Breaking into the world of shooting adult fetish content isn’t a big mystery anymore. Anyone with a camera and Internet access can do it now, and you don’t even need to hire models (if you don’t want to). But twenty years ago, when there were only a few studios shooting fetish content, there was a lot of mystique surrounding it all. Everything they did seemed like some covert “hush-hush” operation where only those with an “in” understood how it all worked.
Anyone who’s ever wondered about what it takes to get started in the world of producing adult fetish content has asked the same question: “What do I do first?” and likely been met with several different replies. I hope that I can shed some light on the subject by telling my story and what I’ve learned along the way.
My story is a bit different, because in 1999 most people assumed a woman getting into the fetish business wanted to be in front of the camera. Not me!
The first question I needed to answer was: “What’s my fetish?” If you have a particular fetish you enjoy, then that’s the best one for you to start with. For me, it was “Damsel in Distress” (DiD) bondage.
My story is a bit different, because in 1999 most people assumed a woman getting into the fetish business wanted to be in front of the camera. Not me! My goal right from the start was to get behind the camera shooting and directing the actresses from a woman’s perspective. I did some acting to begin with in order to learn the basic ins and outs of the business, but the second I understood how it all worked, I flipped the script and became the “bad girl” doing all the grabbing and tying up myself.
My content is all DiD-based bondage featuring women getting into tricky situations which lead to them being grabbed, tied up and then left to struggle. My earliest memories of girls getting captured by bad guys was from watching Lynda Carter as Wonder Woman. Her golden lasso was the object of many fantasies when I was young. Then, as an adult, I fell in love with the old Detective and Harmony Concepts magazines. The artwork by people like Bishop was the stuff of many fantasies. To me, DiD scenes seemed like a good niche, and I enjoyed writing the storylines for the scenes too. Plus, as a woman it was pretty easy to book other women to shoot with you. I never had any of the problems some of the men I knew in the business had with booking models for shoots — that’s for sure.
In 1999, how did you get started in the fetish business? I’ll break down what you needed. First off, today it’s really not as hard or complicated as it was back then. Especially with a 4K-capable video camera sitting in most people's back pocket — your smartphone — you’re already one step ahead of what it was like back then. I stumbled into shooting fetish content when a friend of mine told me he was starting an adult website. That one little conversation got me curious, and from there I started looking into just how hard it might be to get into the fetish business too.
I had just enough knowledge of the Internet, HTML and digital photography to be dangerous. I bought a KODAK DC215, which was a 1-megapixel camera, some $6 clamp lights from Home Depot, a couple of sheets (for backdrops) and I was basically in business. Of course, I also had to stock up on supplies like rope — lots and lots of rope, duct tape, and sheets torn up for gags. A few trips to local thrift stores for extra outfits in several sizes, just in case a scene called for clothes being cut or torn off, and cases of water, some energy bars and fruit — yes, it was and still is important to keep everyone fed and hydrated!
Once I had all the basics, though, it became quite a bit more complicated to actually get started because of everything involved with opening your own member-based website. Getting started for most people meant you had to have start-up money (about $2,500) and a lot of free time. You usually had to find an adult webmaster who could create and build a website for you — which varied in price depending on the complexity of your website layout — and then pay them weekly or monthly to manage your site and post your updates (at an average of $50 to $100 per update).
Or if you were a fast learner and wanted to be hands-on, then it was all very DIY. First, you would need to purchase a domain name yourself, find a hosting company, purchase a hosting plan, get a program to help you create and design a website or learn how to hand-code HTML yourself, find an adult billing company (back then it was iBill — which later went bust — or CCBill) and set up your billing account, get another program (or two) for editing, then learn how to edit and format photos and videos, and finally learn how to successfully post your own updates.
I chose the DIY method, because I may secretly be a masochist, and went at it by myself learning a lot about adult websites along the way. Once you figured out your strategy for getting your website online and set up, finally you were ready!
On the DIY plan, once you had mastered editing and posting the content to your new website, it was rinse and repeat every week with brand new content. Back then, “new content” meant brand-new photo sets and a short (under two minutes) video clip in MPEG or RM format. If you don’t know what RM (RealMedia) format is, don’t worry; you still don’t need to know.
OK, that’s all well and good, but what are you editing? When I started shooting, everything was a lot less expensive, including model rates. I was booking models for three hours and paying them between $35 and $50 per hour, and in that timeframe I’d get at least three photo sets with 200-plus images per set, and three video clips which could all be broken up into multiple parts (bondage shoots took time with all the ropes and setup). That ended up producing six edited photo sets and six video clips. Not bad for a day’s work!
While that sounds pretty good, I realized very quickly that I couldn’t just update with one model all the time (unless they were already very popular), so typically in a month I’d work with four to six models to be able to mix up my content for updates. It meant an additional outlay of between $600 and $900 a month just in model fees. At that point, between model fees and website fees, I was thinking about the return on investment (ROI) and how to get it fast!
The work didn’t stop there, however. If you wanted a fast ROI, you also had to start doing promotion, because as a new website, no one knew about you or could find you. So, you had to start joining or forming your own Yahoo! Groups, and finding other websites to trade banners with and link farms to get your website posted on. Once social media came along, you could follow people and post your content update with a quick click and 280 characters of text, but back then you had to do a lot of time-consuming online searches. Without promotion, you’d have no customers! You really had to think outside the box and work with other people to promote your business online.
