One of the first lessons a camgirl learns, either by listening to advice from others or by her own experience, is “do not keep all of your eggs in one basket”.

Do not rely on one single site as your income source.

It’s just not smart to trust only one site – you could be suspended, they might pay you late this month, your cheque might get lost in the mail, the site might suddenly vanish taking your paycheque with it, they could send your direct deposit to someone else and promise to pay you next month… any number of things could happen. I’ve experienced all of these personally (most of them when I was a newbie camgirl and didn’t know better).

Having multiple income sources – working on multiple cam sites or clip sites – is the smart way to make sure you’ll have a paycheque every month. That being said, sometimes sites just aren’t as great at generating income as we hope – so how do you know when to close your account on a site?

I have a very difficult time closing accounts. If a site is jerking me around with my paycheque (“we paid you, I don’t know why you didn’t get it but we paid you so it’s out of our hands”), then you’d better believe I’m gone. I’ll empty my profile, delete all of my videos, make sure everything is erased, and make sure my account balance is at $0, and then close my account. But I have a really hard time leaving sites that, for me personally, fall into the it’s-not-bad-it’s-just-not-wonderful-either category.

When to close your account on Extralunchmoney

If you mainly focus on filming videos, you know how amazing having a passive income is. You film a video now, and in two years from now it’s still earning you money. It’s great! This – to me – is what makes new sites so appealing. It gives me another place to upload all of my existing videos, so that they can start generating me money. The videos are already filmed and edited, why not upload them to as many sites as possible, right?

But there comes a point when you might question whether you’re wasting your time uploading to a site. How do you know it’s really worth it?

When To Try Harder

I’ll be the first one to admit that I have my two favourite sites: Kinkbomb and Clips4Sale. They have their own traffic and I consistently have sales and reach payout, so I update them regularly with new videos. Then I have my side sites, which for one reason or another aren’t my favourites so they only get updates when I feel like it. If you’re consistently not reaching the weekly or monthly payout minimum, or not experiencing steady sales, the first thing you should do is look at your own behaviour on the site.

Jamie Sweet suggests increasing promotion of your page on social networks, and including a sale to boost your traffic. Quinn Tillion agrees that promoting yourself and your store on social sites like Twitter and Tumblr can increase visits to you store and encourage sales.

Abbey Rhode advises using preview gifs or pictures to let people get a taste of your content.

• Is your profile completely filled out?
• Do you have photos and gifs posted?
  Having clear photos and gifs – or even a video preview available – is for displaying the quality of your content. You can’t expect regular sales if you only post blurry photos.
• Does the site have any special features for you to take advantage of?
  Some sites have a section for an intro video where you can introduce yourself, display the quality of your videos, and discuss what you offer.
  Other sites have a spot for you to highlight some of your videos – maybe top sellers, or a certain category of video you’d like to focus on.
  Explore the site and learn the unique features the site offers.
• Do you update regularly?
  People should know when to expect new content from you, so they know when to check your page for updates.
• Do you promote your store?
  Social networks like Twitter and Tumblr are great for posting photos and gifs to advertise yourself and your store in order to increase traffic.
• Is it possible to run a sale or discount?
  Most sites display sales or discounts not only on your page but elsewhere on the site as well (ExtraLunchMoney and Kinkbomb both have a page with a list of all current coupon codes or discounts on the site)

If your sales are a little less than what you’d like, try doing these six things to improve your store and increase your sales on the site. I’ll address this subject in depth in a future blog post, but for now, these are the steps you should be taking to determine if it’s the site that sucks, or if you’ve not been giving it the right attention.

When To Close Your Account

If you’ve only made $4 this month from one sale, and you really have made an effort to have a decent profile or store page, it’s probably not worth it to dedicate your time to the site.

I posed the question “What determines when you quit a site?” to my followers on Twitter and Tumblr. Not surprisingly, the most common response was about the money (after all, this is our job).

