Maria

In this business, you can keep making mistakes, and still come out ahead. You don't need to be perfect, and you don't need to get it right the first time. You can learn as you go.

Let me tell you about Maria.

Morgana explained what a small freesite is, and suggested that I build one. She gave me several areas to consider, and I chose Breasts.

It was the strangest sensation to go shopping for tits. It was even stranger to keep asking a female webmaster, "Do you like these," or "do you like those." I chose a photoset named Maria #1, downloaded it, and started to lay out a freesite according to the pattern Morgana explained.

Okay, you've twenty pictures to stick on two pages. Is that it? Just slap ten thumbs on a page, and be done? That sounded pretty dumb to me. Silly me, I figured it couldn't be that easy, so I designed a way to make it more difficult. I remembered seeing an adult magazine, and remembered that there was some kind of text with the pictures. An interview with the model or something like that. Okay, I could do that.

I did. I wrote a story about "my friend Maria" (yeah, right) and how amazed I was that she agreed to the photo shoot. And then I narrated the photo shoot as we worked our way through the twenty thumbs. Yes, show me something simple, and I can find a way to make it difficult! So much for my foray into Breastland.

And what do you know? You'd never suspect from the pictures, but Maria was just a little bit kinky. Yes, when it's me writing the story, stuff like that just kind of happens. A couple of the pictures show a hairbrush on the bathroom counter. When I am writing the story, setting a hairbrush out like that can only mean one thing.

I created Maria Bares Her Chest. My concept was, "Maria has a kinky little secret, and decides to bare her chest. I think baring her chest is a Wonderful Idea!" Who could lose, with a cute play on words like that? I still had so much to learn...

I placed banners in the appropriate parts of the page. I wrote some really lame text to go with a couple of them because that's what I was supposed to do. I advertised Big Nipple. I advertised Kara's. I advertised Kara's Amateurs. I advertised Fetish Hotel. I advertised several more things as well. I created sharp-looking text blocks. Of course I have yet to sell anything from these ads, but I thought things looked really nice. I thought I was focusing on two sponsors just like I was supposed to. As you can see, I was not.

I also placed nine or so links to my own sites to go along with the six recips to link sites, above the Enter button on the disclaimer page. I'm glad I had found Voltar as a teacher by then, so at least I could learn from all these newbie blunders.

Meanwhile, I had impressed the heck out of myself by making such a beautiful site, and by so carefully following instructions. I submitted to Greenguy and got listed right away. Six hours later I was out of business.

My webspace provider had a bandwidth quota on my account. I was used to seeing a couple thousand visitors a day, but I had forgotten how much bandwidth a banner ad can chew up. The surge of visitors loading that banner ad, used up my entire quota! I replaced one banner with incredibly lame text, and managed to stay open for a little bit longer that day.

I found a new webspace provider.

Meanwhile, I was congratulating myself for doing such an awesome job on my first vanilla site. I wasn't making any money from the site, but I knew it was awesome, and I was sure that lame text around the banners was just what the doctor ordered. No doubt the continued lack of income was a temporary aberration.

So, I expanded the story line. In the "interview" Maria explained how and why Being Spanked appeals to her. I ran this explanation to include all 50 pictures in the photoset. I submitted the site to Adult Check as Maria Bares It All, and was immediately accepted. I wasn't really looking for Adult Check sales. Rather, I was looking for the listing. I figured bringing Adult Check members in to see my awesome banner ads would bring me some good revenue.

I was half right. I got traffic. No revenue, but I did get traffic.

Some time later Tommy mentioned to me that the model's name is Jesica rather than Maria, and showed me a photoset of Jesica wearing the New York Whores T-Shirt. Yup, it's her! I wonder if she'd be horrified or amused by the story I wrote about "my friend" Maria. Tommy also mentioned in passing that the text around my Big Nipple ads didn't do much for him.

Along came my Newbie Project. This had nothing to do with Maria... or did it? The Newbie Project was to write a book, and then create a pay site based on the book. The customer surfs on by, purchases a subscription to the book, and then gets fed the next chapter each week. I'm grateful the book didn't have to be Vanilla.

I put the Newbie Project together, and thought about how I might draw in the right kind of surfers. The surfer I seek is one who is willing to stick around long enough to read a long story.

So... out comes Maria. I took the four-page site and scrunched it together into a single page. I created a tgp page with 20 pics, along with the story. Some tgp sites have a Stories category - I decided I would use that wherever possible. If that didn't work, I could still call the page Amateur, 20 pics.

Because this tgp gallery was a bit weird - when I do the writing, stuff happens - I made it as squeaky clean as possible. I wrote my own text banner for the top of the page, just in case somebody wanted to buy. (I remembered Tommy's advice and rewrote the ad. I copied the new ad back to the original freesite, and immediately tripled the clickthrus.) I stuck a Boobs toplist link in the middle of the page. I put a link towards the bottom to Maria Bares It All as a public service, just in case anyone might want to see the rest of the pics and read the rest of the story.

Finally, I placed a text link to Newlywed Games at the bottom, just in case they'd like to read a "real" spanking story. In effect I'm acting as my own sponsor, so I did not use a full page ad along the way to the avs site or to Newlywed Games. Newlywed Games is an excerpt from my Newbie Project, and so it will feed straight in to the paysite once it becomes operational.

Until now, Maria hasn't made me a whole lot of money. The site is more of an example of what not to do. However, I am now using Maria as a way of filtering and qualifying traffic for my Newbie Project. If I make a sale off the text banner, that's great; but my real purpose is to go out searching for people who might like to buy a newbie project subscription.

I don't know how successful Maria will be at filtering and qualifying potential buyers. What I do know, is that I've had good success getting Maria listed with the tgp sites. I gave them something a little bit different, and the tgp owners seem to like that.

Now you know something about Maria!

With Maria, I made lots of mistakes. I did things wrong. What I did right was, I kept doing things.

Let me explain.

I created the freesite, and showed it to my mentors. By having something down on paper, so to speak, we could discuss what to improve on, and what to do next. I created the avs site, and again, since my mentors had something to work with, they could give me concrete advice. By staying in motion, they could point me in the right direction. I am the engine, and my mentors are the steering wheel. What good is the steering wheel when the engine is stopped? For that matter, what good is the engine without the steering wheel?

Remember all those blunders I made with Maria? They served another purpose as well. They allowed my strengths and preferences to show through, and allowed Voltar to match me up with the appropriate Newbie Project. Again, by remaining in motion, I was able to obtain the necessary guidance.

Will Maria turn a profit? Who knows? Who cares? What I learned from Maria, I applied to the next site, and it is turning a profit. So long as I stay in motion, and keep listening as best I can, how can I lose?

Last modified: Fri May 26 14:24:11 CDT 2000