Since I have been COMPLETELY crappy about personal blogging lately and I don’t want y’all to get TOO bored while I spend my time watching re-runs of America’s Next Top Model when I SHOULD be posting, here’s a roundup of my current favorite personal weblogs of the moment.
ONE D AT A TIME: You may know her as Slutmachine from Jezebel - but even if you don’t, her blog is a ton of fun to read. She’s witty and super-snarky, which are things I really dig in a girl. Her site is mostly sex-centered, so it’s not for the prude… but if you’re here, you probably don’t really take issue with sex on the web anyhow.
FOUR FOUR: If you like Top Model, you probably read Rich’s blog. His weekly recaps brighten my Mondays, but the rest of his blog is just as great. I love him, I love Winston, and I love Tyra.
MOD GERL: Probably the closest thing my smut sistah Jamiee has to a personal blog right now… and since I totally wish she would bring Gerl back as her own website, of course I have this one bookmarked. She’s the shit, y’all, and if you dig indie fashion at all, you’ll love her website.
KEVIN PEREIRA: Okay, I wish he blogged more, but I get it. He hosts Attack Of The Show! on G4 every day, so blogging time is probably scarce. That said, when he does sit down to write, it’s usually pretty funny and awesome. I originally totally hated on him when he took over on AOTS because he looks identical to my psychotic stalker ex-boyfriend, but he’s won me over with his blog and total internet geeky-ness. Yeah, you so hang out on SA & /b/, Kevin. Don’t even try and lie!
DOSH DOSH: If you use your blog to make money online, you need to be reading Maki’s blog AND follow him on his Twitter. He’s constantly updating both with insightful comments & suggestions on monetizing websites. Innovative, interesting, and all together awesome. Go Maki!
HOLLOW STAR: One of the few purely personal blogs that I follow on a regular basis, J is an all-around kickass chick. I love her style, aesthetic, and the fact that she can blog about anything and make it interesting. Plus, we’re both on Team Lauren, so y’know. She seems really smart and driven and I get the impression that she’ll be doing lots of cool things in her life, and I look forward to reading about all of it on HS!
WHITE BOY STYLE: Teddy took a little hiatus for awhile, but he’s promising me that he’ll be back to posting frequently soon. So keep that promise, or I’ll come to Doubles at beat yo’ ass, boy! Anyhow, I’ve known this guy since I think… either my freshman or sophomore year of high school, and have been reading his website just as long. I think the fact that someone as ADD as I am can stay interested in one person’s blog for like, 8 years really says something. Read his shit, y’all!
NO GIRL NEXT DOOR: Same kind of thing as Teddy, although this situation may be even more impressive because unlike Teddy, I don’t know Renee in real life. But yeah, I’ve been reading her site in all its various incarnations since the beginning when she was at mija.nu - I actually think that I found her website via a link on Teddy’s, now that I think about it. Anyhow, regardless of all the weird inter-drama that seems to follow her, I still find her interesting. Once again, impressive considering how easily bored I am.
LOGICAL HARMONY: One of my more recent discoveries! Tashina has really good taste, in everything from clothes to makeup to food. Half the shit she posts, I end up nodding my head along with - I’d probably hang out with this girl offline. But overall, one of the best shopping/personal blogs I’ve seen thus far.
HONEY MARIE: Last but not least is Honey. Or Alyssa. Or Gisele, as she’s been signing her posts lately. Regardless of what you call her, her blog is really interesting and fun, and she’s constantly writing & updating her Twitter so her readers never get bored. Plus, she works at Sephora… which means she’s a girl after my own heart.
That’s all for now, so get to reading these bitches’ blogs and enjoy!
I’ve been getting a few emails the past few days wanting to “pick my brain” about what I do, or just wanting to talk/e-hang out in general. Since I tend to suck at answering e-mails and greatly prefer talking over AIM, I made a screenname that y’all can add & contact me at - poshnaps (ETA: I decided to be honest and just post my real AIM rather than some site-specific one I’ll never remember to log into - so here y’all go: dbwayfarer). So feel free to add me & comment or IM me with your screenname so I can add you to my currently sparse buddy list, haha. Then we can talk until the cows come home.
Things have been really busy on the home front - the BF started a new job, one of my grandparents is in the hospital, a litter of kittens was born, my broken foot finally re-healed properly so I’ve started working out again (yeah, it healed wrong the first time… ouch), and I was officially outed as a Skrull. I mean, wait, what? Anyhow, point being… I’m still lazy and sucky at writing right now. Sorry, y’all.
I have been sick as a dog the past week, and as such my XXX sites have seriously gotten neglected… I’ve barely had the energy to turn out the few paid posts that have gotten done for Posh Vice. Food poisoning + supercramps + migraines = I end up just taking loads of Tylenol PM so I can sleep until I feel a little less miserable. I’m finally feeling a little better, and it looks like it’s just in time - I got hired for a more in-depth paid review via Sponsored Reviews, and somehow I got ELEVEN new jobs - just in the past 24 hours - from PayU2Blog… um, holy crap. Is that normal? So I’ll be writing up a storm for the next few days, I guess.
