How is it with today's newbies?
 

I assume:
you're a smart newbie, you will make it.
stupid - you can't make any cash any more. It's not 1997.

How about a newbie with average talent? How is he doing? Can he make 1-2k per month, say after 3 months?

What do you think?

:321GFY

Well,

I started January of this year, I have above avg skills, but limited time, I was up to my first 1K in 2 months, I am above that now at 9 months.

I think a newbie can do well, they just have to work a lot harder, and realize that TGP isn't going to make them rich.

I realized that in my second month.

Macro

It took me four months to actually make enough to be able to consider it worth it. Maybe I'm just a slow learner but it was very difficult getting started. The hardest part was fixing half of the stupid mistakes I made while being extremely new.

i was ready to make a similar topic after reading today's posts on AWI.

I'm ready to fund a research for the creation of a virus that will kill every single newbie in this industry. If you are willing to financially support this project please contact me.

I think I would fall into the average intelligence newbie catagory for the simple fact that I should have gotten into this 10 years ago when I started surfing porn... but alas I didn't and here I am.

I have been at this for about 6 months.... not makin 1k a month... yet... but each day and month that goes by I get a little better and I take on a little more... I have been learning what works and what does not... also my day job keeps me pretty busy so I have not had as much time to dedicate to this as I would like.

Anybody with a computer can make money doing this but it takes hard work, a good buisness sense and a strong work ethic to become and remain successful at it.

Hopefully I have that combination of character and will be posting pic's at 3 in the morning from the naked pool party at my house in a few years.

D1

This sounds very reasonable. I think it's nearly impossible to make 5k per month in a few months. Unless you have lots of money to spend to buy a "shortcut" to success

It's just more difficult.

More comments please?

Where do you wanna meet?

I think newbies are fun.

They bring excitement and a bit of a reminder of the fun of learning how to succeed in this business.

took me 2 years before i made any money

Well I think it took me about 4-6 months to get to 1K but I went to 2K real fast after that since getting to the 1K was the learning process. And I of course had a full time job at the time.

Newbies today have it easy to earn 1K per month since there are so many link sites and tgps that will list a site per day for you for free. Paid hosting is dirt cheap. Learn some selling skills and you should at least make a little money.

That's why I'm just going to shoot content. Screw trying to put together any pay sites. I don't have the time, nor the inclination to sit in front of my computer looking at stats all day. Not to cast aspersions at my contemporaries, I'm just not Webmaster material. The market is already so saturated that I don't think someone such as myself could hope to make any cash running a pay site. I would much rather create original, high quality content for you guys. Let's face it, a lot of so called "Photographers" out there don't give a shit about making a quality product, which in turn affects YOU. Now I understand that certain sites REQUIRE amateur looking pictures, but what thet Hell happened to professionalism? You have to spend money to make money, and doing shoots in some fleabag motel with some girl that just fucking STANDS there looking clueless does not arousal make...

Trust me when I tell you that surfers will just FLY through photo sets like that simply because they are BORING! You have to give your members something different, something that will give them a raging hard-on despite being an amateur shoot, and that my friends is what I am going to provide you. I'm not saying I'm going to revolutionize the industry, I'm not saying I'm going to take over and all of you will stampede to buy my work, I just have certain standards when it comes to Photography that I hope you all will appreciate and would be willing to purchase. I will let my work speak for iself when we are ready to launch and have at least a CD of content for sale. This should happen by the end of October if all goes according to plan.

I do think there is still room in this business for certain types of individuals who have the right combination of intelligence, creativity, imagination and BALLS to make a site that will convert like crazy. There are certain niches out there that still remain virtually untouched, mostly because webmasters are too scared to try anything new for fear that it might (GASP) FAIL! That's where the balls part comes in.

Everyone seems to be happy with what they have and that's great, but if you want to make money in this business, you have to be willing to put your neck on the proverbial chopping block...


