Idle Thoughts

Posted On: 2014-11-21

There are definitely times when I wish I could either clone myself or own a time machine. The last six days have just been totally insane and even if there had been two of me ... and two of my partner ... I'm sure we would still be way behind in the work we've got to get done.

However, after just three hours sleep last night, I'm getting closer to being back on top of things and sitting down to write this is a bit of an indication that maybe the crazy times are settling down. At least the phone has stopped ringing and I'm not talking on chat to two different sets of server techs as they try to unravel a mess caused by clients who thought that they knew what they were doing.

Income streams
Actually if you're looking to add another income stream to your business then fixing WordPress problems, caused by people who have no idea what they're doing but will go ahead and do it anyway, could pay rather well. The down side of that job is that you're going to need a truckload of patience because dumb people who do dumb things to their websites seem to go on doing the same dumb things again and again.

But having another income stream ... having multiple income streams ... is something you should be aiming for and that's why you should never tie yourself to just one sponsor. They may pay well but what happens when they stop paying? You're basically no more secure than someone who works for a wage; those people are just a heartbeat away from getting let go and when that happens their income goes too.

The solution is not to tie yourself to just one income stream. Instead go out and look for multiple streams both in and out of the online adult world. I heard an interview with an indie author the other day who suggested that writers who have produced several books are sometimes better off than someone who has only one source of income. This particular author, who is very successful, suggested that every book a writer produced for Kindle etc. was another income stream and the more books you wrote the more income streams you had.

You might think that you already have that covered with every new website and gallery you produce but how many sponsors are you using for those sites and galleries? If you're only using two or three sponsors then you really only have two or three income streams.

Don't rush to write
Over the last few weeks I've occasionally mentioned the explosion in what has become known as indie publishing. There are quite a few people out there who are making money from writing books for mobile devices that they sell on Amazon and other online bookstores. While some writers are making money from fiction it seems that most of the money is being made from writing relatively short self-help books and the income figures for some authors in that vertical is amazing.

Income reports from those writers have aroused a lot of interest and there's something of a gold rush going on as more and more people start writing ... mostly rubbish ... in the hope of making bucket loads of cash.

However, if you've been thinking of jumping into that pot of gold and grabbing some for yourself then I've got some bad news for you. The latest sales figures from industry watchers suggest that the gold rush is all but over. If you're an unknown with no other books to your name then making sales on your first book is going to be very difficult and you are really going to have to work the system hard to make enough sales to pay for the time you spent writing the book.

Now I'm sure that you can see the similarities between indie publishing and selling porn online? The gold rush has long gone from our industry and now we're down to the hard work of building sites and galleries that aren't going to produce the number of sales that they would have a few years ago.

So what do you do? Well you do what business owners have done for thousands of years when faced with competition. You either do it better than everyone else or you find a new way and cheaper way of doing what everyone else is doing.

Making money in just about any vertical isn't rocket science ... it's just bloody hard work.