Last month saw the closing of a large sponsor's affiliate program. The sponsor cited dwindling revenues brought about by the ever-growing amount of free porn on the Web as the main reason for the action they took.

Of course it's a major pain when a sponsor closes its doors. There are links to be changed and if you've been promoting that sponsor for some time then there are thousands of links to be changed and that can be very time consuming.

Apart from the pain factor the closure of a large sponsor like this one should send some real shivers down the spines of anyone who makes their money from affiliate marketing because we're left wonder whether this is the beginning of the end of our business.

For a few years now affiliate marketing ... especially in the adult end of the market ... has been living on the brink of collapse. That imminent collapse isn't because people aren't interested in porn anymore ... if anything the demand is continuing to grow ... but years ago we cut our own throats by introducing free porn to the sales equation and ever since then we've been giving away far more than we should.

On top of that there have been more and more efforts made by various governments to shut us down. There have been attempts to enact laws that would make it almost impossible to sell adult content on the Net and, just lately, there have been attempts to cut us off from our commissions by freezing the bank accounts of a company that many small sponsors use to make payments to affiliates.

Problems are also starting to arise as the two major credit card companies take a greater interest in our industry. Of course they've been interested in our industry for some years now but of late they've been taking some serious steps to shut down more merchant accounts and generally make it harder for our industry to survive.

So is it really all gloom and doom for the adult industry? Well some may think so but as one poster in a thread about the closing of that large sponsor's affiliate program said today "porn biz is all about adapting" and he or she is so right.

This is an industry that is always in a state of flux. Nothing stays the same for long in the adult industry and if you aren't looking further ahead than the end of next week then you're leaving yourself open to becoming one of the next crop of victims as the industry goes through yet another upheaval.

So what are you planning for the future? Are you actually making plans for adapting to the challenges that will face us next week ... next month ... next year? Or are you just sitting backing hoping that things will settle down and you can go back to making money to survive from your free sites and galleries.

If you are hoping that bad things will just go away then you really are facing a serious situation here. If you want to be in this industry for the long haul and make a decent living here you really do have to be looking ahead and facing the challenges that are out there on the horizon.

Of course some of those challenges will just be mirages ... they'll look bad from back here but as you get closer to them they'll just disappear. But some of those other things that are shimmering out there on the horizon and looking quite threatening are real. They will have the potential to destroy your business if you're not ready to face them when you reach them.

Obviously, knowing which those potential challenges will be mirages and which will be very real challenges is hard to know so you have to be prepared and you have to keep looking ahead to see what's happening.

Gone are the days when you could sit in your house or apartment and just stay focused on building your sites and galleries and know that sponsor checks would continue to appear in your mailbox. Back then you didn't have to get out on the boards and spend time reading industry news sites ... but that's all changed.

These days you need to keep up with the news and the information about where the industry is heading and to do that you need to be out there on the boards and reading the industry news sites ... and you also need to be out there on mainstream news sites too.

The real world is moving in on us here in adult so if you want to survive you need to know what's happening in the real world too.

It's quite possible that there are some scary times ahead for this industry ... but then again it could all be a mirage that will disappear as we move into the future. Gambling on whether it is or isn't a mirage is not something that someone who is here for the long-term would do.

Hoping that those problems that turn out to be real will all just go away is also something that a person who is here for the long-term would not do.

So if you're serious about being here for the long-term then you need to start looking ahead and getting ready to adapt to the changes that may be coming because this is an industry that is continually changing and you don't want to be left behind ... do you?

09/03/2010 - Where is Your Head Right Now Part 2?

09/01/2010 - Where is Your Head Right Now?

08/27/2010 - The Need to Think Things Through

08/13/2010 - Some Helpful Links

08/06/2010 - This and That on a Crazy Friday

---

Looking for some quality text for your paysites? Sex Story Text provides quality written work for webmasters world-wide! Check out their website at http://www.sex-story-text.com.

Go Back to The Porn Resource