(In the spirit of providing useful information and a place for intelligent dialogue, www.DevonHunter.info accepts well written blog entries about topics of concern to adult entertainment. The views expressed in the following article are not necessarily shared by the operators of the hosting site. Archived guest writers’ articles will be listed under Interviews & Essays.)

The best way to alienate your fans

In my previous post, I talked about a few ways to draw people to your work and connect with them in order to promote loyalty and increase visibility. For my last post with Devon, I want to share a story with you to illustrate a great way to lose not only fans, but subscribers for your various studios.

I am an erotic author.  As part of that discipline, it’s my job to imagine wicked, sexy scenes for my novels.  Last week I had a thought for one of my favorite adult models on a scene for a specific studio which with he is affiliated.  The idea was simply a role reversal with another model (an idea that was not unique to that site); however, for this particular model, I hadn’t ever heard of him doing any kind of switch like this, despite seeing countless comments wishing that he would do so.  I wrote out a quick sketch of my idea and emailed it to the model.  We’d emailed a few times previously, so I figured there would be no harm in doing so.

I was mistaken.

To say that he was not receptive to the idea would be a grave understatement.  As someone who also receives emails from fans, I saw that there were two ways he could have dealt with my email.  The first would have been to simply say that he didn’t think the idea would work.  This I would have understood and accepted.  Instead, I received a rage-filled, hateful email (with a cruel follow up message just for good measure).  I was shocked by the sheer aggressiveness and almost violence of his response, as were the friends I shared it with.
The results of that email included me pulling my subscriptions from the sites he is affiliated with, informing those studios of his interactions with their subscribers, and the withdrawal of my friends’ subscriptions.  I realize that to an industry such as gay adult films that this is merely a drop in their bucket against a bankable model’s lure, but I just could not justify paying hard-earned money to someone who would treat a fan so harshly for merely trying help increase his fan base.

My advice to you, from one professional to another, is this: If you receive an email, tweet, Facebook post, blog comment, etc. that angers or upsets you, do not respond while you are angry.  Once you hit that send button, you cannot take it back, and you have absolutely no control over what happens to the email. Have someone else look over your reply to see if there is the possibility that what you say may come back to haunt you. Think about the possible repercussions of your email.  Would you say the same comments in a blog post or on Twitter?  You just might, because there is nothing to stop the recipient from posting your email anywhere they choose.

I did not name the model or re-post the conversation publicly, because I’m not a vengeful person.    My email obviously upset him, and I’m honestly sorry that it did.  It was never my intention.  This post serves merely to remind you that once you post something on the internet (either via email, or sites such as Twitter), you can’t ever get it back.  There are thousands of bots monitoring Twitter to re-post tweets.  Even if you delete the original post, it’s still out there forever.  So, take a deep breath, or even a walk before you respond to someone in anger, because your reputation could depend on it.

Wishing you a wonderful and productive 2011,

- J. P. Barnaby
www.jpbarnaby.com
Twitter: @JPBarnaby

Erotic fiction is more than just moans, grunts, and physical pleasure. To J. P. Barnaby, erotic fiction consists not only of the mechanics of physical love, but the complex characters and relationships that lead to those all-encompassing feelings of need and longing. Sex without context is merely sex – but sex coupled with attraction, with explosive repercussions – that is good erotic fiction.

(In the spirit of providing useful information and a place for intelligent dialogue, www.DevonHunter.info accepts well written blog entries about topics of concern to adult entertainment. The views expressed in the following article are not necessarily shared by the operators of the hosting site. Archived guest writers’ articles will be listed under Interviews & Essays.)

“Establishing credibility and visibility go hand in hand and establishing both is critical to your success and your victory over competitors.” – MegaJoin Online Business Blog

If you don’t tell potential fans how great you are, who will?

Writing novels had once been a hobby for me before I made the decision to try to find a publisher. By day, I’m a quiet geeky software developer who loves Star Trek, techy gadgets, and my Xbox 360. In other words, I don’t get out much. When I began to open up my perversions to others and publish my work, I found that the most challenging thing for me was marketing myself. Unfortunately in order to share my wicked imagination with a larger group of people, it’s something that I just have to do.

As part of this post, I wanted to share with you a few very basic things that you can do to build an online presence and hopefully help someone in the industry trying to promote themselves to have an easier time of it. An online presence, even at its most basic, can tell your fans where to find your work. More expansive online activities can also allow you to connect with your fans, inspiring loyalty in a veritable sea of possibilities. As an example of what you can accomplish, I’ll offer up the site that I created for Logan Scott, Hard Friction’s first exclusive model – www.loganscottxxx.com.

This guide is a practical way to set up a basic web presence that’s automated and easy to maintain.

A domain name
The first thing that you need to do is register a domain name. This is the address on the internet where people will find you. I use GoDaddy for all of my domains, because they have an intuitive interface and they have package and comprehensive services. Decide what domain name you want to use, and make sure that it’s consistent across all of the services you’re going to use. For example, you don’t want a Twitter name that says TheBobSmith and a domain of BobSmithXXX – keep them consistent so that you’re easier to find.

