I've got some questions for Y'all....

[JoeSchmoeProductions]

Mostly stupid newbie questions...Thought I would combine them into one thread...Hope y'all dont mind...

I make these Homemade amateur Str8 bait/redneck/interracial vids. Got about 40 of them so far....Sell DVD's at AMVC.com and they stream on AEBN's network and Gayhotmovies.com.. Also make short clips for our account at Xtube. People seem to like the vids.


My goal from the start was to create enough content to start a paysite. Use AEBN as a tool to figure out if our content had a market.

Since I can pull the films from AEBN at anytime...I figured that I would have a Paysite with exclusive content no other paysite would have and I could make some money. Plus the exposure on AEBN would help create a fan base

Is that a good plan or not? How many hours of footage do I need to start a sucessfull paysite? Or is the Paysite DEAD like everyone is suggesting?

Been Lurking here since March....and Just be reading here I think I've learned a whole lot from y'all. I have one other question right now...

What about porn collectors? A lot of our fan from Xtube, I would call collectors. They want porn that they can keep and view over and over again. One guy emailed us to say he called into work to jerk off all day watching one of our vids over and over...How do paysites appeal to collectors? or do they?

And finally... I just cant get over AEBN paying us less than 2 cents per minute for our Popular content. They assume no risk what so ever and their "take" is over four times our "take" Is it possible to re-nogiate the payout with a company like AEBN...? or Do I just create my own paysite, and pull the films from AEBN when I'm ready?

Thanks
Joe

[marcjacob]

And finally... I just cant get over AEBN paying us less than 2 cents per minute for our Popular content. They assume no risk what so ever and their "take" is over four times our "take" Is it possible to re-nogiate the payout with a company like AEBN...? or Do I just create my own paysite, and pull the films from AEBN when I'm ready?

If you think about this, they have to pay for servers and infrastructre, marketing to get affiliates, pay the affiliates, the affiliates need reps who need to give out marketing material and so on and so on. All that costs $$$'s.

Then you have processing fees. That would be 10% for most sites, I would guess with their volume they would get a much better deal or have a merchant account, but that still adds up.

Lets not forget that they probably bring their own traffic which means a marketing budget seperate from affiliates.

Sure you have productions costs too, but so do they and it all adds up.

[basschick]

the paysite is FAR from dead.

you have enough content to start a paysite - most start with under 20 videos, and by videos i mean individual scenes. figure 3 hours, although i've seen some start with 5 - 8 videos many times.

important thing here is there's knowledge involved with owning a paysite, and you're much better off starting out right.

sure paysite appeal to collectors. most members like to download the videos - make sure to have a non annoying watermark and then when they come back to watch those videos after they've cancelled, they'll remember your site and rejoin.

[gaybucks_chip]

For the most part, I disagree with Marcjacob.

AEBN is making a fortune. Their payouts haven't changed since 2000, when bandwidth was 10x the price it is now. Further, AEBN gets paid its full fee regardless of whether a surfer watches 2 minutes of 15 videos, or one 30 minute video, while the producer, who might have spent $1500 on a scene, might see at most 35% of 16 cents (about 5 cents) if a surfer watches 2 minutes of that scene.

The VOD model benefits the VOD company in the long term and no one else. The more content they offer, the more the customer (and the VOD company) benefit, but when there is so much content, the value of each scene gets diluted, reducing the value (or rather, the return on investment) of exclusive content to the producer.

This problem *could* be solved by moving to a pay-per-scene model, as Maleflixxx has done. Everyone would benefit that way... but the only way it would work is if everyone (particularly AEBN) did that.

I agree with Patti that paysites are far from dead, particularly if you have good exclusive content. Yes, the model is changing, but I believe there is still life left in the monthly memberhip model.

[Squirt]

AEBN is making a fortune.

Yes they are

and the affiliates do 90% of the marketing for AEBN

The only marketing I've seen AEBN do lately is pornotube which has a #346 Alexa rating and completely cuts out affiliates while paying producers of the content 20% if I'm not mistaken ;)

[marcjacob]

Chip Im not saying that AEBN is not raking it in, of course they are. Theyve built a massive company with a ton of affiliates. But its cost money to do that and they add that value to the business of their producers.

Thats not free, you pay for that, which is fair enough...

[gaybucks_chip]

All I'm saying is... they could afford to pay producers 20% or 30% when bandwidth costs were 10 times (or, honestly, even more than 10 times) what they are now. So their hard monthly recurring costs have dropped by about 90%, but they have simply absorbed the additional profit, rather than sharing it with producers. All of their infrastructure in terms of software development was already in place, and additional equipment and bandwidth costs arising from growth are paid for through increases in income resulting from that growth.

Apparently none of the producers (most of whom are DVD studios who have no clue about bandwidth costs or the cost of providing services) realize this, so nothing has changed.

The other thing that they did that I thought was rather shady was they started offering all titles they carry on download-to-own even though producers, such as us, specifically opted out of that option when it was offered to us. When we questioned it, their position was that "their attorneys said their contract technically allowed it, whether producers had opted out or not, so they didn't bother to ask."

Sure they have costs like anyone else... but they do very little direct marketing, they have had a bazillion affiliates for years now, and their costs have dramatically decreased (or if they haven't, they have the wrong ISP) and so they could very easily up the percentage they pay to producers, but instead, they are simply absorbing the extra profit.