Anyway, that's my two cents from a Photographer's point of view.

havent made any money this year ... didnt make any in 1997 perhaps I should quit this business:xomunch

I, for one, would be all for that!

That's a very misleading statement and gives the impression that the adult industry is still easy money. Tgps and linklists were always an easy source of free traffic, but now,more than ever getting and converting the traffic is difficult. Unlike many, I give some tips to newbie webmasters that contact me through time. The last thing i tell them when i recognize i'm talking to a thinking human is to start a tgp or submit galleries.

I'm so sorry, was I using too many big words for you? Allow me to simplify: "Me think Porn still good for money. Me take good pictures, you like, you buy, ok?"

For a guy that quotes Woodruff, you sure come across like a dick.

Thank You.

Yes please do...........

OK thats 1 newbie off the oversaturation list.:Graucho

I have something up my sleeve for all you newbies... stay tuned.

:thumbsup

Now, I absolutely wouldn't go around deeming myself as an above average newbie (started in mid January), but I have had fairly good success w/ a certain webcam sponsor that I'm sure everyone knows and hates. I was up to 5K after only month #2, and have yet to dip below that figure, even with all of thier fuckin' bullshit over these 9 months.

I think that smart newbies won´t do TGP.
Soon they would realize that success in TGP is not much a matter of "smartness".
To succeed with TGPs, one needs a combination of: a)lots of patience to produce and submit hundreds of galleries per day; b)good relationships with the big TGP owners
Sure, intelligence will always make some difference (e.g., intelligent people will make better galleries, will find tools to work easier, will cultivate good networking), but what I mean is that it´s not fundamental when it comes to TGP; you can compensate lack of IQ with lots of work.

OTOH, smartness is key when playing the Search Engines. Google is king today, and to get into google, it takes lots of hard work AND lots of learning how google work (google nearly factored out luck from the game).

Assuming the above is right, the answer to the original question is no, smart newbies won´t see much money soon. The google cycle itself takes about three months between creating a site and collecting the results from (possible) good rankings; add to that the time to learn, tweak, etc, and we are talking about at least six months.

The difference is that SE money is much more stable (longer lasting); once you get into cruising flight, it will be easier to keep your $$$ flowing (no daily submitting 100´s of galleries to get a cheque next month).



Disclaimers:
- I don´t do TGPs (my thoughts may be absolutely wrong)
- I consider myself more of a stupid than a smart newbie
- I am drunk :glugglug

Even me mate???

I thought we were friends........

:glugglug

lol

you are not a newbie ross

working with paul makes you veteran.

Well now I guess it is. lol
What I meant is once you get to that 1K per month earnings, the newbie must have learned how to sell. You cannot just throw up a banner and check stats. But once you learn that part and get to 1k, 2k is much easier with the free traffic resources and your newly honed site building and sales skills.

That said, it ain't so easy to get to 5k per month. Definitely is NOT easy money in this biz. And a nusiness it is which many newbies must learn first.

I started in June with two other guys, one who has some money to back it and the other who has some good experience, knows the industry and knows the tricks.

We collectively run 4 sites and all told, bring in about $300/month gross at this point, with slow to moderate growth each month. Pushing some better traffic (both by buying it and trading it) and working up some bookmarkers and such.

Not quite 90k hits/day.. but we're on our way. I think a newbie with average talents who applies themself can make it, just not as quickly as in the past. And perhaps that is the hardest part, to keep up at what you think and believe will work even when it is slow going the first 6 months, first year, first 5 years.

I'll close with one of my favorite quotes, "Hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard."

:eek7

The newb's have alot more info now and days but I do think
its also alot tougher to make money for them since there are so many established webmasters who control certain traffic markets.

But hard work and many hours will pay off some just never give up.

I can remember making sites that had 10 pics and banners and making several hundred a month of each site for months. Went from 0 to $9000 a month in about 7 months. I miss those days.