In closing, I’ll just say this: I’m really pissed that the whole Lindsay Lohan sex tape thing was a hoax, because that would’ve been a fucking goldmine if Vivid or someone similar would’ve gotten their hands on it & made it promotable. More of young Hollywood need to go the Kim Kardashian route & help me pay me bills. Word.
We’re at the official halfway point of the month, and my profits for March ‘08 have broken $1K as of this morning. I’m so excited! That’s solely from my adult websites… the mainstream sites have been holding their own as well, though, especially since I’ve been paying them a lot more attention lately & getting paid posts left and right. So a big thanks to J, Tashina, and Jaimee for showing me the ropes & helping me get started.
I think after a few months of learning my way around the PPP companies, I’ll make another section of this site where I review & rate the different sponsors… similar to the FAQ/How-To guide about adult sites that I have planned. But for now, sign up for LinkWorth… I just completed my first post for them, and I’m really liking their service so far… not only was it the highest-paying post I’ve done yet, but it seems like they hook you up with advertisers who specifically choose your site as a place they want there post featured at… so it’s easier to make the topics fit, kind of.
But for now, I really need to get my booty down to work on some of the XXX websites… Steve has alerted me to a few awesome new girls that I’m really excited to try promoting. Wish me luck!
So, redesign time for notapornstar.com! How does everyone feel about the new theme? It might make me kinda weird, but I’ve loved the look of fiberoptics since I was little… I always wanted any toy that involved them. I guess it was the beginnings of my deep, dark secret which I’m only now starting to figure out - I may be a bit of a science nerd. But that’s neither here nor there… point being, there’s a new neon/techy-inspired layout in town, and I’m fishing for compliments! Gimme!
I have to agree with Tashina - so far it looks like PayU2Blog is going to be a nice, reliable source of income for the mainstream blogs. So far I’ve completed two assignments for them, and it seems like a new one pops up 1-2 hours after I’ve finished the previous blog. Nice.
Also, as per the request of the lovely J, within the next week or so I will be putting up a section where I outline what exactly it is that I do in the online adult industry, and how any interested parties can get started. Obviously, I don’t know everything - I’m not quite a ballllllllerrrrr yet - but I can at least explain the basics decently enough after doing this for about a year and a half (albeit with a forced 6-month break in the middle when my computer went boom - my sites were still up, but I couldn’t update them).
Lastly, can anyone recommend me some decent personal blog directories/networks for me to join? I’d love to increase my reader base a little bit… not that I don’t love y’all, but I’m really enjoying meeting new people as they stumble into my little portion of the internet.
I am in a completely fantastic mood today: not only has the weather outside gone from super-snowy to sunny and almost warm, but it’s only 2:00 PM and I’ve already made $174 today, not counting any mainstream paid posts/advertising profits. Holy shit, right? I’m kind of in disbelief… but SO excited. I know this is probably just a fluke, but I like to imagine someday this will be normal. How amazing would that be?
The paid posts have been rolling in - you can check them out at my mainstream/shopping blog here. I’ve mostly been writing via Smorty, although as previously mentioned, I’ve gotten a few assignments from Blogsvertise as well. I just got approved by PayU2Blog (thanks, Tashina) and LinkWorth (if you aren’t registered with them yet and you do paid posts, please please PLEASE sign up through that reflink - I will love you FO-EVAH! They help you sell both paid posts and text links, among other things). Still waiting to hear back from PayPerPost, though.
I’m going to cut out here, because my internet connection is being seriously bitchy. But I did just want to put it out there that I’m looking for mainstream/personal blog link trades for Posh Vice, Gamer Hero, and of course, this one. If you’re interested, comment here or e-mail me: sarah AT notapornstar DOT com. Thanks in advance to anyone who decides to partner with me, and now I’m going to go enjoy the sun some more!
A few things, since I’ve been slacking on the personal blogging front:
-February was a milestone month for me, profit-wise. I did the math, and I made 150% of what I did in January, and finally broke the 1k mark. I’m very excited, as it seems that all the advice and lessons I was given by Steve & Kimo have really been helping. I have high hopes for March; we’re one week into the month and I’ve already broken $400. Of course, watch me have completely jinxed myself by bragging about it! Keep your fingers crossed that I can beat February - that is my new goal: every new month is a chance to beat the previous month.
-Things with Cash Uncovered were taken care of to my satisfaction. Kudos goes out to Phil; he handled all the drama very professionally and made an extra effort to ensure that things got smoothed out between us.
