% discount. You reply that you are taking 10 sets ohhhhhhh 40% discount. WTF? That right there is one of the big problems. If i find out I've overpaid on content I'm pissed and feel like I got screwed and with all these discounts being thrown around it's hard to think you are getting a good deal.

Best example I paid 9k for the fresh photos line. I felt good about it. I felt the content was worth 9k. Easily. Then two weeks later it was for sale for $2k. Thankfully they refunded us. Same with Sexier Content. Paid $4k because I believe it was worth $4k. Then 3 weeks later they blow it out for $1k (and we only got back a third of the difference from them).

I think webmasters would be comfortable paying fair market value for content if the content provider selling it was strict and maintained the same price for all clients. The way Tim from UCJ does with his script. You can buy 100 copies from him, the price is the same.

i sale content cheep! :)

people despised Steve Easton but he was the only one trying to protect the content providers - he was just the wrong guy, went off half cocked all the time and pissed off even the 'good guys'.

theft of content is still the biggest problem the way I see it - how many of these bigshot TGP kingpins have made their millions off the back of hundreds of thousands of galleries they know damn well the submitter had no license to? How many affiliate programs turn away joins from content thieves?

very few people care about the content people, that is going to change because while traffic will always be king shit content is finally in the picture. And there won't be all that many high quality producers around - I know one guy who has changed his profession to wedding photography. The magazine biz for photographers isn't good either.

anyway at least it's good people are discussing content now.

Nice pic on Tanya :)

Yea here she is with Crissy,

http://www.pimpincontent.com/nccm.jpg

Nothing against the ama market, I just do better with the glam, when I am in South Beach drinking a beer for lunch, and the uber hottie walks by and every guys jaws hits the ground is the effect I am looking for, not the slut next door, don't get me wrong I like the slut next just not as much as the others:)

Content producers rely on website owners in order to sell their product for online use. When everyone thinks they can be a content producer then you end up with a lot of 'producers' that don't make any money since they aren't shooting the quality level that site owners are looking for.

Content producers that are not producing the type of content that site owners are looking for won't make sales in any market. The spread of broadband internet means that more surfers want video, not images. Smart site owners are giving their surfers video. As much as they can get ahold of, as a matter of fact. Video pricing seems to be holding quite well for quality product.

When all these new Visa rules came out, site owners have had to react accordingly -- which means that many of them who were always very easy to open their wallet before are taking a wait and see attitude -- waiting to see if they fail to comply with Visa what may happen to them.

There's no mystery to this if you think about it.

Cherry and I have made a good amount of money with your 5$ sets, we have also made a good amount of money with ONE SINGLE PHOTO out of some shitty set using it nichewise.

Not everyone just makes and submits galleries, there are far more creative ways to make money if you have your own traffic, and/or work search engines and what not.

thats where she was goin ;)

I have used a webcam pic of afat girl from ifriends and made hundreds.

its all how you market things Charly

If a bbw webcam pic can make money, if you are creative you can sell anything.NOT taslking about just paysites.

A LOT of content is used to promote established sites.

I buy content to push all kinds of sites.

and do well

Mutt, you are right on again with your prices. We charge 400 a set for custom work. Come one come all !

We have a good feel what "Our" members want our pay site has 25k of bookmarkers a day and its a pay site, and 5 to 1 my members want more high end pictures, we have video and lots of it but pictures are not going away at all.

i know. i don't understand it either. but people panic when they sense they're going to lose a sale to the competition so they just hand out discounts.

about charging more for certain models - in reality there's really not a difference in what one glamour model makes compared to another, give or take $100. Only somebody like Jenna Jameson would command more than the other girls. Standard pay rate for a glamour model is about $500 a day, some get 6 or 7 it they think they are 'stars'. So it shouldn't really affect the price of a set much.

It will be interesting over the next few months to see who survives and who doesn't and with what type of sites the survivors go forward.

It's about time this industry had a weeding out and a cleaning up at all levels imo.

