Superheroine Review

When I first got online over a decade ago (phone modem WHOOAA!)the internet was still much akin to the wild west. No controls, pop up ads out of the ying yang, and typing “Model” into the search engine returned porn sites in the top 50 or more hits before you found any PG content and many fetish sites were still free, including the few superheroine ones. Naturally like all things and at hyper speed like all advances in the tech world these days things changed quickly around the end of the last century, much to the shegrin of many fans. It was not uncommon to see message boards with complaints about having to pay, some posters even quite strongly against the idea. I recall seeing one guy who claimed it was his right to have free content, one charging that a true fan would not charge other fans, or want to make a profit on their interest. The first charge needs no rebuttal in its absurdity and the second is rather unsound in it’s implicit premise that you can’t make money doing things you enjoy or are good at. I wonder if the poster deliberately looked for jobs he hated so he didn’t have to make money doing something he enjoyed?

Well time rolled on and more and more heroine sites came about, Yahoo lost its vision (and lately respect) and Googling became a catch phrase for looking up anything online. Law and order began spreading around the net, there were less pop ups, eventually more sites, “Googling” the word Model did not turn up one pron site in the top 50 hits anymore, and most people accept the fact, as in life, the good stuff on the net ain’t free! These days its uncommon to hear complaints about paying for a heroine site, more common these days if anything is heard is why it costs so much? I am sure there are those out there as well who figure site producers are making off with a wad of cash at the end of the day as well. Well with the average site membership costing $20 per month (using any averaging system based on the dozen sites I checked) your out of pocket of 67 cents a day basically makes anyone complaining about membership costing too much look like a cheap punk, I’m sorry to be blunt but really, dude!? Ok then but are these producers really making off quite handsomely. I really can’t answer that beyond saying I have not met one who has been able to quit his or her day job for it. Heck I know one whose got to go fight in Iraq to still pay the bills. I’m pretty sure they would prefer tying up heroic looking girls and taking their pictures over, sand, impoverishment, and roadside bombs.

Net profit really depends on membership and that will vary a fair bit depending on the site, its offerings, and age. I don’t think I’m out on a limb here to think that a site like Superheroines Demise (www.Sooperhero.com ) will have a fair amount of more members than www.Metrocityheroines.com . One has been around for maybe a few years while the other started in the Wild West days of the internet and was even free at first. I’m not going to go around asking for numbers to help with this article as like any private business its non of the public’s business. I know Becca (www.super_becca.com) commented on her membership numbers in her forum but I can’t find the forum anymore. What I want to do with this article is point out what those in the biz see as obvious costs but you fans may not consider as a whole. It’s a matter of every little thing adding up, and costs are not just monetary but non-monetary as well.

As in any business producers have fixed and variable costs involved in operations. Fixed being those that are there whether you basically do any output or not, they generally don’t change month to month but often readjust annually. Variable being those that change in accordance to the activity center of the business, in this case number of photo shoots or videos done in a month. If the following list seems long then you are getting the point about how much goes into these sites, even if I have not put numbers into them.

Fixed Costs

Website hosting: There is a gambit of options for paying on these really with some charging based on traffic and some on flat rates and a combination. But for example sake I will call it fixed fee. Either way when you consider that most sites have their entire archives online and some run streaming video this is not super cheap.

Facility / location rental: I am not sure how many this really applies to but conceivable if anyone is a professional photographer, part of their studio expenses should be applied in this area. However I am not aware of this going on but it is conceivable.

Advertising: Not sure how many pay for this. Some websites will charge per click on your ad others will charge a flat rate. Assuming a flat rate this will be a fixed cost. This cost could me more expensive for the new start up site until it becomes known. How much of this you want to do youself for a start up really depends on how much work advertising in message boards etc and how long you are willing to eat costs until your site reaches your financial breakeven point in the membership sales. Link shares really help keep the need for this cost down.

Billing Service: Payment functions are subbed out to 3^rd parties who don’t offer this feature for free. I am not sure of any heroine site handling payments strictly themselves. Some do offer mail in subscriptions. The time and cost this would take to set up and run yourself simply negates doing so.

Internet Service: While I am a sure producer would all have Internet if they were not doing these sites the question is would they all have the same level of service? I’m sure some would but I am sure some would not. I know if I was running one I would be upgrading my connection to something faster and more reliable. The cost here is the difference between the old connection and the new one. For tax and accounting purposes (at least here in Canada ) they would of course write off the whole service fee towards the business.

Fixed Depreciation costs

In case you are not clear on this, depreciation is most easy to describe as the value an item loses over time. It also can be looked at as what you should be saving to replace old items when they need to be. For example if your PC costs you $1000.00 and you figure you will want a new one in five years you want to be putting away a fixed amount of $200 a year. Yes I ignored dollar valuation, inflation, and a number of other things in order to simplify the example. Types of depreciation one would have are:

-Computer Depreciation
-Camera Depreciation
-Software Depreciation (more an upgrade cost)
-Lighting / sound equipment Depreciation (if you are making good quality videos)

Variable Costs (Where is gets really pricey)

Models:As an armature photographer myself I know you can get models for free. BUT not if they know you are going to turn around and make a dime of the shots. Its often aspiring models hooking up with aspiring professional photographers. They both want stuff to build a portfolio. These sites, unless strictly using their wives or girlfriends, are paying for these girls and depending on the size of site content could be pulling them in for a few shoots each month. . As far as prices, I have heard everything from 150 to 400 per shoot.

