When Will My Sex Blog Make Money?
Tl;dr: There are no guaranteed timelines to making money. It’s what you do right now and what you keep doing that matters most.
So when will my sex blog make money?
It’s a question all sex blogging smutlancers ask themselves, especially when you’re working hard to get someone to hire you, accept your pitch, or become a sponsor.
The short answer? As long as it takes.
Yeah, I know, it’s not satisfying. The first time I made money from my blog was a total fluke. Someone randomly emailed me and wanted to pay for a sponsored post. Before that, I hadn’t really thought it was possible to get paid for blogging. After that I set up a “Work with Me” page and began to hustle, promoting myself and reaching out.
It was easily six months before my blog made another dime.
So back to the question. When will you make money blogging? I can’t tell you that, but here’s what I do know.
Keep Writing
Bloggers come and go in the online world (vanilla and sex). One minute they’re chugging along, writing and publishing, and the next, poof. Gone. Half the battle is being out there with fresh content. You truly never know who might come across a post you’ve written. And you really never know who’s paying attention.
The more you write and publish, the more likely you are to be found through a Google search. Use a few tools like Yoast SEO (my favorite) and Google Search Console, and you can help your own search rankings. Getting found is key. If no one knows you exist, no one wants to pay you.
Get Your Name Out There
Many opportunities come my way because a company found me somewhere else. I wish it all came through my blog, but in the beginning it almost never did.
Get your name on the blogging lists. I’ve been contacted many times because of my placement on the Kinkly Sex Blogging Heroes list or the Top 100 Sex Blogger list (before I was number one). You don’t have to be number one to get attention; you just have to be there. Yes, this means you’ll have to ask for nominations and votes during blog list season. Do it anyway.
Pitch other publications. Even writing for little or no money has me helped in the long-run. A single article on another site won’t do much, but constantly showing up in multiple places will. Don’t work for “exposure” but get your work out there, even if the pay isn’t perfect.
Pimp yourself. I don’t think your social media feed is the only thing that gets you work, but you should still use the hell out of it. Share your work that’s been published to other sites. Re-share your archive to get fresh eyes on your work. Tell people you’re for hire or have openings for sponsored posts. Most companies don’t know you’re for hire until you say something.
Use Your Blog as Leverage
Rethink what “making money from your blog” really means. Most bloggers tend to think of it as a very straight line. Publish a thing on your blog and get paid. But there’s another way.
Use your blog as proof of your skill for other types of work. Pitching publications is the most obvious, but that’s not the only way. Wish you could blog for a sex toy company you love? Really want to fix the content on a kinky website you like to visit? Pitch them! Offer your services as a smutlancer. They might say no, but they might say yes.
Walk a Fine Line with Self-Promotion
You need to pimp yourself, of course, but it’s a fine line to walk. Tweet too often about how you’re available for hire or that you’ve got sponsorship opportunities, and your core audience will tune you out. Do it too little and, well, nothing happens.
Finding the right mix of being a regular person (always the top priority) and marketing yourself isn’t always easy. The urge to self-promote sometimes overrides good sense. Quite frankly, just be a regular human being who also pimps yourself. Don’t try to be two separate things and that fine line will work itself out.
Get to Know Companies
No one wants to feel pitched to or sold constantly, your audience or adult companies. Get to know the people behind the companies you like. Talk to them on social media. Share the things they’re doing that you like.
Sometimes you do something that doesn’t pay anything — like reviewing a sex toy — to get on their radar. And sometimes you retweet their promotion, even though you get nothing from it. Again, you need to be genuine when you do it, but these small things really can help. Be someone they want to work with, and be easy to work with, and you never know what opportunities might come your way.
Make Your Intentions Known
The weirdest (and scariest) thing I’ve ever done is admit publicly that I wanted to make money as a sex blogger. I wasn’t completely convinced it was viable, and it felt weird sharing it with my audience. They were there for the kinky fuckery, not my money-making dreams.
But as woo-woo as it may sound, putting your intentions out into the world/Universe/cosmos makes a difference. You never know who might see and reach out. Plus, once you say it’s what you want, it’s easier to act like its what you want. Your mindset really does make a difference. Stating your intentions doesn’t magically rain money down from the sky (how I wish it did) but it might make others (and you) see you and your blog differently.
Be Patient
This is the hardest part, isn’t it? It’s the answer no one wants. Be patient. It feels like you’ve been waiting forever. I know.
While there are direct actions you can take – pitching, reaching out, publishing books, joining affiliate programs – it all still takes time. Time to build an audience. Time to increase your skill. And time to fine-tune your work, your abilities, and what you want.
So how long it be until your blog makes money? As long as it takes, but if you never get started, never hit publish, and never put yourself out there, the answer is easy. It’ll never happen.