OK,

I've bought a couple images in the last 5 years, (a little over 3 million)

My take

1. Supply and demand - 5 years ago there were half a dozen places to buy content, today there are hundreds.

There is always someone willng to give it to you for less, and lets be honest, there is not a whole hell of a lot of difference between most quality shooters (I leave clearing houses out of this as they are a different story altogether) A guy paying LA rates for a blonde with big tits can't possible sell for the same amount a guy in the Czech Repuplic can, the guy in LA is paying 10 times the dollars to the model (yes you are being outsourced overseas)

2. Photographers selling their work to every schmuck with a paypal account, having it on every TGP on the planet simply makes it much less valuable to a paysite owner.

3. Content is only as valuable as the return people can get from the sites.

Take the free stuff away (or limit what is available) more pople will buy, webmasters will make more money, paysite owners will increase profits, they in turn will buy more content AND pay a higher price for it since they will see the investment pay off

Sand is not very valuable in the desert, and that is the market content providers are in.

That being said, I am looking to set up monthly deals for supplying photos and videos.

I allready get more "filler" content than I can stomach, so if you are looking to resell someone else stuff don't bother.

I wan't stuff that is not sold on the open market, preferable licensed for use only in paysites, video and stills of the same models, and professional quality, if you are giving the local strippers 100 bucks to come over and suck your dick while you film it I am not interested.

I have deals in place with Wanton Girls, Max Candy, SDE Content, Gecko, and putting the final touches on a deal with Greg Gregory.

Will buy exclusive where it fits and the numbers justify the expense.

Paul Markum, you should email me, I have bought from you in the past and I think we could probably set up a monthly deal that is good for both of us.

jeff at offendale dot com

:glugglug

I just wanted to add a little something here. I see alot of people talking about quality vs. quantity and glamour vs. amateur and such. And there is much talk about all the Joe Schmoes with digital cameras in hotel rooms. But one think that no one has mentioned (that I've seen) is content EDITING. Even in the amateur market most people want to see a certain degree of quality in the photos. A good post-production editor can take a mediocre set of content and turn it into something special, but most so-called photographers these days either don't know how to do it themselves or won't spend the money to hire someone to do it for them. So you have a massive influx of photos hitting the market from new photographers who (as mentioned earlier) don't know squat about lighting, chemistry with the models, locations, makeup, props, etc. And they are producing photos that are over/underexposed or have flash hot spots or have disgusting color casts and they're trying to compete by selling cheaper content because no one in their right mind is going to pay well for that type of content.

With so many newbies entering the market every day on a limited budget, they're either stealing content, using free content or buying the cheap-ass crap and keeping the cheapo providers in business, while ignoring the good quality stuff. The quality providers that either take good photos to begin with or who edit their mediocre photos suffer because the newbies with cheap content saturate the market and make it harder for the veterans to get their sales (because so many newer webmasters being out there just naturally lower the odds of the veterans getting to the surfer first) and when the veterans find it difficult to get sales then they stop buying from the quality producers and may leave the business altogether. I've seen TONS of people that I've known in the industry leave it recently, even some who have been here since '97 or so. And yes, you can convert sales with crappy content. It takes either good marketing skills or mass traffic (for luck) but it can be done with some work. I've done it in the past, when I couldn't afford to buy any content.

I think that some of the mediocre producers who are failing could pick sales up quite a bit by hiring someone to edit their content for them, perhaps offering some semi-exclusive content in exchange or perhaps giving a percentage of sales (for those who cannot afford the up-front cost of hiring an editor.) Turn crappy content into mediocre content, turn mediocre content into good content. :)

I know I don't like paying decent prices for unedited content. I'll pay rock bottom prices for it and edit myself, or I'll pay a premium for having the work done for me already, but I certainly won't do both.

I hope you are not talking about me, I will put up our members area against anyone, we add over 40 full sets a week including videos on time everytime, we have more backend on one site then ARS had on all combined, please don't compare us to them.

We have also had 7 day phone support since day one, biz has never been better, it seem like the others are trying to get it in gear when we were always in gear:)