Joe Kozlowski wrote:
The trick is to keep in mind the split should be on the NET Profit ... after expenses.

If you do $1,000 in sales (GROSS) and have expenses (hardware, software, hosting charges, did you spring for sandwhiches for the shoot?) of $300, then your NET is $700 and that's what you split. Make sure both you and she understand the difference between Gross and Net! It'll save a bunch of nasty surprises.

exactly.

Joe Kozlowski wrote:
The trick is to keep in mind the split should be on the NET Profit ... after expenses.

If you do $1,000 in sales (GROSS) and have expenses (hardware, software, hosting charges, did you spring for sandwhiches for the shoot?) of $300, then your NET is $700 and that's what you split. Make sure both you and she understand the difference between Gross and Net! It'll save a bunch of nasty surprises.

If I were to do a paysite this is what I would do.

Aaron

Alan from Aavian Prod wrote:
If you are going to do a percentage deal, it is much easier to base it on gross.  Calculate what you think your expenses will be and then give her a fair percentage based on gross.  For example if you think your expenses will be 25%, then give her 37.5%.

The reason I say that is then the billing company, such as ccBill will distribute her check automatically and also give her the 1099 at the end of the year.  There is no room for suspicion since you aren't handling the money.  Likewise, she will be paid promptly every week so there will be no issues.

If you take it out of net and handle the money yourself she will always wonder if you are being honest.

If you must do a percentage deal (rather than just paying her for her time), make it gross and it will be a lot simpler.

I consider the fee the billing company takes out as part of the business expense.the billing company sends the check to whoever sat up the billing account, and that is not always the model. as for the model thinking you are screwing her over, I show them the sales report on the billing company website.There is no way for me to tamper with that information.Which billing company pays weekly? Every single one I know of , including ccbill pays out monthly.

area291 wrote:
Pay her based purely on being a contractor.  Pay her (x) amount for shooting and be done with all of the accounting crap, give her a 1099 at the end of the year.

Yep.

Glamour Boulevard wrote:
I consider the fee the billing company takes out as part of the business expense.the billing company sends the check to whoever sat up the billing account, and that is not always the model. as for the model thinking you are screwing her over, I show them the sales report on the billing company website.There is no way for me to tamper with that information.Which billing company pays weekly? Every single one I know of , including ccbill pays out monthly.

I understand your point, but you can tell the billing company to split the fees between the people they send the checks to.  I do it all the time.  They will also send multiple checks at no charge.  ccBill pays every Monday, not once a month.

I am not telling you what percentage to give her, but if you do percentages, it really is simpler just to do a gross deal and let them take care of everything.

I don't do percentage deals.  I simply pay talent and that is that.

area291 wrote:
Pay her based purely on being a contractor.  Pay her (x) amount for shooting and be done with all of the accounting crap, give her a 1099 at the end of the year.

That's what I'd do...  Do you really want to have to share year end financial data, bicker over what's an allowable expense versus what is not, collection issues, charge backs  and the like (will she refund money if such is overpaid?), much less open yourself to litigation if the dispute isn't resolved?  This isn't going to be your only model if the site is to be successful, so why set the "share and share alike" precedent?  Now if the site is actually this one particular model's doing, featuring her and only her, that's a different story...  I'd charge her your going rate for legal work/expenses, take that off the top if she can't pay up front, and factor in a percentage for your non-legal time if you think the site may be income producing... (be leary of providing legal services for no charge, someday she'll be sitting around saying "my lawyer does it for free..." and you'll find all the pro bono work you want knocking at your door and your malpractice insurance exposed...).

mag-jr wrote:
Worst thing you can do is give away the ranch before signing the mortage. I've been burned several times doing it your way.

If giving the model a 50-50 split, it is the members ranch you are giving away and not your own. If you shoot right, you can get 6 months to a year of content shot in one day, 12 sets, post one set a month.

Joe Kozlowski wrote:
If it bombs, you loose big time.

I had one that bombed. How much did I lose? the cost of the domain name, 10 bucks, and about 50 bucks in hosting. I already had the equipment and server.The losing big time comment can hold water if you start out with nothing and then have to buy the camera equipment, the domain, the hosting, pay the model per shoot,etc.

