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How Did You get Started?
How Long Have you been at it?
What pushed you from Porn viewer to Porn Maker?
What have you learned Since doing this that you care to share with other Content Producers?
Are you on twitter? Do you know your Klout Score? Is it important?
Do you have any Influences? People or Companies that you can say have influenced your 'work'?
What are the biggest challenges you see to growing your business?
Care to discuss?
Joe
How Did You get Started?
I had been doing mainstream production in Hollywood and did a documentary. I love sex and felt like the mainstream was using sex but not owning it. I want to do something more honest. And see naked guys.
I found my first three guys on Rentboy, wrote them, made arrangements and drove up to San Francisco to shoot them. It was exciting and scary. I was nervous and turned on.
How Long Have you been at it?
About four years now. It's gone by fast!
What pushed you from Porn viewer to Porn Maker?
Watching, I had a desire to create. As I was approaching 40, I asked myself If not now, when?
What have you learned Since doing this that you care to share with other Content Producers?
I've learned how little I knew when I started. I didn't even know how clueless I was. I'm a content producer. This is a business run by coders and programmers. That's been a challenge. (And still is.) The other this is: It's not easy. I mean, just putting together a good affiliate mail design can be a challenge if your HTML skills are weak. Even hiring people can be challenging because people will start a job and never finish. What's up with that?
But on the production side, I learned that a lot of light makes my life easier. Lighting is my best friend when it comes to photos and video. I also learned how people under 25 have a problem staying hard and coming sometimes. What's up with that? I'm 45 and my boner shows up too often! (As anyone who's seen my videos have seen.)
Are you on twitter? Do you know your Klout Score? Is it important?
@FanForeskin. I love Twitter. There's always time for 140 characters and it's a great way for people to get to know what my site is about. I look at my Klout score, and get some guidance from it, but I think it's more important to marketers who are looking to see who the influencers are. If you have a good Klout score, they'll listen when you complain about their product or service.
Do you have any influences? People or companies that you can say have influenced your 'work'?
I like a documentary style, keeping shooting pretty natural, trying to capture a real moment. So the documentaries of Nick Broomfield or Morgan Spurlock may have had a bigger impact than porn. But I love Michael Lucas' big vision and the way that Jake Cruise always makes sex look joyful and playful. And I love the way Bel Ami brought foreskin to America in such a big way.
What are the biggest challenges you see to growing your business?
I could say piracy, but I think other people could speak more intelligently than me on that. But MY biggest challenge is staying disciplined and being creative. When I'm having a problem with my site and I've hired someone to help that won't return my calls, it's easy to quit for the day and not deal with it. When I have a long day of editing ahead, it's easy to get distracted with an episode of Game of Thrones. It's also easy to get so focused on what I have to do today and not ask myself what my business will look like in a year or five years. I really admire the way Dominic Ford sees the big picture and is always innovating, not just with 3D, but with Adult Magazine and the kind of movies he makes. I like the way Nick Baer has found different products to sell and different distribution channels beyond the monthly membership site. I plan on taking Fantastic Foreskin beyond the membership site and I excited about that!
I'm looking forward to hearing what other have to say.
How Did You get Started?
In 1980, I took a nude Polaroid pic of my weekend date. In about 1986, I did a photo shoot with a guy with full-body Tatts, for newspaper. Also in 1986, I bought a RCA VHS video camera, at the outlet store for the major Chic department store in Minneapolis. First thing I did, was shoot a selfie solo JO, which sells to this day.
How Long Have you been at it?
Shooting since 1986, selling since 1993 (VHS), 1996 (Web page), 2004 (DVD), 2005 (VOD). In 1999 I got a phone call from Mark K. then at a new thing called Naked Sword. He wanted to sell my content as VOD. I didn't think I had enough, nor the ability to continually produce more, so I turned him down. BIG BIG BIG regret. 2004, I was on this (or the predecessor) Forum and Robert Sons contacted me about AEBN. Started with AEBN, X On Demand and HotMovies in June 2005. That's 9 years ago now!
What pushed you from Porn viewer to Porn Maker?
I had worked in TV. I was working in TV in when AIDS hit, and was a totally unknown phantom killer. After HIV became known of in 1985, I decided it would be more fun to video men having sex(ual pleasure with themselves), than having actual sex with (most of) them, and Porn could be a good substitute for actual sex for the viewer - if the viewer was HIV- or HIV+. Plus, I could shoot more men on camera, all during the day, than be with privately. Because I was working in a good set of related jobs, and was 35+ and beyond the raging hormones stage of life, I found it satisfactory to put a camera between me and the other guy. 20 years later, I added shooting POV Blow Job to my catalog, which is safe for both, and Massage.
What have you learned Since doing this that you care to share with other Content Producers?
Str8 guys will do gay sex on camera, not off camera!
Are you on twitter? Do you know your Klout Score? Is it important?
Facebook, Twitter. The only thing important to me is my fans as customers, who put down cash for my DVDs, VODs and eBooks. No one else, nothing else matters.
Do you have any Influences? People or Companies that you can say have influenced your 'work'?
Mapplethorpe was my photo influence. I've always considered video to be "moving pictures," not moving cameras, so I like to treat my video camera as I do my still camera. I sell DVDs and Books and eBooks on Amazon, where there is no sexual content. Thus, that has provided me the opportunity to hire male models who will shoot nude, but no sex.
What are the biggest challenges you see to growing your business?
Repressed visibility on Google At times, I am saddened by vicious personal attacks on Forums, but in the end, none of those characters have any money or clout to throw my way, or anyone else's way, anyway.
I am very disappointed that I cannot sell my nude (non-sexual) photo books on iTunes and Google Books.
Care to discuss?
I ad never heard of Klout Score prior to Joe mentioning it.
So I signed up and gave it a try. It asked for my Facebook and Twitter. Said I had a score of like 16 out of 100.
Nothing about linking Yahoo Groups, Tumblr, XTube, AEBN, HotMovies, Amazon, Kindle, Nook, Kobo, GFY, GWW :) ... and Facebook only for the primary account, not about fan pages and groups.
Just now, I get an e-mail from them, that my score had gone up - to 36. Average is 40.
I really don't think I did anything special - but it went from 16 to 36!
So I really can't get too excited about Klout. Sounds like another fake, manufactured or manipulated something or other.
Just got an e-mail from Klout: my score just went up to 41!
Again, I'm not sure that I did anything!
I did send a Twit last night about one of my movies.
If that's all it takes, I've got 400 movies in my catalog!
So in three days, I went from 16 to 36 to 41!
Wish my FICO score went UP that much, that fast!
Me thinks both are about as relevant.