How do tickling video producers recruit models these days?

Hello everyone,

I haven't done any shoots in a long time, in part due to the pandemic, but I'm thinking of starting again. However, I'm aware that the modeling world has evolved and that the old methods of recruitment may not be as effective as they used to be.

When I got started over 20 years ago I mostly posted ads on billboards on the nearby campus (where I went to college myself). Potentially interested people would tear bits of paper with contact info. It worked well enough for a while. But it's been an eternity since I've used that method, and consideing how things are nowadays it seems like a really bad idea now. Hell, even back then, after a few years I eventually got a call from campus security who got a number complaints from people who found the ads suspicious/inappropriate. They asked me to stop, and that was it. Somewhat understandable, but considering the fact that the vast majority of people on campus were technically adults I wish they had allowed the students to make up their own minds. Oh well.

Later I placed a few ads in newspapers, but this also doesn't sound very wise anymore (or even possible?), and I was never very successful with that method anyway.

I also did some direct approach work from time to time. That is, spotting potentially interesting candidates and approaching them under circumstances that I felt were as harmless and non-intimidating as possible. Parks were my main "hunting grounds". This method had the advantage of allowing me to actively select people that I thought looked nice, had pretty/interesting feet and/or seemed to have a pleasant/playful attitude. Unfortunately, it can also be more awkward and intrusive than less direct methods. I didn't have much success with it anyway. It was tricky back then, even a bit risky, and I can only imagine that it's a lot worse nowadays.

I dabbled with personal ad sites like Craiglist, but a few people used them to do horrible things, ruining it for everyone. As I understand it, personal ads for such gigs were banned years ago.

For a long time my main source of models was a model-photographer site called Model Mayhem. It goes without saying that most models didn't become members to do commercial fetish work. It's not ideal for this purpose, and my success rate wasn't very good. In fact, most didn't bother to reply at all (which I found somewhat unprofessional, to be honest), despite what I think was a very transparent, polite and professional approach on my part. But it was simple and convenient, and I was able to send offers to enough models that I eventually managed to hire enough of them for my needs.

Model Mayhem still exists, but it seems almost dead now compared to how it used to be. It seems barely any new models join the site anymore, and most of those that still have accounts hardly ever bother checking them. I understand that this is to be expected. Sites like OnlyFans allow models to do their own thing. Models that are still interested in working with photographers/videographers use social networks for communication. And people tend to be more careful these days, which limits their willingness to work with people they don't already know.

I very recently tried sending a large batch of gig offers to a bunch of models on Model Mayhem, just like in the old days. Back in the day I was already used to not hearing back from a lot of them and having many more politely decline my offers. But it is so much worse now. Out of about 30 offers sent over a couple of days I only heard back from 2 or 3.

All of these factors are perfectly understandable. But they do make it significantly more challenging for me to find new models. Now, to be perfectly honest, I don't intend to change my methods in a major way. I don't think I'll be doing this for much longer anyway, so I don't feel the need to "get with the times" that much. Especially considering that I already have a lot of unreleased footage.

That being said, I am very curious to know how other tickling producers recruit models for their videos in these social network, post #MeToo days. Have they adapted to new methods and are having a decent level of success, or are they struggling to find models?

I'd like to mention that I did give social networks a bit of a try recently. In particular, I contacted a few models on Instagram. They're all people I've been in touch with before, or even worked with before, and as far as I know I'm on good terms with all of them. Despite that, none of them even replied at all. I can't imagine it will be any easier with models that don't even know me. Maybe I just got unlucky, but I don't find it encouraging at all.

Also, I find it challenging to figure out if a person on Instagram, Facebook/Meta, etc. is 1) local, and 2) interested in working as a model. Some make it more obvious than others, but I have to do a lot of research for very few results. How hard (or easy) is this process for other producers? I guess some have managed to build a solid enough network that it's easy for them by now.

I very recently tried sending a large batch of gig offers to a bunch of models on Model Mayhem, just like in the old days. Back in the day I was already used to not hearing back from a lot of them and having many more politely decline my offers. But it is so much worse now. Out of about 30 offers sent over a couple of days I only heard back from 2 or 3.

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Don't "cold cast" directly, instead post a gig casting and make them seek you out;

https://www.modelmayhem.com/casting/search_casting

I just use the free ones and even those tend to drum up a bit of interest from quite a distance, so clearly people make a point to look for them. I recommend them.

