Now that you have a website and a blog, or the comic studios you plan to apply to, when do the riches and groupie orgies start?   Maybe soon, maybe never, but let’s get one more thing out the way. Whether you choose to be a freelancer or an entrepreneur, your art MUST connect with someone. If your work doesn’t connect, people don’t visit and you don’t get paid.  Freelancers sometimes throw out connection because they’re just doing work for hire but if your work doesn’t connect with an editor, you don’t get hired.

Your #1 priority now is to find your artistic voice or vision as soon as possible.  If you work for a futa/ladyboy site, and you don’t like the content, just how good do you think your work is going to be?  I don’t care how skilled you are, you will not consistently be your best if you do not like the content.  Find your niche, or create it.  If you have a member site, don’t choose subject matter because it’s “popular”. Do it for one reason and one reason only, because you love it.

A lot of artists do not like to use niches because they feel it pigeon holes them into a small number of fans.  And that is true, but let me tell you this.  If you want to grow your site slowly and if being profitable quickly isn’t important to you, don’t use a niche.  If you’d like your site and income to grow quickly, use a niche.  Why?  Think of it this way.  Let’s say you’re at a restaurant and you were waiting for your friend to arrive.  You see him walk in and you gesture but he still doesn’t see you.  You yell “Peter”, and he sees you and walks over.  That’s the power a niche!  You need to define the kind of perv you’re looking for and speak their language.

For example if you start a site that says we do the best adult comics, our girls are naked by page 3, we draw good, my mom loves our work, etc.  You’re not calling anyone’s name.  People may join your site because they like your samples, but statistically speaking, your site will grow slower.   However if you do MILF comics, or maybe even make a smaller niche like Latina MILF or Latina big boob MILFs, your site is going to resonate with that one guy who’s been searching for a big boob Latina MILF comic site.  And if he has friends or hangs out in forums or chat rooms, he’s going to tell every big boob Latina MILF fan he knows about your site (in some cases, even if he doesn’t like it).  This guy may be one out of a thousand but once you find him, it’s worth it.

The second reason niches are effective is because the stuff people really love is scalable.  A few years ago I used to have three coffee businesses within two miles of my house (two Starbucks and one private business).  Eventually one of the Starbucks closed and now there are two left.  Coffee shops are not scaleable, you really can have too many of them at an intersection.  Big boob Latina MILF sites are scalable because even if there were a 100 of them, you’re still going to attract people who love the content.  Search for gonzo sites, I bet you find hundreds of pay sites and tens of thousands of free ones.  I googled yoga pants once looking for reference for a picture and almost two hours later I was still looking at yoga pants sites!  All that booty and lycra blew my mind but the point is I never got enough of it.

Next you need to put your energy into getting fans or people to buy your stuff.  I love Kevin Kelly’s essay 1,000 True Fans.  If you haven’t read it, I suggest you read it ASAP: http://kk.org/thetechnium/1000-true-fans/ .  In a nutshell he says if you’re a creator, such as an artist, musician, author, etc, you need to acquire only 1,000 True Fans to make a living.  Here’s his definition, “A True Fan is defined as someone who will purchase anything and everything you produce.”  He says a True Fans spends about $100 a year, so if you have 1,000 fans that’s $100,000 a year.  And ironically that’s about the average price of a lot of comic membership sites out there.  There are of course different levels of fans, and some people will pay more and some will place less, etc.  But here’s the rub, If the marketplace likes your content and connects with it, they will buy it.

In part 4, we’ll talk about marketing. For more updates and DirtyComics news sign up for for our newsletter.