-I launched three new websites, although they’re all still very much in their early stages. The first is a mainstream blog that has to do with animal care and pet products; the other two are adult blogs - Pink Glam Girls, made primarily as a place for me to push softcore like Playboy and its ilk; and Hustle Honeys, which will feature black women and interracial hardcore. The name could be better, but it’s all I could think of… blame Katt Williams.
-I’ve started using pay-per-post websites to aid in monetizing my mainstream websites; currently I’m approved at Smorty and Blogsvertise. I’ve written three “sponsored” posts thus far, and it’s incredibly easy money - I tend to be a really quick writer, so I’m enjoying getting paid for what amounts to, at most, five minutes of work. Here’s hoping the opportunities keep coming! If you know of any good PPP services that I haven’t listed here (FYI - I’m currently in the pending stage at PayPerPost), feel free to comment with your referral code & I’ll sign up under you.
Last but not least - and this is completely unrelated to blogging, but oh well - a hearty “fuck yeah” goes out to Christian Siriano’s win of Project Runway this past Wednesday. FIERCE.
You know, I may just be eternally in love with Pawan Agrawal, the guy who runs MaxBlogPress. The guy is constantly coming out with new, amazingly cool/useful WordPress plugins. The other day I raved about his newly-launched Psychic Search plugin; you can see my ravings about it in this blog post.
Anyhow, he recently created a new plugin that’s targeted specifically towards those of us who don’t have the know-how to make our own themes & aren’t particularly well-versed in much more than just tweaking pre-coded layouts. You can actually see it in action on this site already; notice the little star icon by my url/title? That’s courtesy of installing the new MaxBlogPress Favicon plugin.
Not only does having a “favicon” brand your results in web searches (if the surfer is using a certain Firefox extension like Google Icon) and thusly draw more notice to it; it also helps attract your bookmarker’s attention. If you’re like me and have a huge, long list of bookmarks, anything with a unique (or any at all, really) icon tends to get checked more frequently than the others, solely because it immediately grabs my attention more than the plain, icon-less sites surrounding it in the bookmark menu. Maybe once more people have caught on to favicons, this will change, but it still seems like most websites neglect that aspect of their site’s design. Favicons can also show up & be effective on your RSS feeds, tabbed browsing, and even some blogs’ comment sections. So, yeah - it’s just generally an all-around good idea, especially at this point where it’s not everyone uses them, to have your sites sporting their own favicons.
The MaxBlogPress Favicon plugin allows you to pick from a batch of pre-loaded icons, or upload your own - and all you have to do is activate the plugin in your WordPress dashboard; no code insertions or anything. Definitely another hit from MaxBlogPress.
Nice. I made the AWE top webmasters list again last period - this time for having the second highest average purchase ($141.42) - of course, I only had seven sales, but still… I love seeing my name on that list, makes me feel like I can actually succeed at this whole game. The person under me had an average of $124.67 with 77 sales. Can you IMAGINE. Some of these people make bring in a quarter of a million in sales every 15 days (top sales amount for last period: $254,133) - it’s just so hard to wrap my mind around that much income in such a small period of time.
The month’s just about half-way over and I’ve already beaten January’s income. My overall conversion ratio isn’t too bad - 1:491 for February. Really, the only discouraging thing this month is the eerily low rate of CCBill sales this month - I’ve had only ONE new signup for any CCBill website, and last month I was averaging at least one new CCBill signup each day. I’ve been pushing CCBill sponsors just as much, so it’s kind of strange. Good thing other sponsors have been converting in their place, I guess.
I’ve got a few goals for the next day or so: I need to think of a domain name for either a black girl or interracial niche blog. I already have Latina and Asian niche sites, but for some reason I’m just drawing a blank when I come to domain names for these two niches… and I have so many gorgeous black chicks I want to promote! Interracial has always converted well for me when I put it on LLO, too, and according to Psychic Search, my readers REALLY want more.
Also been working on another mainstream website - it’s not yet live, so no links just now. But it’s on a topic that I’m quite adept at rambling about, so hopefully that helps with prompting me to update it more frequently than a few of my other mainstream websites.
A friend of mine posted about my situation with Cash Uncovered on a webmaster message board that I don’t usually frequent. I didn’t ask him to make the post, he made it because he thought that it would expedite the process of getting the missing check situation resolved. Apparently, Steve overestimated the maturity levels of the guys at CU, and the thread turned into some wannabe drama-bomb clusterfuck.
I’ll just summarize the retarded ass shit that the CU guys pulled in that thread (and here, even, one of them decicded to showcase his absolutely ASTOUNDING reading comprehension by leaving a comment here that I’d already said was irrelevant to the missing checks). Now, I’ll be honest - I haven’t bothered to check the thread again after my last post in it over a day ago, because the responses they’ve given already made it pretty clear that they’re more interested in trolling/internet tough guy-ing than actually reading & processing what I responded with, so there’s no point in even putting forth effort towards that forum.