Comfort Eagle said:

Don't "cold cast" directly, instead post a gig casting and make them seek you out;

https://www.modelmayhem.com/casting/search_casting

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I'm aware of those, but I don't use them very often. Normally I would love to have interested candidates contact me. But my casting calls barely get any responses. If I had relied on them over the years I would only have recruited a fraction of the models I've managed to hire by being more direct. Contacting potential models directly may be a tedious and frustrating process sometimes, but in the past it has been very useful to me. Without it I probably would have closed shop many years ago due to lack of models.

Also, models who check and reply to casting calls tend to be the more experienced ones, often having done fetish work before. I don't find fetish or even modeling experience to be very useful. In fact, I usually prefer to work with models who have little to no experience with this sort of thing, or even modeling in general. Them being new to it gives them a certain charm, like their reactions are more natural and spontaneous or something. Besides, some (but not all) of the more experienced models have unreasonable expectations when it comes to salary. They justify this with their experience, which I understand. But like I said, I have no need for it. It's simply not a selling point to me.

You mention that your casting calls tend to get the attention of models from far away. Well, I'm afraid that my budget doesn't allow me to pay for traveling expenses. Basically I can only work with local models or models that happen to travel to Montreal, and there are very few of the latter. Not to mention that models who do tours in other cities tend to have higher salary requirements, and I often can't afford them. So again, casting calls are of limited use to me.

About traveling models, I get the occasional message from them, and in my experience, many don't even bother to find out what it is I do before writing me. They talk about working together to create great art and stuff, and how skilled they are at posing, not realizing that I make tickling fetish videos. Then, when I write back to explain my project in more detail I never hear from them again. I understand sending a bunch of generic messages to photographers to get some gigs, but I would expect the models to at least take a few moments to look at the portfolios and read the profile information a bit. It doesn't make any sense to me.

That being said, I thank you for the suggestion. It's just that my personal experience with that method has been rather disappointing.

Up until my account was banned, I primarily worked via networking and cold approaches on Instagram. I haven't tried to make a new one because I don't want to jeopardize my non-fetish accounts there. Currently, I'm working with traveling fetish models that I've connected with on Twitter, or referrals from friends and existing models. I never bothered with Model Mayhem because they had a screening process that tended to weed out most smaller fetish producers, and you had to pay for casting calls, but if it's possible to do them for free now I may reconsider.

You're right about Craigslist, any fetish-based ads get removed from their talent gigs section pretty quickly. I got banned there years ago. Think they actually use catfish to verify that "neutral"-sounding ads get pulled, because I usually just said I was looking for foot models.

Try Instagram tho, yeah the rate of return is pretty low but I've struck gold there more often than you might imagine. Just don't link to your site in your profile, they get pissy about that and ban you for "sexual solicitation".

Genuine question: is it really that difficult to recruit models? I always thought there’d be tons of young women eager to make some easy money. Like, I always thought there’d be way too much competition.

Jezebel Lee said:

Genuine question: is it really that difficult to recruit models? I always thought there’d be tons of young women eager to make some easy money. Like, I always thought there’d be way too much competition.

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Unless you're the type to lie about what you're making ("help me with my silly school project!"), vanilla tickle porn is still whack-off videos. And even in the age of OF, not everyone wants to be involved with whack-off videos.

Comfort Eagle said:

Unless you're the type to lie about what you're making ("help me with my silly school project!"), vanilla tickle porn is still whack-off videos. And even in the age of OF, not everyone wants to be involved with whack-off videos.

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That is true. However, I still constantly hear about models being rejected by producers. Surely that implies a greater degree of selection?

Jezebel Lee said:

Genuine question: is it really that difficult to recruit models? I always thought there’d be tons of young women eager to make some easy money.

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There is, the hard part is finding them. The available avenues to post casting calls is shrinking more and more every day because nobody wants to be involved with hosting or facilitating adult content.

It doesn't matter if there's a hundred girls in my hometown who are dying to do foot porn. If I can't figure out how to connect with them, they may as well not exist.

Surely that implies a greater degree of selection?

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It is true that there is more demand than supply when it comes to work. I shot with four different models passing through my hometown over the last two months or so, and I still had to pass over one or two others who were also coming through. I also had to turn down someone who was swinging by early in the new year, because I don't move enough product to afford hiring them all.

If you want to book a FMTY fetish model, just go on Twitter and you'll find more than you can shake a dead weasel at. You want the fresh-faced girl-next-door types that this forum is constantly whining about, you're gonna have a hard time finding them purely because there's nowhere to advertise.

Jezebel Lee said:

That is true. However, I still constantly hear about models being rejected by producers. Surely that implies a greater degree of selection?

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I'm sure location has a lot to do with it too, I can imagine if someone tried setting up shop in Southern California, they're going to have a much easier job than someone in a town of 50k somewhere in the Mid West.