“I don’t spend time on sites that don’t pay. 0 sales = time to quit.”
– LucyWants

“Not making payouts, or enough to justify the time of uploading! If sales are super inconsistent I’ll usually close”
– Gen

“Not making what I feel I should be. Or what I *need* to be to pay for my living expenses.”
– TristynJane

“Lowest earnings out of all income avenues. Amount of time I have to invest.”
– MissVikkiLynn

Keeping a site updated with your new videos takes time. If you have to put in that work and you aren’t really seeing a return on it, it might be time to think about closing your account. Most sites have a payout minimum you must reach if you want to be paid out; if you aren’t consistently reaching the (usually weekly or monthly) payout minimum, you might not be making enough sales to make the site worth it.

Something that goes hand-in-hand with sales? Traffic. A site needs to have decent traffic so that you can actually earn money.

“When I see there is hardly any traffic and i have to promo everything is when I consider [leaving the site]”
– Charnixxx

“What it all comes down to is traffic. […] Bring in more traffic, bring in people more likely to buy from me.”
– TrillianSmut

“If I’m on a site and I’m just not getting the traffic I’ll close it down. […] I don’t have a super big following, so I need to stick mostly to sites that both are very fetish friendly and have their own traffic.”
– AudreyRae

If you have to constantly promote your store – spamming your social networks with your link all the time just so you can hit payout – it might be time to leave the site. Clip sites should be able to generate their own traffic. They take a percentage of your paycheque every month – they should be invested in increasing traffic and thereby increasing sales! If they’re relying on you to funnel your fanbase to your site, it’s probably time to close your account.

Another common complaint was people associated with the site – both admins/support as well as buyers. These girls said they’d probably leave a site if they experienced the following:

“members aren’t nice, support sucks”
– Gen

“Shit people, shit earnings, and shit reputation when you start chatting with other models.”
– VandaliaLaRue

“not making monthly payout, site doesn’t have any traffic, support sucks ass, doesn’t upgrade (servers, payout options, categories, also upload methods). I left a site two years ago cuz they picked favorite girls and only advertised for them many girls couldn’t get payouts”
– DemonikaDevour

Support needs to actually be supportive! They’re there to help you if you’re having a problem with something, not ignore you or respond condescendingly. Unfortunately decent support & admins are rare, in my experience. Sites should also be listening to requests from models for certain features like scheduling clips or ftp access, or adding categories for videos – one site I’m on doesn’t have a category for FemdomPOV or any sort of domination, which is really frustrating when a large portion of your clips fall into that category. Some sites seem to forget that it’s the models who are earning the site money, and should be listened to and treated well.

Of course, there’s another way to look at it as well.

You’ve got the videos made already. It’s not really that hard to copy and paste the video’s description from one of your other sites, and upload the file. If you’re already established on the site, and you do have random sales, you might as well keep it updated with new content. It’s not like a video goes bad! If it can generate some extra money for you without the constant need for you to advertise your page, it doesn’t really hurt to upload your existing videos. The key thing I want to point out here is that it needs to rely on site traffic alone; there’s no point spending all of your time promoting a site that isn’t quite as successful as you want it to be. Promote your main site (or sites) – the ones that are your main income.

“For me personally (if I don’t have a moral problem with a site and it’s just about sales), I think passive income is great. Even if it’s inconsistent. I think the big thing is whether you advertise it. Because advertising it means you’re going to expect to make sales there, and you don’t want that mentality when you’re looking for passive income. […] If I compartmentalize and think of it as “extra, unexpected tips” that I only notice when it shows up in my bank account rather than “Main Income” it isn’t discouraging or annoying, it’s just a pleasant surprise.”
– LadyAmalthea

What about you, what factors determine when you close your account leave a site? Let me know in the Comments section!

If you do live camming, it’s a bit different. You go where your fanbase is, you go to the site which has traffic to your chatroom and paying viewers. Since I haven’t done live camming in a couple years, I’m writing this from my experience as a clip girl.