If you split the profits with them 50-50, none of the money the model gets is out of your pocket, it comes from the members. If I have learned one thing through starting a business, it is,,,,invest someone ELSES money, not your own.

MichaelBell wrote:
Promoting it by word of mouth? You wont make much at all. You need many affilaites and a good cash program. You cant generate enough traffic by promting it yourself, you need affiliates with tons of traffic already in place to send it your way. Contact other webmasters with cash programs and do your homework before jumping into the paysite world because a site that doesnt make anything isnt worth the time, effort and money put into it.

Yeah, I know about affiliates. The world of softcore "urban" wesbites is significantly different than any other. While recipricol links and the direction of web traffic is important, the interest is mainly generated for pay urban website one of three ways:

1. Magazine and music vid appearances by the model;

2. Message boards; and

3. Model interaction on free boards like Yahoo Groups.

Glamour Boulevard wrote:

If giving the model a 50-50 split, it is the members ranch you are giving away and not your own. If you shoot right, you can get 6 months to a year of content shot in one day, 12 sets, post one set a month.

Here in lies the problem.

Most people think putting together a website is shooting models, designing a site and bam you have money.

As I said, been doing this for six years and I can tell you thats the EASY part. The difficult part is the countless hours spent networking, making connections fixing hosteds and potd's, adding that stuff.

No way possible you can get a years content in a day. Figure for most major third party processors, you're going to need 1k photos. figure each set is 60-100 photos. Update three times a week = 300 photos times 52 = 15,600 images roughly. Also figure you're going to be SMART and have at LEAST a years content on reserve in case she bails half way through the site and you want to save face with those who chose to promote you.

YOU will be the one up and working for 12-17 hours per day creating galleries, submitting those galleries, fixing your hosteds, fixing your potd making your affiliates are taken care of. Why should the model get half when all she's doing is showing up for shoots? You're paying for the different venues, designs and upkeep of the site.

Theres a lot more work involved in having a somewhat successful paysite then just photography. This is the very reason I went out and got a 9-5 job. The months of not seeing my kids cause I'm trapped in front of a pc began to drive me crazy.

Glamour Boulevard wrote:

I had one that bombed. How much did I lose? the cost of the domain name, 10 bucks, and about 50 bucks in hosting. I already had the equipment and server.The losing big time comment can hold water if you start out with nothing and then have to buy the camera equipment, the domain, the hosting, pay the model per shoot,etc.

If you split the profits with them 50-50, none of the money the model gets is out of your pocket, it comes from the members. If I have learned one thing through starting a business, it is,,,,invest someone ELSES money, not your own.

I pay 500.00 per month for server

I pay around 700-1k for designs

I pay to get hosted galleries created

I spend countless hours networking and promoting

If she bails I lose big time.

Your a photographer, you know first hand the shoot itself is just a part of the process, why pretend its different with a site if you say you've done some before?

mag-jr wrote:

I pay 500.00 per month for server

I pay around 700-1k for designs

I pay to get hosted galleries created

I spend countless hours networking and promoting

If she bails I lose big time.

Your a photographer, you know first hand the shoot itself is just a part of the process, why pretend its different with a site if you say you've done some before?

Server, $500 a month?  That's very steep for even a dedicated server.   I pay $150 and it's unlimited, plus carrys my billing system.  I keep mail and name servers bounced from other locations and am ready to auto switch if there is ever a problem.  My sites are online 24/7 at a rate of 99.7% with a little down at off peak times for maintence.

Patrick Walberg wrote:

Server, $500 a month?  That's very steep for even a dedicated server.   I pay $150 and it's unlimited, plus carrys my billing system.  I keep mail and name servers bounced from other locations and am ready to auto switch if there is ever a problem.  My sites are online 24/7 at a rate of 99.7% with a little down at off peak times for maintence.

I have several database driven sites, so I have my databases on a different server to keep as much stress off the home box as possible. Not to mention my key box is loaded (2Raid 200gig drives, 4gigs of ram on a dual xeon processor blah blah blah.  Not only does it make backing them up easy, but one of my db driven sites gets around 120k uniques per day so imagine the toll that would have on one macheine. This is a vbulletin board mind you. Not to mention my cms is db driven as well as consistent backups and good stuff.