SoleMates said:

Up until my account was banned, I primarily worked via networking and cold approaches on Instagram. I haven't tried to make a new one because I don't want to jeopardize my non-fetish accounts there. Currently, I'm working with traveling fetish models that I've connected with on Twitter, or referrals from friends and existing models. I never bothered with Model Mayhem because they had a screening process that tended to weed out most smaller fetish producers, and you had to pay for casting calls, but if it's possible to do them for free now I may reconsider.

You're right about Craigslist, any fetish-based ads get removed from their talent gigs section pretty quickly. I got banned there years ago. Think they actually use catfish to verify that "neutral"-sounding ads get pulled, because I usually just said I was looking for foot models.

Try Instagram tho, yeah the rate of return is pretty low but I've struck gold there more often than you might imagine. Just don't link to your site in your profile, they get pissy about that and ban you for "sexual solicitation".

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One of the disadvantages that I have for model recruitment is that I pretty much don't use social media, including Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. I realize they have a lot of potential for reaching out to people and building a social network, but I'm just not very comfortable with the whole phenomenon. I guess I'm a bit old-fashioned that way. I might eventually give it another try, though. Thank you for the suggestion.

I'm still a bit puzzled as to how one manages to find potential models on, say, Instagram. I can't imagine one just picks people at random and sends them fetish video shoot offers. So how does one find out if a member is likely to be interested in modeling? Some make it fairly obvious on their profile, but I find detecting such profiles to be an intimidating trail-and-error exercise. Is there a way to find them more easily?

In my case, there's also the distance factor. As I explained earlier in this thread, I can't afford to pay models for their traveling expenses. So I'm pretty much limited to working with local models or the occasional model who already has plans to visit Montreal. Maybe I'm wrong, being very unfamiliar with social media, but it doesn't seem like that many people specify where they live on their Instagram profiles. That makes it even harder to figure out if a member is a viable potential candidate. I mean, even if I could see that someone clearly does modeling gigs, chances that she lives around here are very slim, to the point that sending her a shoot offer is nearly pointless. Any advice?

In any case, thank you for the recommendation about not mentioning my site on my profile. That hadn't occurred to me. I thought it would help my credibility when contating potential candidates, but if it bothers the Instagram people it might be best not to risk it.

Jezebel Lee said:

However, I still constantly hear about models being rejected by producers. Surely that implies a greater degree of selection?

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I can't speak for other producers, but I personally never found myself drowning in candidates to the point where I could afford to be particularly selective. The way I've always worked is, as long as I determined that a candidate looked at least kinda cute (I've never been super strict in that department), had feet in decent condition and was reasonably ticklish enough, I almost automatically hired her. Not necessarily because I thought she was a perfect tickling model. A candidate might qualify even if she was only moderately ticklish. That's why the average level of ticklishness of the models I've worked with isn't as high as those that appear in the videos of bigger/more popular producers, who can afford to be more selective.

The Last Laugh said:

One of the disadvantages that I have for model recruitment is that I pretty much don't use social media, including Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.

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You need to get over that, because that's where the models are. Nearly my entire 2020-2023 catalog was pulled from social media in one form or another, and they were all hits with my fanbase.

I'm still a bit puzzled as to how one manages to find potential models on, say, Instagram. I can't imagine one just picks people at random and sends them fetish video shoot offers.

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...that's literally what you do.

Don't try to pull complete randos. Go for models, influencer-types with low follower counts (less likely to demand a million dollars for the opportunity or mock you for clout), fetish-types, and girls who are obviously posting to show off their feet. All you have to do is fire off a DM that says "Hi, are you interested in working with me?" and wait. It's neither magic nor rocket science. If she's interested, she'll respond. If she's not, she'll ignore you. I've only ever gotten two negative responses in the five years I was doing it, and one of them was simply the woman asking for way too much money for me to consider. The other, I just blocked and went on with my life. It happens.

When I was using IG, all I would do was bookmark (eg. follow) any woman who looked like she was modeling on her page, and whenever I was doing a "recruitment drive", I'd fire off a "hey, wanna?" DM and then unfollow. If I heard back, I'd move forward. If I didn't, the fact that I'd unfollowed her meant that she was out of sight and out of mind. And you don't even have to expend any effort in the DM, just copy-paste your proposal and fire it off to a dozen at a time. Response rates are fairly low, but that's to be expected when you're dealing with normies. And if the girls have a good time, they'll refer their friends, so there's that. You may even have fans refer models to you; that's how I got Mari, Jennifer, Bri, Angel, and probably a few others that aren't leaping to mind right now.

