CHICAGO — An AARP-eligible content creator has reached the top 1% on OnlyFans, highlighting a trend of older models who earn a healthy living through premium fan sites.
Clip artist Elaina St. James, a 54-year-old single mother from the Midwest, explained that “age is only a number if you know how to make the most of your talents” and, according to her rep, “earns more money than she ever dreamed as a solo creator after joining OnlyFans when she needed fast cash to pay for her son’s braces.”
After the first month, St. James noted, “I made almost as much as I did working at my sales job for 40 hours a week. By month two, I had already doubled my regular income.”
Upon reading about a woman with children who had struck it rich by adult modeling on OnlyFans, St. James researched the service and “kept running across older women like me that didn’t have ‘perfect’ bodies, yet had thousands of followers on social media.”
“Is there a market for mature glamour models?” St. James asked. “Hell, yes! But to achieve success in a crowded, competitive field, you’re going to have to work for it. Think about your niche — I’m real and authentic and playfully wicked — and I smile a lot. I have fun doing this and it shows.”
St. James offered new models several pieces of practical advice.
Burgeoning content creators will have to generate “plenty of marketing efforts outside of OnlyFans to raise your public online profile — there’s no other way to get people in — and your efforts must stay consistent and true to what your fans want, even if it takes more time and energy," she said. "I ask my subscribers lots of questions in order to give them the best content and find out how to acquire more subscribers like them.”
After noticing that the "Reels" feature on Instagram received a lot of views, St. James started making "dancing reels," which she described as a crucial component of her success.
"The Instagram algorithm was clearly rewarding those using this feature. I also paid attention to what other models were doing: poses, colors and looks that got the best engagement, and incorporated those elements into my brand," she said. "TikTok-style videos are currently very popular, so that is what I am focused on now.”
"What I’ve learned is this: if you’re a model over 40 or 50, men in their late 20s and 30s are your primary OnlyFans audience,” she concluded. "They want to see our voluptuous, more experienced bodies — they value our authenticity. For me, the payoff has been overwhelming in more ways than one.”
For more from Elaina St. James, follow her on Twitter.