Go to www.godaddy.com and look for your domain name to see if it’s been taken. On GoDaddy you can also see if your Twitter name is available. If they are both open, follow the instructions to register your domain. It’s just like buying anything else on the internet. Just enter the information they need and keep hitting “next” until you get to the payment screen. It’s about $10/year to register a domain.

Email
You want to have a way for people interested in your work to contact you – fans, review blogs, etc. The best way to do this is to set up a free email account so that you can give the address out freely and not have to worry about your personal account. I would keep managers, studios, etc. on your primary account because you’ll generally check that more frequently. Go to www.gmail.com and sign up for a new account. You’ll want to keep it as close to your domain/Twitter as possible. For example, if your Twitter name is BobSmithXXX, you can make your email BobSmithXXX@gmail and your domain www.BobSmithXXX.com.

Twitter
One of the fastest way to get information to, or to interact with, your friends and fellow models is on Twitter. Most smartphones have a Twitter application that can be installed, or you can use text messaging. You can also send tweets (Twitter messages) from your computer using any number of applications.

When you registered your domain name, you made sure that the Twitter name you wanted was open. Go to www.twitter.com to register a new account. Use the Gmail account to create the Twitter account, so that the spam from Twitter goes there rather than your normal account.

Blog
Blogspot is one of the easiest online blogging services to use. The templates are easy to implement, and the widgets make popping long term content into place pretty simple. Go to www.blogspot.com and log in with the Gmail account that you created. Create a new blog by following the steps in the wizard.

Facebook
There are two different kinds of Facebook pages that you can set up for yourself, a personal page and a fan page.
Go to www.facebook.com. If you already have a personal page, you can add a fan page at www.facebook.com/pages/create.php?campaign_id=372931622610&placement=pghm&extra_1=0.

TwitterFeed
Maintaining a blog, Facebook, Twitter, etc. can be time consuming. One great way to minimize the amount of time you spend getting information to your fans is to make your blog post new content on Facebook and Twitter for you. Go to www.twitterfeed.com and sign up for an account.

Next, add an RSS feed for your blog. The fastest way to find your RSS feed is to go to your blog and use the RSS button on the IE toolbar. Click on it, and you’ll see an option to subscribe to the blog. Copy the URL (that’s your RSS feed link). You can also use the RSS or Atom link on your blog. Paste your feed link into TwitterFeed and select Facebook. Log into Facebook and allow it to connect the link. Select Twitter and log into Twitter, allowing it to connect the link. Make a test blog post, then check Facebook and Twitter to confirm that it worked.

Setting up your online presence isn’t enough, however. Even more than the look and feel of your page, fresh dynamic content is essential so that your fans will subscribe and come back to see the new posts. These posts can be merely functional (such as new shoots that you’re doing and images from your recent releases), or they can be more personal (talking about what is important to you). You may think that your fans really are only interested in one or two of your physical assets, but you’d be surprised how many are just as interested in you as a person.

Wishing you a wonderfully productive new year,

- J. P. Barnaby
www.jpbarnaby.com
Twitter: @JPBarnaby

Erotic fiction is more than just moans, grunts, and physical pleasure. To J. P. Barnaby, erotic fiction consists not only of the mechanics of physical love, but the complex characters and relationships that lead to those all-encompassing feelings of need and longing. Sex without context is merely sex – but sex coupled with attraction, with explosive repercussions – that is good erotic fiction.

I don’t know to what degree my readers keep up with events in gay porn circles; however, there has been another HIV scare, and another round of finger pointing. In the midst of all the judgment and drama there is one porn model who has written a very humane and compassionate blog entry about all this. I want to ask all of my readers to take a few minutes to click this link, and to read what Conner Habib has written. What he says is beautiful, and should be empowering to anyone with a kind heart. Thank you for your wisdom, Conner.

Hey everyone, just wanted to let you know that a story about adult video models and their roles as independent brands within the biz is out. There are comments from a variety of personalities with a wide range of opinions about bare backing in videos, independence vs exclusivity, and other topics. I will include a link to it under the Interviews section of the blog, and you can see it by clicking here as well.

Hey everyone!

HAPPY NEW YEAR! Reflecting on the last year I have to say that quite a lot of good came out of it. I have never been more content and quietly confident than I am right now. It feels good to say that: We create our own realities, and I have chosen happiness. There is so much to be grateful for, and every now and then I like to take moment to remind myself of that (and hopefully that encourages anyone who happens to come here while they’re feeling down).

Starting a year off the way I want is always refreshing, and I’m happy to say that I’ve set a high standard for myself in art, business, organization, and career. Speaking of which, here is an interview that I gave to XX Factor. I’m a blabber butt, as always. But I think that’s part of my mission in all this: Revealing (in many ways and on many levels) that there is nothing to hide.