Comfort Eagle said:

Unless you're the type to lie about what you're making ("help me with my silly school project!"), vanilla tickle porn is still whack-off videos. And even in the age of OF, not everyone wants to be involved with whack-off videos.

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I mean, what makes it really obvious that it's "whack-off videos"? I'm being a bit theoretical here, but none of the producer guys I've seen in videos pulled their dick out during filming, particularly in videos where the lee is nude; it's just tickling. I think the long format and where it's posted probably gives it away more than the actual tickling content. Like your signature video can probably be construed as some aggressive experimentation, but it's here, so it's more likely to be deemed "whack-off fuel".

This in mind, I just think less women are interested in being tickled in general. It's a hard reality. But anyone who's going to tell me that a sizable community of women seek to have every overly sensitive area of their bodies scratched/ squeezed in the hopes of producing laughter from the perspective of a relative stranger gives me a bit of pause for how realistic they're being. Those that are interested in "laughter" are moreso interested in some controlled exercise of conducting playful flirting.

duderino84 said:

I mean, what makes it really obvious that it's "whack-off videos"? I'm being a bit theoretical here, but none of the producer guys I've seen in videos pulled their dick out during filming, particularly in videos where the lee is nude; it's just tickling.

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Not the point. It might be just tickling, which is pretty innocuous to the average person, but I'm assuming that most people who watch tickling fetish videos do it for sexual gratification and jerk off to such material. That's a major reason why most models aren't interested in appearing in such videos. To them, it doesn't matter how tame the actual content is. They're just not comfortable with the idea of strangers masturbating to their image and reactions.

On the other hand, some other models see it the other way around. Like, sure, these videos are porn for tickling/feet fetishists, but as long as the content is harmless enough they're fine with it. But I get the feeling that these models are not in the majority.

SoleMates said:

...that's literally what you do.

Don't try to pull complete randos. Go for models, influencer-types with low follower counts (less likely to demand a million dollars for the opportunity or mock you for clout), fetish-types, and girls who are obviously posting to show off their feet. All you have to do is fire off a DM that says "Hi, are you interested in working with me?" and wait. It's neither magic nor rocket science. If she's interested, she'll respond. If she's not, she'll ignore you. I've only ever gotten two negative responses in the five years I was doing it, and one of them was simply the woman asking for way too much money for me to consider. The other, I just blocked and went on with my life. It happens.

When I was using IG, all I would do was bookmark (eg. follow) any woman who looked like she was modeling on her page, and whenever I was doing a "recruitment drive", I'd fire off a "hey, wanna?" DM and then unfollow. If I heard back, I'd move forward. If I didn't, the fact that I'd unfollowed her meant that she was out of sight and out of mind. And you don't even have to expend any effort in the DM, just copy-paste your proposal and fire it off to a dozen at a time. Response rates are fairly low, but that's to be expected when you're dealing with normies. And if the girls have a good time, they'll refer their friends, so there's that. You may even have fans refer models to you; that's how I got Mari, Jennifer, Bri, Angel, and probably a few others that aren't leaping to mind right now.

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You're not wrong about all this. Except for the "that's literally what you do" part. It's really not. While it's true that contacting models on a site like Model Mayhem is far from ideal and the vast majority won't be interested in commercial fetish work, at least they're (supposedly) interested in modeling. They expect to receive modeling gig offers. That why they became members in the first place. So I wouldn't call them complete randos. It's not the same as picking a person in a crowd totally at random.

SoleMates said:

All you have to do is fire off a DM that says "Hi, are you interested in working with me?" and wait. It's neither magic nor rocket science.

And you don't even have to expend any effort in the DM, just copy-paste your proposal and fire it off to a dozen at a time

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Indeed. That's how it works for me too. I completely understand and accept that it's all part of the game. I contact a bunch of models and hope for the best. The main difference is that you use a medium that allows you to find models that have a better chance of being interested in doing fetish work. Which, I can't deny, is a major plus (even though I tend to prefer working with models with little or no experience with this sort of thing). And I fully realize that, while Model Mayhem has been useful to me in the past (though it always involved a lot of work to get the results I needed), it has gotten a lot worse over the years.

I know you're absolutely right about how useful social media is for building a network and finding models. And I'm willing to try that method, even though I generally dislike social media quite a bit. But I'm not sure you understand what my issue is. The problem I have is finding members that are clearly models who may be looking for gigs, and also that live around my area. Maybe I'm missing something, but I'm not aware of some kind of filter that would allow me to search by keywords like "model" or "montreal". So do I need to check profiles one by one, basically at random? If so, it sounds like a ton of work to me. Now, if you have a method that allows you to more easily spot members that at least seem to correspond to what you're looking for, I'm very open to learning.

