When do you finally know it’s time to leave camming?

[Deleted member 69184]

I think I already know the answer to this but I just want to hear from other experienced models.
I am just a few weeks short of 4 years and it just seems to be all I have now are bad days…..silence…rude comments … making no money.

it’s been so hard emotionally. I am friendly, fairly decent looking for an older lady. But once again here I sit on SM for almost an hour with not a single gold or show…and no one even saying a word to me.

I wanted to try again on Sm today and I’m already in tears which means I have to log off.
I don’t get why members don’t treat cam models better….I mean I know we’re not entitled to anything…but it’s hard.
I put on a great show when members spend and are kind…but it’s just not like that for me anymore.

camming was and is my only income…but I have to be kind to myself! And it has wrecked my self esteem to its core.

I was in a good place when I logged into today after a bad day yesterday….but when you sit as long as I did with not a single gold tip or show…it’s bad!
There has just not been enough good days to balance it out.

I dont want to go back on CB either because I am sick and tired of being recorded daily and posted all over the net!

Im sad! Very sad that I use to do quite well…to have it come to this

 

[James_and_Aiden]

We’re in tough economic times.

We’ve been forced from exclusively streaming on SM to 8-10 platforms in order to make nearly as much as we used to and now solo streaming from a Duo as it’s not worth it financially.

We’ve also diversified into 3 OnlyFans accounts, which brings in fluctuating incoming from month to month, depending on our advertising, exposure.

We’re also now on PornHub to bring in residual income from free videos, and this has created an influx of custom video requests.

It’s really tough. We’re working non stop, 10x harder and 20x smarter in order to generate the same sales that we used to be able to generate without effort.

We’ve had a pandemic and now a cost of living crisis and it’s taking it’s toll.

Luckily, we are still able to commit James to full time, but not without extreme amounts of work in building up on several platforms.

 

[Deleted member 69184]

We’re in tough economic times.

We’ve been forced from exclusively streaming on SM to 8-10 platforms in order to make nearly as much as we used to and now solo streaming from a Duo as it’s not worth it financially.

We’ve also diversified into 3 OnlyFans accounts, which brings in fluctuating incoming from month to month, depending on our advertising, exposure.

We’re also now on PornHub to bring in residual income from free videos, and this has created an influx of custom video requests.

It’s really tough. We’re working non stop, 10x harder and 20x smarter in order to generate the same sales that we used to be able to generate without effort.

We’ve had a pandemic and now a cost of living crisis and it’s taking it’s toll.

Luckily, we are still able to commit James to full time, but not without extreme amounts of work in building up on several platforms.

Kudos to you! I am in my mid fifties and don’t have a lot of energy or stamina. Plus now mental health struggles…so I’m limited. I can’t mentally and physically devote endless time and effort because I need to have a balance in my life in order not to fall deeper into the dark hole. Being locked in a bedroom camming for endless hours daily to make ends meet without doing anything else would be hard. It’s so isolating as it is. I need to do,other things that feed my soul….camming is just emptying it.

 

[Marceline]

Have you tried making content or maybe doing pso/texting?

Being a content creator has hands down changed my life for the better, personally and career wise. It's not nearly as mentally and emotionally draining as camming can be. You can film a ton on the days you have energy and feel motivated, and spend the days you feel like being more low key editing and uploading. It's great to have an upload schedule, but in my experience, you don't need to be nearly as routine about it like you have to be with camming. You can upload to multiple sites (ManyVids, Clips4Sale, iWantClips, etc) to diversify your earnings. Most of those sites have their own internal traffic, so it's not necessary to advertise yourself or have a social media presence, although it can help.

If you want to still interact with members, you could schedule private sessions, send paid DMs (this works especially well if you do femdom), and have phone sex and texting lines open while you're editing or not really doing anything. If you don't want to, you also don't have to.

I also find creating content a lot more fulfilling. I like doing long, story driven videos and I have some with some interesting effects added in, and once I complete and upload videos that are especially complex it scratches that creative itch I get. I always wanted to be a film maker and this is my way of living out my lifelong dream, haha.

And, once you get a good amount of content up, it's a lot easier to take time off since you can still make passive income off your clips. Without going into detail, I haven't been able to work much lately, and all the hard work I put in creating videos (I have 300+ on my main site and I think well over 400 on my original/second site) in the past has really saved my ass.

All in all, I highly recommend making content. Pretty much for anyone in the adult industry, but especially if you're getting burnt out from camming but still want to remain in the industry.

 

[Deleted member 69184]

Good advice. I am not that creative but worth considering. I am one of the few models not on social media so hopefully I’d get traffic? The short videos (1-5 minutes) I made to put up on cam sites (non professional, very amateur) surprisingly sold well…I set price pretty low considering quality and length…but many bought them.
Just coming up with creative ideas may be an issue. But mentally if I sat another minute on SM and watched another member just leave within 30 seconds of arriving I think my laptop would have been thrown out the window.