Talk about a lot of work hoping to make $9.95 to $24.95 per month/per customer. Don’t get me wrong, though — back in the day when member sites were the be-all and end-all, I was making more than enough money to live a comfortable life working for myself at home. But it was work, and it was a job which required me to treat it like a job in order to make money at it. Some people I knew did it as a hobby, and while that may have been okay for them, I wanted to create a business with an income stream, that continued to pay for itself.
Fast-forward 20 years to 2019, and old school member sites that you build and run on your own have become cumbersome, expensive and time-consuming. Photo sets are now an afterthought for most people and video is what everyone is focusing on. Remember my comment about that smartphone in your back pocket? That’s what makes starting a fetish business a reality for anyone today wanting to break into the business and shoot content. You have the first big piece of the puzzle in your pocket.
One thing I learned along the way as well is that you can make more money on a per-video-clip basis than you ever would on a member site where you give away large amounts of content for one low monthly price. For those who are diehard photo fans, the same does hold true for zip files of photo sets: you’ll make more money selling them on a per-set basis than giving the content away in bulk for pennies every month.
Gone are the days of having to do it all yourself. Now, entire sites like Clips4Sale.com, and other online services, exist to make your dreams of breaking into the world of being a fetish producer come true with no upfront costs to you. The platform allows you to open a store and post your clips or photos, costing nothing to get started. They handle everything from hosting to billing to customer service for only a small percentage of your sales.
As for equipment, not much has changed. All you need are the basics, which are a video camera and some lights — because lighting is actually very important. Don’t skimp on the lighting! (You can also get a really great set of studio lights on Amazon for under a 100 bucks.) With just these few things, plus your time and creativity, you, too, can be in the fetish business overnight!
I learned a lot from my own mistakes. From setting everything up back in 1999 to working in the industry until today, there have been so many things I missed and had to learn along the way, because no one told me these vitally important details. So I am including a few of them here:
- Brand Name — Choose a brand name for your business. Your brand name is really the launching point for everything you will do going forward. You do not want to use anyone else’s brand name (as that can get you in legal trouble), so you want to make sure your brand name is unique and easy for a customer to recognize. You should also make sure all of your social media accounts are available in your new brand name; you can do that easily online at sites like KnowEm.com. Make sure you can secure your brand name as a URL too, by checking on GoDaddy.com!
- Business Type — Decide what type of business you want to set up your new venture under, because come tax time, this is very important! For this, you may need to speak to an accountant, so you understand exactly what you need to do to set up your business correctly. For reference, you can check out the U.S. Small Business Administration to see what types of business structures are available. You also need to look into whether or not you need an EIN# from the IRS for your business. Again, if you’re in the U.S., seek assistance from an accountant, but you can also read more at IRS.gov. International content producers, you should also speak with a professional in your country in case you have to pay taxes on your income.
- Content Releases & Age Verification Documents — Make sure you get a model release (content release), a 2257 release and a clear copy of each model's photo ID every single time you shoot! Even if you shoot with the same model multiple times, you need new documents each and every time — dated and signed. Also, remember: even if the person you are shooting is also your significant other, they should be signing a release too, every time you work with them. Keep business and pleasure separate! Thankfully, I never had this issue myself, but I have heard so many horror stories about people losing all of their content because they never had a model release or copy of an ID for anyone they filmed. Consider speaking to an attorney as well to help you get set up or for any legal questions relating to working and/or producing content in the adult industry.
- Statistics — Take the time to learn Google Analytics! It’s really a good idea to understand where your customers are coming from and where to focus your advertising and marketing. Google Analytics lets you measure your advertising ROI as well as track your video and social networking sites and applications. There are also sites like Google Webmaster Tools which you can use to track your content’s search performance with Google Search Console. Some other interesting websites for tracking traffic and trends include: Ahrefs.com, Wordtracker.com and Keyword.io.
- Social Media — Don’t forget this free advertising tool, because it’s where and how you’ll gain new customers! There is a website that you can use to create “recipes” with the applets they have for cross-posting to every social media outlet there is online. It’s called If This Then That (IFTTT) and it’s a great way to optimize your time by posting in one place and letting IFTTT do the rest! It’s also wise to note the “adult-friendly” platforms, because the last thing you want to do is generate a following of thousands of fans only to be shut down because your content is too racy. So, do a little research, create your brand and get social!
Over the years, I have evolved further into trade show management and promotion. I’m going into my 19th year this August as the promoter of FetishCon in St. Petersburg, Fla. with my husband, Simon, and our business partners, Mike and Vesta. I do miss shooting content and writing the storylines, so I have started picking up the camera again. Who knows where the next 20 years will take me, but I do know that technology will continue to evolve and provide new avenues for content producers to flourish.
I’ve had the pleasure of working with and meeting hundreds of fetish models and fetish producers over the years, both as a producer myself and as a trade show promoter for FetishCon. I enjoy my conversations with everyone I meet because I get to delve into their fetishes and discuss my own in depth. My other passions are teaching, technical writing, and research. Through those loves I have had the extraordinary opportunity to work closely with, and for, the owner of the largest and first fetish clip site on the Internet for the past ten years. It’s been an amazing learning experience that I’m truly thankful for.
The bottom line now is: as the industry has grown over the last 20 years, it has become so much more accessible and easier for people to get involved in. You just need to look at the success of the clip sites that have popped up over the last decade to know that if you want to make a pretty quick return on a fairly low investment, you can. The bigger sites have a ready-made market just waiting for you to post your content. You’ve just got to take the plunge and create it!
Genesis Lynn is a highly experienced content creator whose creative endeavors can be found at FetishCon.com, FetishAwards.com, MaidensinMayhem.com, Twitter @GenesisLynn and on Clips4Sale by searching for “Bondage by Maidens in Mayhem.”
