As I said in my top reasons why you shouldn't make amateur porn, I am only speaking from personal experience and just because things worked out one way for me, doesn't mean it will work out the same for you, so be very careful and thoughtful in your choices. I am also not and would never advocate anyone join the adult industry through pressure, whether it be financial, social, or any other type. If you feel forced into this industry, please seek help with for your situation. Here are 7 reasons why someone may want to consider making amateur porn:
1: YOU GAIN KNOWLEDGE OF MULTIPLE SUBJECTS
When I first got into the adult industry, I had no idea how many different skills and how knowlegeable you had to be to create sellable content, especially with no experience or with any partners who had experience in technology, editing, filming, makeup/costume, or writing storylines and plots. You have learn pretty fast how to at least make moderately-decent appearing content because there are literally thousands of people who make amazing content with a large following of fans, and to have any hope of competition, you need to try as hard as possible to make the best possible video you can with your budget and "studio" for filming. Some things I would have never attempted to learn if not for the industry are very helpful in other areas of my life including HTML code, the basics of filming and photography (lighting, angles, touch-ups, "The Exposure Triangle", etc.), video editing, special effects and makeup, writing, and of course, acting. Whether or not you stayed in the industry, education in these areas will not go to waste.
2: MAKING CONTENT CAN BE THERAPEUTIC
Though this can go the opposite way if you do not practice proper self care, creating a brand and building it can have lots of positive effects on your life and additude. As vain and egotistical as it may seem, no one can deny that being told you are beautiful or handsome can lift your spirit when you may not feel this way. Not to say that you will only get positive attention from this industry, but you have a well-balanced self esteem and can distinguish what is true about you and what someone may tell you that you are, it can have a very uplifting effect. Not only do fans compliment you on looks, but I have gotten tons of comments about the video itself and how it was edited, the script, my voice, etc. Compliments aside, making content can be a helpful step for those who may want to move into professional porn or other live performances (camming, stripping, escorting, etc.) by allowing you to perform without the pressure of someone watching if you mess up. If you do make a mistake, no one will see (except your cast or partners if you have them), and it will have no effect on you or your brand. I have seen more than enough recorded camming session, as well as during my own live ones, that mistakes happen, but some of them people won't shut up about! When you record your own, that fear is gone.
3: YOUR IMAGINATION IS YOUR ONLY LIMIT
This is true for really any genre of film (excluding documentary), not just adult film. There is absolutely NO limit to the kind of content you can create. Even if you think, "This is too out there/This isn't "realistic" enough", curb that thought; someone will watch it! You can come up with unique characters on your own or choose a character from your favorite comic book or movie, there is an entire sub genre of cosplay videos. You can take inspiration from anything, jobs (cop, chef, plumber, secretary), animals (bunnies, lion, tiger, mouse), TV shows (Big Bang Theory, Family Guy, Law & Order), celebrities (Taylor Swift, Adele, Pharell), myths and legends (Medusa, sucubbi, fairies), anything! Some examples of character content I've seen include both Pickle Rick and Mr. Meeseeks from Rick and Morty, Rainbow Dash from My Little Pony, even Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. You can also learn about genres that maybe special or unique that you fit into; if you are a heavy girl try BBW; if you are very heavy, try SSBBW; if you are short, try Petite; if you are tall, try Amazon or Giant/ess; hair colors have categories, like Readhead, Blonde, and Brunette; same with eye color (Green Eyes, Blue Eyes, Brown Eyes); I could go on forever about the different categories and sub-categories of content, finding your niches and add your own personal flair and creativity to them is essential to popular content.
4: YOU BECOME A PART OF A LARGE COMMUNITY
The adult industry may not be the first place you think of when you think of a loving and supportive community, but you do become a part of one when you join any of the jobs within the industry, including stripping, creating porn, camming, escorting and more. This is not to say that every other actress or actor, escort, or stripper is going to be super kind and supportive to you, but in general you won't have to go too far to find some support when you need it. In fact, it can be so supportive and communal that people (especially in camming and other amateur content) will meet up and create content together in order to share the profit, share experience and also create a friendship with someone who is in the same line of work. Not to say that you should automatically meet up with any person who wants to create content with you, but it does happen and it's not always a scam. There are lots of blogs and forums for the men and women who are in this type of work to speak to each other get advice on with things and plenty of websites that have information to help those in amateur porn, as well as any other jobs within the industry. Always judge on a person by person basis and don't just think because this person looks or talks in a certain way, they are necessarily that way. Unlike most other jobs, you will never be completely alone when you are in this industry.
5: MAKING CONTENT FILLS YOUR TIME UP
If you don't have a job or a career, or even if you just have a lot of extra time on your hands and want to be in this industry, this takes up a lot of time. Most informational sites, blogs and forums tend to only stress the actual recording part, as if that's the only thing that you need to do. However, no one's going to be able to see your content if you don't advertise and market, which means you need to get ON social media. You'll need at least a Twitter account, Instagram, and Snapchat, with Tumblr being a bonus. The goal is to try to get the most customers to come to you, because unlike professional porn, you are doing a lot of self marketing. An average day for someone who might be doing amateur porn would be to wake up, post on all their social media accounts, set up their "studio", put on their makeup and costume, record content, re-record mistakes, take photos for a gallery, edit the video and images, create a new plot and script for a future video, post on social medias again to make sure people know about it, and posting their content on their website or hosting website. Of course, this is not including time to eat breakfast, lunch and dinner, time to bathe or shower, time for other routines they may have, time for another job, etc... As you can see, it is extremely time-consuming, but worth it if you truly have a passion and want to do it.