 

[Marceline]

Good advice. I am not that creative but worth considering. I am one of the few models not on social media so hopefully I’d get traffic? The short videos (1-5 minutes) I made to put up on cam sites (non professional, very amateur) surprisingly sold well…I set price pretty low considering quality and length…but many bought them.
Just coming up with creative ideas may be an issue. But mentally if I sat another minute on SM and watched another member just leave within 30 seconds of arriving I think my laptop would have been thrown out the window.

I don't have any social media except for a fairly new Twitter account that only has auto sale tweets from MV on it. When I was in the top 100 on MV I had no social media at all and didn't advertise whatsoever. The internal traffic there and on Clips4Sale is really good. The main thing when you're trying to get more traffic on clip sites is to just post frequently.

You could always post the videos you already have to different clip sites to see how they do and how you like it.

If you're not opposed to making fetish content, it can do very well. When I first got serious about creating content, it was when I was in a place similar to where you are right now. I was super burnt out on camming and it was taking a mental toll. After a slow day I logged off early and decided to film instead. I made a video on a pretty niche fetish that I was familiar with because an ex/good friend had been into it. I didn't expect it to do very well, but I had a fun idea and just wanted to have a good time with it. It ended up doing very well, and I ended up being consistently one of the top studios in that fetish category. I decided to try out other fetishes I was comfortable with. I found out about them by just browsing through the different categories on C4S. After trial and error I found the niches I fit well in and ran with it.

I can't help out much with coming up with creative ideas. Coming up with ideas is one of the things I have the most fun with. But, you can always recreate scenarios you may have done before in privates while starting off. I do think it comes a lot more naturally once you start getting more into content creation.

 

[Deleted member 69184]

Can I ask how long on average are your videos? And do I need to be super professional and have excellent equipment…because I don’t have that. Or does amateur work good too? I think I will look into both Mv and clips…nothing much to loose. The strange thing with cam is I tried so hard to protect myself from burnout by not doing excessive hours, strong boundaries….it just sort of creeps up after you have enough slow…non profitable days…you have to be one tough person mentally to do it these days.

 

[Marceline]

Can I ask how long on average are your videos? And do I need to be super professional and have excellent equipment…because I don’t have that. Or does amateur work good too? I think I will look into both Mv and clips…nothing much to loose. The strange thing with cam is I tried so hard to protect myself from burnout by not doing excessive hours, strong boundaries….it just sort of creeps up after you have enough slow…non profitable days…you have to be one tough person mentally to do it these days.

My videos usually range anywhere from 20-40 minutes. I don't have a whole lot that are under 20 minutes. But, that's a lot longer than the average from what I've seen other creators do. It's worked well for me, but I don't think it's at all necessary to have videos that long.

You don't need super professional equipment. I have a Canon EOS M50. It's not a super high end camera. I like it a lot, though. Mostly because it's mirrorless/dual pixel, so it autofocuses while you're filming and you don't have to worry about moving out of focus/staying in the same area of depth. You don't have that with mirrored digital cameras (or at least the majority of them, I think). You could always use a smartphone, too. The biggest thing I've come to realize when filming is that lighting can make all the difference. When I first started creating content I had a different camera and used just regular lighting. It looked like I was filming with a potato. Granted, I did have videos that did well with that. But, when I upgraded my lighting (literally just used daylight/bright white bulbs and a lot of them) it looked like I was filming with a whole new camera.

I definitely agree that burnout can creep up on you. It's hard not to take it personally when you have a lot of slow days, even if you tell yourself and know logically that it's the economy/timing/slow season. I feel for you, because it's tough.

 

[Deleted member 69184]

Any thoughts from models where you were about to rage quit then it improved and made you continue?

I mean I’ve had this happen so many times. But I wonder if it just didn’t prolong me staying in the industry when the best thing would have been to get out sooner?
I see it as a double edge sword, sure I appreciated the money…but then did it also just give me false hope for the future? Only to be disappointed yet again and want to quit again?

Its just so hard to know???
I kinda feel that when someone rescued me from a bad shift it just made me stay in the Industry longer than I should have?
any thoughts?

because when you have a great shift…you know a bad one is not far behind. That’s just how camming is? I guess if your emotionally stronger it’s not so much an issue??.

 

[MarieElise]

Any thoughts from models where you were about to rage quit then it improved and made you continue?

This has never happened to me. However there were times my first few years that I got a supplementary part time join to decrease isolation, and there were also times I switched to mainly non live work because I felt burnout coming. But rage quit, never, I love the freedom and fun times way too much.

I'm 41 and I've worked in a lot of different industries (been working since age 14, and worked fulltime my whole way through getting 2 degrees too). This is by far my favorite industry, but different personalities are different, and suited better to different things. Have you ever visited a career counselor, they can be really helpful? They help you to explore yourself and your personal strengths and weaknesses, in order to match yourself to ideal work fields. Financial Aid pays for them, in a lot of colleges and University programs.

(I did rage quit in several other fields though).