[David C. Matthews]

First: very nice drawing; I like it.

Second: If anyone ever does find out a way to make some money off this, can someone tell me? The only reasons I've been able to continue doing what I'm doing is A) I do manage to get enough in donations and the occasional commission to keep my web-hosting costs paid (about $95/yr); and some of my domain registration fees. The rest of the expense, I chalk up to it B) being a hobby: just as some people enjoy fishing (and buying rods and reels, and flies, etc.) and model railroading (and don't tell me that doesn't get expensive!), I draw these pictures and post them to the Web for a (mostly) appreciative, but ultimately small audience.

And apparently not well-heeled; our buddy 10-4 put up a poll on his "ReXtra" forum asking how many of its members actually pay for fem-muscle art (commissions,etc.) Got 13 responses, of which 9 (69.2%) said "Zip! Zilch! Nada! Zero dollars ever!"

I'm not bitching, not whining, just pointing out that expecting to be able to make even a self-sustaining enterprise out of our interest is going to be difficult at best. For now, the "ego-boo" I get from readers posting and e-mailing their compliments keeps me going… though dropping a little lucre in the ol' tip jar wouldn't hurt either!  😉

[David]

That's what I don't understand about the people around here. They don't want to support artists with anything more than words. meanwhile the furry nationals spend money like it's going out of style. Hell they support several comic books but there wasn't enough money to convince wreck to stick around when he put up his paysite. It's the reason Awefilms stopped updating with stories.  There are over 7,000 members here yet I watch Dr. Otto's contributions crawl to maybe reach $200 in a month. I know some of us aren't in the shape to donate but outta that total there should be enough.

[TC2]

I know my main issue is money and privacy.  I live with other folks around here and to have a questionable "gorgeous female muscle picture" arrive in my mailbox would make for a lot of questions to be asked.

Money is also another issue, I don't buy comic books nor do I even get to go to conventions.  I'm broke beyond all measures of the word and don't have a decent job or cashflow to really support the artists like I'd like to.  I only have one emergency credit card and I don't even have any pay pal accounts etc, everything I buy is usually in cash.

IF I was richer and living on my own I would definitely support our artists and give "hefty" donations if it would inspire them to draw more.

[mangamuscle]

*comes out of hiding*

Nice drawing 🙂 As for your question, if you want to stay out of the commission work and the publications like lha-art and also you want to draw muscle women, IMHO your best is chance is to create a comic/webcomic/whatever with an story interesting enough to attract people outside the fmg community. As it has been pointed out, not only we are a reduced community, but also many live in fear of being discovered. I mean, most societies accept (with varying degrees) if someone has a stack of playboy magazines, or that someone is gay/lesbian, or that someone is into S&M, but muscular females are considered disgusting by a large percentage of the population of this planet. But if you make a story that is interesting enough people can say "I am buying it because it is interesting". The downside is that this would require a lot of time and effort and there is no guarantee of certain success. But it is an answer nonetheless. 😀

*goes back into hiding*

[ze fly]

That's what I don't understand about the people around here. They don't want to support artists with anything more than words. meanwhile the furry nationals spend money like it's going out of style. Hell they support several comic books but there wasn't enough money to convince wreck to stick around when he put up his paysite. It's the reason Awefilms stopped updating with stories.  There are over 7,000 members here yet I watch Dr. Otto's contributions crawl to maybe reach $200 in a month. I know some of us aren't in the shape to donate but outta that total there should be enough.

I can't speak for others, but as far as I'm concerned,  I confess that I am not hundred percent trusting internet security. So as long as it is limited orders, I don't mind (but I still think twice before doing it), but subscriptions are afraiding me… 😛
So that's why I like Otto's PCC system solution of PayPal so much…

[10-4]

Part of the money for art deal is influenced by the wealth of free materials on the web. If all a person has to do is wait a little bit for photos and videos to find their way to yahoo groups and peer to peer networks, it doesn’t make much sense to go and pay for the stuff. Or I should say, in the short run it doesn’t make sense. In the long run the professionals will likely drift away to other more lucrative jobs and the remaining material will be the few scraps that get tossed out on the forums as a result of a hobby interest in fem muscle.

When I ran my little poll over at Rextra I was surprised that anyone was actually paying for this stuff. Apparently their is a small audience willing to toss a few dollars at a select few artists on an irregular basis. Just how much longer this will be the case remains to be seen.