That being said, while I can see how one can determine that a member does modeling work, figuring out where they live is another issue. You see, one major limitation for me is that I can only work with locals, or models that happen to travel to Montreal. I'm sure some people on IG mention their location in their profile, but it doesn't seem to be common. Thing is, even if I can find models on IG, if there's no way for me to tell where they live then the process might as well be random.

I found and still find models from a regular modeling website. I also happened to find someone willing on Instagram, but Instagram deleted my ticklish accounts and I stopped looking for models there and writing to them. Of the 20 models I will write to regarding the session, potentially 8 are interested. It often happens that out of the number of people willing, 2-3 models will change their mind and they will not want to perform. The main problem in this fetish industry is touching, which scares most models, and the fact that many girls consider making tickling clips to be just porn. It all depends mainly on the approach of a given model. Another issue is remuneration. Many of my models receive PLN 1,000 ($250) for their performance.

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Szerli1987 said:

I found and still find models from a regular modeling website. I also happened to find someone willing on Instagram, but Instagram deleted my ticklish accounts and I stopped looking for models there and writing to them. Of the 20 models I will write to regarding the session, potentially 8 are interested. It often happens that out of the number of people willing, 2-3 models will change their mind and they will not want to perform. The main problem in this fetish industry is touching, which scares most models, and the fact that many girls consider making tickling clips to be just porn. It all depends mainly on the approach of a given model. Another issue is remuneration. Many of my models receive PLN 1,000 ($250) for their performance.

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I agree that regular modeling sites can still be valid sources of models. They're not nearly as good as they used to be (and they were never perfect to begin with), but I can still find the occasional interested model if I send enough shoot offers, which isn't that much work.

It's unfortunate the people at Instagram have that kind of attitude. Don't some members who do modeling post pictures that are kind of suggestive? Then why would they delete a video producer's account if it's not particularly explicit? I understand that companies often don't take any chances with anything remotely related to adult content, but this doesn't seem fair.

I have to say, 8 out of 20 is excellent. My success rate usually isn't nearly that good. You either have a talent for spotting candidates that are more likely to be interested, or you're a very convincing recruiter. Either way I lift my hat to you.

Yeah, even if the models are interested at first, some of them will drop out. The reasons can be legit, but it's not always the case. It's especially annoying when a model expresses her interest but eventually stops replying altogether without any explanation. Even more so when it happens after scheduling a shoot. It's highly unprofessional and disrespectful. And even if a model proves to be reliable and shows up for a shoot, it's not uncommon for her not to be ticklish enough, which is something that's often impossible to predict. Hiring and working with models can be rewarding, but it does require a lot of patience and can be very frustrating.

I think the compensation you offer is very good. Better than what I pay my models, to be honest. If a model has an issue with that amount she's not really worth working with.

I wish I could offer models more than I do. It would not only increase my chances of finding interested models, it would also make the models who do work with me happier about their experience. Not that I actually get negative feedback about that, but I'm uncomfortable with the idea that a model is technically willing, but deep down feels that she's not getting quite as much as she should for her participation. Unfortunately my video shoot budget isn't that great.

You're right, one thing that can make tickling videos trickier than other types of shoots is that they involve some level of physical contact. It's one of the reasons why I tend to prefer working with teams of models than can tickle each other. When I do solo shoots I tend to stick to the feet in most cases.

I agree that possibly the biggest reasons why most people are unwilling or hesitant to appear in commercial tickling videos is that they can be viewed as a form of porn, no matter how tame they are. Sure, the tickling itself can scare some people away (which is unfortunate, because it suggests they might make awesome tickling models), but I don't think that's the most important issue. It's the context, not the actual content.

The Last Laugh said:

Not the point. It might be just tickling, which is pretty innocuous to the average person, but I'm assuming that most people who watch tickling fetish videos do it for sexual gratification and jerk off to such material. That's a major reason why most models aren't interested in appearing in such videos. To them, it doesn't matter how tame the actual content is. They're just not comfortable with the idea of strangers masturbating to their image and reactions.

On the other hand, some other models see it the other way around. Like, sure, these videos are porn for tickling/feet fetishists, but as long as the content is harmless enough they're fine with it. But I get the feeling that these models are not in the majority.

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That's interesting, bud. Honestly, a lot of the models you hired didn't seem like the "porn actress" type; they always had a comfy kind of vibe to them. It seemed more.... clueless, let's say. Very natural. So I didn't think it was average "whack off" generic material. I thought it was just me being weird.

The Last Laugh said:

Except for the "that's literally what you do" part. It's really not.

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It really is. I did it for years, and I got a lot of great models out of it.