6: YOU CAN CAST PEOPLE YOU KNOW
This one is more in comparison to professional porn versus a positive on its own, but nonetheless it's still a positive because having partners in your content can add sales and views. When you're creating your own content, whether it be videos, images, or live performances, it is always safer and for you (and the other person) to know who you are casting. With professional porn where you are not the full owner of the content and in control of how everything goes, they choose the actor or actress that you will be working with, and your choice is to either say, "Yes, I will do the video with them." or "No, I will not." You don't get to say, "I'll do the video, but I want to choose someone else." They choose who they want and that's how it goes, and the same goes for your brand, you can choose whoever you like. When you are in complete control of everything that goes on, from makeup to filming, directing to editing, and casting, if you don't like a person, you don't even have to invite them. You are in complete control of who gets to be in it, what percentage of money they get to take from, it if they get paid at all, you guys can work that out personally. I suggest that you create and have them sign a right to release contract, that has their signature and ID, to prove the person you were with was of age where you're recording it, and consented to the actions that you're recording. Another positive of this to is being able to make sure that the people you are with are tested for STDs or any other diseases that are transmittable to you (not just venereal or sexual diseases, but as well as diseases that affect other portions of the body besides your genitals {ie. mumps, tuburculosis}). I would also suggest making sure that you do know the person and don't try to hire someone unless it's from a professional casting website that you know and trust. Always meet the person in advance (in public), if you don't actually know them as a friend, but I would always suggest going with someone that you personally know that you can go to an STD test with and get a background check on to make sure that everything is fine.
7: OF COURSE, YOU MAKE MONEY
Last but not least, and certainly the most well-known aspect of it, is you get to make money. How much is dependent on what site your hosting on or if you use your own personal website. Using your own website is pretty much the only way guarantee that you will get 100% profit off of all your content, as long as all the profit only goes to your personal accounts. If you create your own site to host on, you will have generally no automatic traffic to your website and you will have to rely on 100% self-marketing and depending on how much of a following you already have to begin with, this may not be a problem for you. If you already have 100,000 followers on Twitter and only 10% of them go to your website, that's already a huge revenue. Another positive about having your own website is you can make money from ads, but if you don't have a huge fan base visiting your website, it may not be worth it. If you were less inclined to do 100% of the marketing, may not have that many followers to begin with and you want to start a fan base, I would suggest using a hosting site for amateur porn. They cover the marketing aspect of it, will get your ads on different websites, tweet and use other social media to tag you or post for you. You can use them as an outlet to bring people to your profile and your content. The drawback with these websites are that they do keep a percentage of your profit. Some will take as little as 10% to 20% and some will take from 40 to 50% depending on who you go with. Make sure you check out all the terms of service on the hosting site you choose to make sure that you know how much percentage will be taken, and also make sure you don't automatically say no to a site for the percentage. If the 10% site only gets you $10 of traffic, and the 40% site gives you $100 worth of traffic, the lower percentage isn't worth it. Consider when you will be paid as well, hosting websites have scheduled payouts. Opposed to running your own website, you can be able to cash out on your money whenever you like. Depending on the person you could be making anywhere from $0 to the $1000's a week depending on the quality of your content, how many fans you have, the traffic you're bringing to your site, and how active you are in the community.
As I said before, and I will continue to say it, I absolutely will never encourage someone to do this for purely financial reasons, due to social or peer pressure, or any other type of pressure someone may have been forced to join the adult industry. Along with some sources for hosting websites, I've also included sexual trafficking websites and hotline numbers for anyone who may be looking for help out of this or other bad situations. I am a full believer in the positive impacts that the consensual adult industry has on the world, and I believe that it (or any who works in it) should never be judged or stigmatized. Please be careful if you do decide to join this community always think Safety First, make that money and have fun!
I don't know when it will be available yet, but I am writing a complete guide for sex workers with ideas, advice, how-to's, and resources for 12 different types of sex work. The guide will be available and distributed freely to any sex worker. It can be purchased by any non-worker by sending a screenshot of your phone or computer sending any donation amount to the https://polarisproject.org/ , an organization deditcated to ending human trafficking.
Sources:
Hosting Sites:
ManyVids: https://www.manyvids.com
ExtraLunchMoney: https://extralunchmoney.com/
iWantClips: https://iwantclips.com/
Customs4U: www.customs4u.com/
YouKandy: https://www.youkandy.com/
Clips4Sale: https://www.clips4sale.com/
SMUTR: https://smutr.com/
Pornhub: https://www.pornhub.com/
Help:
National Human Trafficking Hotline: 1 (888) 373-7888 : https://humantraffickinghotline.org/
National Sexual Assault Hotline: 1 (800) 656-4673 : https://www.rainn.org/
National Hotline for Missing & Exploited Children: 1 (800) 843-5678 : http://www.missingkids.com/home
National Runaway Safeline: 1 (800) 786-2929 : https://www.1800runaway.org/
The Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline: 1 (800) 422-4453 : https://www.childhelp.org/
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1 (800) 273-8255 : https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration : 1-800-662-HELP (4357) : https://www.samhsa.gov/
CDC National AIDS Hotline: 1-800-CDC-INFO (1-800-232-4636) : https://www.cdc.gov/hiv/default.html