Costumes: For the sites that have only a line of costumes that they cycle over and over this is a smaller cost when spread over a year as opposed to some sites that have new outfits popping up every other month. They don’t sell most of these off the rack and they are getting custom made. I had a costume made from a pre-existing pattern years ago which cost US $250.00. Yes you can get them cheaper yes you can get them for more but if you make up even four new ones a year you could be heading towards $1000.00 a year. Even the sites that recycle their outfits regularly among maybe four that they use incur the cost of repairs or replacement. It’s also good business sense to buy more than one when you get one made in case one it wrecked, lost, or if you are the villain from Sooperhero.com you keep tearing them to shreds lol. Then you don’t have to rearrange your plans and updates around waiting on a new one to be made.

Props: For most sites this a small cost as the same props are often used over and over. For those sites doing bondage it could get quite costly of you move into bondage equipment like X frames and racks, unless you can make them yourselves.That said its still a cost!

PC repairs: Never know when some hiccup will happen and this will need to be repaired. Hopefully most use Macs so this is not happening often and hopefully most have a second PC of Laptop to use while the other is down.

Equipment repairs: Breakage of cameras, lenses, flashes, secondary lighting etc.

Travel: Happens for some they go to the shoot out of town or bring someone in. Going to comic / fetish cons to plug the site etc. This is not a frequent cost but it does happen.

Per use site / location rental? (ie. Hotels, halls, studios, property usage. This certainly applies for those who rent hotels for their shoots or those who get spots in fan conventions)

Memberships: What’s the competition up to? How does your site compare to theirs? Check out Heroine Review to find out. Ha ha just kidding, well maybe notkidding but anyhow… the smart producerswho care to keep up to the competition will move around memberships to sites they compete with to see how things are being done in them. As well I know producers do enjoy each others sites out of interest sake as well.

Media Storage: Disks, external Hard drives etc.

Guest set and Artists: Some sites offer drawings and custom cartoons. These artists do not work for free. And getting a free membership is not working for free from a business perspective.

Yes it’s a long list and I likely omitted some costs but think about and how it adds up. Are most of the established sites hurting for net profit? I don’t think so are most getting rich off it? I don’t think so if it does not allow them to quit full time jobs.

Now likely many are making some nice money on the side with these sites. Those ones have worked long and hard for it. It’s hardly fair to fault them for making some decent change when its costing us less than the price of a coffee per day. Plus we have not even gotten into the time required. Consider all this has to be done after a regular workday:

-Booking models

-Site updates; this can take hours per week.

-Editing photos and videos; the good sites will not just slap them up there

-Handling Correspondence; for those who run fan message boards this can take hours a week when coupled with email and business mail.

-Shoot creation; just sitting around thinking up a shoot is time not spent on ones regular life. Cleaning the house, setting up props or backdrops etc, this all takes time.

-The shoot prepping the model, setting the poses / going over scripts shots shots and retakes. There is a lot more shots and footage out there that the customer does not see. I am not certain how all producers work but for me as a photographer presenting a 50 shot set I would have likely taken at the very least 250 shots. Not just the shoot but the reviewing and picking after can eat up a lot of time before you even get to editing.

-Market monitoring; ok well since most producers are also fans, checking out other sites and what’s new and what the trends are could be considered fun and not lost free time but there is a component here that any good business does and that’s watching competitors and trends.

-Budgeting, banking, taxes if they list it a as business etc.

In my opinion work in what should be your free time is worth more than that during your work hours. Gen X and Y workers value their free “personal” time more than money in most cases and are more likely to leave jobs that don’t offer a good work – life balance. This is just to reinforce how much the time put into these sites are worth and I think most producers fit into Gen X or Maybe Y on the young side. That means, often, extra time is not put in unless it pays well. The advantage to the fans here is that the producers also enjoy what they produce and are not feeling they need to charge a premium for giving up their free time.

Its an interesting industry and after talking with a few producers I am surprised that the feeling of competition is not what I would have expected considering the number of new sites coming up over the last few years. More than a few producers told me, and I confirmed, that they have helped new producers with ideas, tips, advertising and even use of their own sites for a time. As a business development specialist, and a fan, this tells me a number of possible things. That the market is not yet saturated and they are not likely gouging fans for profit. Assuming the producers understand how to monitor the market, if it was starting to get saturated or they knew they were fleecing customers they would not be so open to helping possible new competition. I’m pretty sure McDonalds did not offer Burger King any help in setting up. But we are not dealing with your average kind of businesses here and I think one aspect to better explain all this is simply that these producers are having fun doing what they are doing and truly enjoy seeing the genre grow. As long as this, often unheard of in business, cooperative atmosphere continues it will only be a positive for the genre and the fans. Yes competition does control or drive down pricing and improve quantity and quality (sometimes quality) but in the long run as sites close up shop in face of competition the genre will become worse off and less attractive for true fans who might be interested in producing their own sites. Right now I feel the genre is in a good place both in the growing quality and quantity of offerings and the respective pricing and I don’t see this changing in the short term. The advantage against monopolies getting a firm grip is the medium for the genre, the Internet; where monopolies on entertainment sites are hard to keep up in the face of technology and ease of entry of competitors.

Sites Range in price from around $12.50 to $30.00per month and vary in content and quality. But with the average price of $20 per month it is a quite reasonable price. If a certain site is worth that much or more is really up to the fan and their interests to decide for themselves keeping the above-mentioned costs in mind, and reviewing what similar sites offer for the same price, a process I hope this site will aid in. In my opinion a few sites should be a bit less than they are and a few could get away charging a bit more, but on average fans don’t have much to complain about overall.