They expect to receive modeling gig offers. That why they became members in the first place. So I wouldn't call them complete randos. It's not the same as picking a person in a crowd totally at random.

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You missed the part where I said to pick people who looked like they'd be open to such offers, apparently. No, you don't fire off a DM to some random girl whose entire IG page is pictures of her dog and one random accidental shot of her bare foot, you stick to actual models, actresses, and other social types. And even if they don't "expect" to get these kinds of offers, enough of them will consider the gig for the right price even if it's not something they normally do.

Allow the women their agency, man. Present the offer, be honest about what it entails, don't be creepy and hide shit, and let them make up their own minds.

I'm telling you I have literally done this over and over. It works.

It's unfortunate the people at Instagram have that kind of attitude. Don't some members who do modeling post pictures that are kind of suggestive? Then why would they delete a video producer's account if it's not particularly explicit?

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The people at Instagram don't enforce their rules with any sort of logic or consistency, and they don't give a fuck if you notice. One of my models gets her account suspended regularly, and she never posts anything more suggestive than bikini photos. I reported an account that was straight-up reposting my paid content and was told that they weren't breaking any rules, but I later had my account terminated for posting non-explicit screen caps from those same videos. You can bet I appealed the ban, citing that exact case, and you can also bet that they told me to go fuck myself.

Maybe I'm missing something, but I'm not aware of some kind of filter that would allow me to search by keywords like "model" or "montreal".

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Yes, you're definitely missing something. Start by liking pictures or following accounts of cute barefoot girls and eventually the algorithm will twig to the fact that that's what you're interested in and show you more. Then you look at the profile bio and/or location tags on the pictures and see if they're local to you or willing to travel. Yes, it requires some legwork and isn't an instant payoff but eventually your feed will be full of nothing but local model-types. By the time IG canned me I was constantly getting suggestions from foot models' pages. The algorithm knows.

I took a no-social-media approach, but then I had a much smaller store than you, Francois, or SoleMates, and it peaked quite a while ago (although it made a couple of small comebacks) so I'm sure times have changed.

I started with personal friends who already knew I was into BDSM and were -- after some convincing -- willing to be filmed tied and tickled. Once we started making a little money, they began recruiting their friends, sisters, cousins, etc. to give it a try. Since I wasn't in it to get rich, I just paid my models for any new recruits they found as if they had done the shoot themselves, and let them share the money however they liked. I'd pay $50-$200 (once $500) up front for a shoot, and if a clip made more than that, I'd pass along the excess profits directly to the model (if I recruited her) or their recruiter.

Eventually that set me up with a female "recruiting network" that brought in both video models and private sessions, the latter of which sometimes did generate direct revenue for me. In our heyday, and thanks to uber-recruiters like H&K and Dianna, we could have easily been doing two shoots/sessions per month, which was about as much as I could process.

Having the ladies recruit their friends was less awkward than reaching out to strangers, and I'd say much more likely to get normies to give it a try. It was also fun -- everyone looked at it as this cool sort of edgy "thing" -- but far less profitable for me. You've got to be in it for the love of the game.

My wife was a great sport about it and recruited some of her friends too...although ultimately none of them shot video clips. That was more on the private sessioning side.

One downside of this approach was anonymity. I always offered to let my models wear masks, or keep their faces out of the video, and I took some heat for that from customers along the way. But we still had pretty good sales, averaging at our peak maybe $1000-$2000 per month with occasional highs well over $5000 (even after the C4S gouging...and I say that with respect for their business model).

Another downside is that it's feast-or-famine. We had big crunch periods followed by long dry spells, and we probably could have smoothed that out by tapping professional model networks, social media, etc., but at various times we decided to just keep it in house.

So the TL;DR is: find some of the ladies you've worked with and pay them to recruit for you among their friends and relatives.

Hope that helps because I really like your stuff...good luck!

-Q.

quinn65 said:

I took a no-social-media approach, but then I had a much smaller store than you, Francois, or SoleMates, and it peaked quite a while ago (although it made a couple of small comebacks) so I'm sure times have changed.

I started with personal friends who already knew I was into BDSM and were -- after some convincing -- willing to be filmed tied and tickled. Once we started making a little money, they began recruiting their friends, sisters, cousins, etc. to give it a try. Since I wasn't in it to get rich, I just paid my models for any new recruits they found as if they had done the shoot themselves, and let them share the money however they liked. I'd pay $50-$200 (once $500) up front for a shoot, and if a clip made more than that, I'd pass along the excess profits directly to the model (if I recruited her) or their recruiter.