[yatz]

Well, That's the new economics – and I don't think I can complain; over the last 5 years, I must have pirated thousands of dollars' worth of material off the web – software, music, audiobooks, comics, art, movies… It's all things I would never have bought, anyway, because I just can't afford it; I like it this way, and I'm glad I have this method of giving something back to the community, in the form of my art (and, in this case, it IS a "community", a small one, which needs this sort of input to exist). I do make the effort to also give something a bit more material back – most of the money I make from my online art goes to support sites, software developers and artists (that last one meaning I buy comic books and DVD's – but, hey, I could just have downloaded them for free, right?). I think it's great that people like David or Chris Morrison, who put up a high-quality product as a hobby (and for "ego-boosting", or whatever) do get a measure of monetary support; in this economy, I think it's a lot. And, after all, if an artist is good enough, and he's willing to put aside any feelings of distaste he might have, there's a rather large market of people who are willing to pay good money to have art work done to their very specific tastes… 👿

[Lingster]

I've pitched something potentially profitable to DCM in the past, but he hasn't taken the bait. 

If five quality artists were willing to commit to a weekly schedule, I believe they could band together with a paysite and do fairly well.  The key is that there'd have to be new material every weekday.  Each would be expected to turn out one finished page of a comic serial every week, on a certain day.

I'd be willing to set this up, run it and absorb all hosting costs for 1/6th of the net revenue after the payment provider's fees.  Presumably the artists could divvy up the remaining 5/6ths equally or according to some other metric.  I expect that people would pay $10 a month for access, and that it wouldn't be too hard to get 500 to 1000 subscribers.  Retention should be much better than with most adult sites, probably 8-12 months on average versus 2-4 for most sites.  If the site had 500 subscribers at $10 each, that would work out to something close to $800 per month for each artist.

Or they could set it up themselves – I make no claim on rights to the idea.

[David C. Matthews]

I've pitched something potentially profitable to DCM in the past, but he hasn't taken the bait. 

If five quality artists were willing to commit to a weekly schedule, I believe they could band together with a paysite and do fairly well.  The key is that there'd have to be new material every weekday.  Each would be expected to turn out one finished page of a comic serial every week, on a certain day.

I'd be willing to set this up, run it and absorb all hosting costs for 1/6th of the net revenue after the payment provider's fees.  Presumably the artists could divvy up the remaining 5/6ths equally or according to some other metric.  I expect that people would pay $10 a month for access, and that it wouldn't be too hard to get 500 to 1000 subscribers.  Retention should be much better than with most adult sites, probably 8-12 months on average versus 2-4 for most sites.  If the site had 500 subscribers at $10 each, that would work out to something close to $800 per month for each artist.

Or they could set it up themselves – I make no claim on rights to the idea.

It's that "commit[ting] to a weekly schedule" that makes me just a little hesitant to take advantage of that idea (and why I haven't pursued a pay site in the first place, and why I didn't bite the first time you suggested it).

But if there are other artists who'd be interested in joining me in this, leave a response here in this thread or a PM, and let's at least exchange some thoughts.

[Dr.Otto]

It's that "commit[ting] to a weekly schedule" that makes me just a little hesitant to take advantage of that idea (and why I haven't pursued a pay site in the first place, and why I didn't bite the first time you suggested it).

But if there are other artists who'd be interested in joining me in this, leave a response here in this thread or a PM, and let's at least exchange some thoughts.

Likewise. Hammering out PCC twice a week is schedule enough; given my relatively infrequent art postings here, being locked into a weekly schedule would only amount to me cranking out increasingly mediocre material. I draw when the inspiration hits, and that's hard to lock into a schedule. I would be interested in doing desktops for a venture such as this, though, and maybe an irregular comic series I could work on when time permits.

As far as PCC goes, I pull in about $3000 a year in desktop donations, but I don't think I could do that with just a random wallpaper assortment of marginally female freakshows. It's CHARACTERS that readers form attachments to, regardless of cup size or bicep girth (which is part of the reason I want to develop Britt as a character project outside of PCC…sure, she may be a mammoth, but it's the personality side that people will become attached to). I think where a lot of people get frustrated with femuscle art is that they feel they can just throw up the flavor of the week bursting chains, tossing tanks, or chewing through granite and expect to gain a large following, and unfortunately that isn't how it works. Sure, there's a market for that and if that's your thing, by all means, enjoy. But over time you'll discover that it's not the feats of strength that bring people back; in fact, it's when you reveal that these freaks of nature have flaws, weaknesses, hopes, dreams, and desires that you'll start noticing that people's interest is growing.

I don't do commissions for the same reason Yatz stopped; I'm not into the subculture's prominent infatuation with violence or sadism. I am, however, planning on going into feats of strength with Britt, because the character is an innate showoff.

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