Eventually that set me up with a female "recruiting network" that brought in both video models and private sessions, the latter of which sometimes did generate direct revenue for me. In our heyday, and thanks to uber-recruiters like H&K and Dianna, we could have easily been doing two shoots/sessions per month, which was about as much as I could process.

Having the ladies recruit their friends was less awkward than reaching out to strangers, and I'd say much more likely to get normies to give it a try. It was also fun -- everyone looked at it as this cool sort of edgy "thing" -- but far less profitable for me. You've got to be in it for the love of the game.

My wife was a great sport about it and recruited some of her friends too...although ultimately none of them shot video clips. That was more on the private sessioning side.

One downside of this approach was anonymity. I always offered to let my models wear masks, or keep their faces out of the video, and I took some heat for that from customers along the way. But we still had pretty good sales, averaging at our peak maybe $1000-$2000 per month with occasional highs well over $5000 (even after the C4S gouging...and I say that with respect for their business model).

Another downside is that it's feast-or-famine. We had big crunch periods followed by long dry spells, and we probably could have smoothed that out by tapping professional model networks, social media, etc., but at various times we decided to just keep it in house.

So the TL;DR is: find some of the ladies you've worked with and pay them to recruit for you among their friends and relatives.

Hope that helps because I really like your stuff...good luck!

-Q.

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Hi! Thank you for contributing to the thread. I appreciate the feedback.

Indeed. I feel that word of mouth can be the best method for recruitment. Not only can models you've worked with help you find more models, the fact that they can talk from personal experience can make them very credible and convincing recruiters. I agree that it can be less awkward than other methods, and the candidates probably tend to be more reliable.

I've been able to benefit from this a number of times in the past. I'd do a shoot with a model, she'd enjoy the experience, and she'd refer a friend or acquaintance, sometimes teaming up with her. A few of the more dedicated ones have gotten me several new recruits, like we were temporary partners of sorts. It's very satisfying, and even gratifying, to have models trust you enough to refer their friends (and occasionally family members) to you.

That being said, this method hasn't been quite enough for me in the past. Helper models would eventually run out of new candidates, and I've gone through long periods without meeting new models that were comfortable approaching people about the project or who even had any friends they thought might be interested. Pretty much like it's been for you at times. So I often had to use other recruitment methods. I'm afraid I'm a bit handicapped by the fact that I don't have a very active social life, with a fairly small circle of friends and acquaintances (don't worry about it, I'm fine with it). I've also never had any friends who would be comfortable doing something like this, and I'm not sure I would be comfortable asking them in any case. It has definitely limited how effective the contacts/word of mouth method has been for me.

I'm sorry to say that I've completely lost contact with pretty much all of the models I've worked with in the past. Even if I knew how to contact them I wouldn't do so. Models can definitely be enthusiatic about trying something new, and possibly for a while after that. But people move on and change over time. An old model might feel very uncomfortable suddenly hearing from this odd guy she did a fetish video with many years ago. It could be quite awkward, and I'd rather not risk it. What doesn't help is that I tend to procrastinate like crazy before producing a video that I've shot. When I release a new series it's very likely that the shoot took place many years earlier, sometimes as much as a decade. So even if the models were perfectly happy with their experience back in the day, the relationship is almost always very rusty by the time I manage to get the footage ready for sale and realize that I wish I could work with those models again.

Interestingly, while you say that your store isn't as big as mine, your revenue is significantly larger than mine has ever been (aside from a few exceptions a long time ago). And that's while allowing the models to avoid showing their faces? That's quite an achievement. It says a lot about the quality of your work.

By the way, I'm curious about the private sessions you mention. I must admit I'm a bit puzzled as to how some of them generated revenue. If you don't mind my asking, what were the context and conditions? Where did the money come from? Or maybe I simply misunderstood what you meant?

duderino84 said:

That's interesting, bud. Honestly, a lot of the models you hired didn't seem like the "porn actress" type; they always had a comfy kind of vibe to them. It seemed more.... clueless, let's say. Very natural. So I didn't think it was average "whack off" generic material. I thought it was just me being weird.

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That's actually one factor that makes the social media method more complicated for me. I can understand how one can target members that clearly do modeling work, including fetish stuff, to increase the odds that they'll be interested. That's a perfectly valid strategy. But historically I've always preferred working with people that have little or no experience with fetish work, or possibly even modeling. The way you describe them is very apt. I feel such models are well suited to the type of mood I tend to aim for in my videos. Oh, I definitely won't say no to models who are more experienced if they have the right qualifications, and have worked with many of them. But I still prefer the more "girl next door" type for whom this is a completely new experience. But I imagine they can be trickier to find on social media, at least those that are willing to give it a try.

I should add that I also very much like alternative models of various kinds, and wish I could work with them more often.

All this being said, while my videos may not be typical of the genre, ultimately they are still technically whack off material. To be honest I don't really like to think of them that way, but I can't deny that it's the case.

In any case, you definitely weren't being weird. At least I don't think so.

Normally I'd just keep my yap shut, but the more I think about it, the more annoyed I'm getting, so, no. I'm not going to.

The OP sent me a private message accusing me of not understanding his oh-so-unique situation, telling me that none of the detailed advice I provided in the thread would work, because "it's different", and recommended that I simply stop responding.

Maybe it's just the caffeine talking, but given that as producers we don't really owe it to one another to provide any help to someone who is technically a business competitor, the fact that I gave a detailed breakdown - and multiple clarifications - of something that's worked very well for me only to have it met with a "I don't wanna, I don't know how, it won't work anyway, you don't understand, now shut up" is... really insulting.

I will honor the OP's request, though. Clearly I was wasting my time trying to help.

Before, I go, though, I will suggest - one final time - that OP re-read my posts. Closely. For some reason you've got it in your head that I'm telling you to "pick random people out of the crowd" in spite of clarifying upwards of twice that you do not do that.

Arch

The Last Laugh said:

Interestingly, while you say that your store isn't as big as mine, your revenue is significantly larger than mine has ever been (aside from a few exceptions a long time ago). And that's while allowing the models to avoid showing their faces? That's quite an achievement. It says a lot about the quality of your work.

Click to expand...

So...I went back and found some old tracking spreadsheets and the numbers were actually a little tamer than we used to tell ourselves.

The first LOL store was open from the summer of 2007 to the summer of 2010, and we made about $30k over all that time, for an average of around $800-$850 per month. By the end I think we had maybe 50 clips for sale on the site. But of course monthly revenue was highly variable based on the timing and popularity of shoots. The most we ever made in a month back then was almost $6k, and the least (fairly often) was less than $100. I remember our biggest month was after we shot Rhi's clip in the tickle chair, which went way up on the C4S rankings and stayed there a while. Between the nylon and barefoot versions of that clip, she eventually made $4-5k, which came at a time when she really needed it.

Rhi, Dianna, and H&K were our blockbuster models back then and did a lot to drive the overall averages higher. Some models' clips never returned more than the up-front payment.

Then M came along years later and moved the bar higher. We reopened the store a couple of times in the last 5 years with her, Ava, Ana, Paige, and a few others as well as some "classic" re-releases. I didn't keep records as carefully with the later stores, but they probably averaged over $1000 per month. That was largely driven by M's clips, which were ~30-60 minutes long and selling like crazy at the top of the C4S charts for their default $1/minute price.

The Last Laugh said:

By the way, I'm curious about the private sessions you mention. I must admit I'm a bit puzzled as to how some of them generated revenue. If you don't mind my asking, what were the context and conditions? Where did the money come from? Or maybe I simply misunderstood what you meant?

Click to expand...

Between the friend recruiting network, our presence here on TMF, and my Fetlife account, over the years I've followed through on maybe half a dozen inquiries to do paid private session work. There's also been a fair amount of unpaid private stuff among friends, just for kicks, but that's not what you're asking about. On the revenue generating front, I've sessioned with couples into cuckolding (I've also done that for free; hi Jules), individuals into BDSM, and folks who wanted their own private videos. It's not a huge source of revenue...I'd usually charge just a nominal fee as almost a psychological mechanism if whoever was on the receiving end wanted it to feel transactional. For instance, that's what I'll do with Lisa the Passion Party hostess (who I met at a private event in October and is now offering my "services" as part of her pitch to certain clients - there's more on that at the "Retired Exec Tickle Session" story link under the True Story Anthology in my sig).

There's one exception which is what makes me think of paid private work as a source of more than nominal revenue, and that's a particular couple who were on the wealthier side and paid generously for a handful of private video sessions as well as full access to my LOL library.

I've always just assumed that the bigger stores made far more than we did. I know fans liked our stuff since we shot with "normal", fun, but still mostly vanilla ladies and not tickle models, and as a rigger my angle on the kink is to be fairly particular about bondage (I like them comfortable but almost completely immobile -- not interested in untied or even hands-free stuff), so maybe that counts toward our success.

Anyway, best of luck to you! I love your stuff for a lot of the same reasons I just described, and I'd love to see you producing again.

-Q.

SoleMates said:

Normally I'd just keep my yap shut, but the more I think about it, the more annoyed I'm getting, so, no. I'm not going to.

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So you felt compelled to post about it on the forum. Based on the tone of your reply to my PM, I'm not suprised at all.