How to make $3k+ per month with Gallery Submitting (10 Steps)

Hi everybody,

I'm working as a gallery submitter now since ~5 years, and during the last years I also started to run updates.advancedsubmitter.com and PartnerRequester.com, so I hope to know a bit about this area of the adult business.

I always wanted to write a Tutorial about gallery submitting, and since I've recently hired a full-time employee I thought this might be the right moment to just write down what I had to teach him, and to use it as a guide for other beginners too. Since it would take to much time to go into every detail about TGP (Thumbnail Gallery Post) and MGP (Movie Gallery Post) submitting, I'll start with a rather basic Tutorial.
Please let me know if I've forgotten about anything, or if you have any questions, I'm available at ICQ 344688791 or tutorial(at)adultsponsortest.com

Step 1: Choosing the right Sponsor
Obviously before you can start your work you'd have to choose a good sponsor. Spend at least 1 day for your research, and try to find a Sponsor that's not overused. I personally don't care much about the payout, as long as it's reasonable, I focus more on the quality of free content they can provide, cause that's important to get our galleries listed, and that will be the most important factor to get sales. When I'm looking for a new sponsor I just visit the bigger TGPs and MGPs (sextracker.com), and look around what they've listed right now. Most big sites sell their top spots, and since the webmasters that buy these spots want to get a good ROI it's very likely that the actual site they're promoting converts well, so that's a very good start to pre-select. After you've found a few good sponsors, take a look at their top sites, and try to estimate if they're actually overpromoted (alexa.com). If you select a sponsor with ton's of free hosted galleries you'll not get listed very often, since every TGP/MGP would just list the FHGs with their own linking code. So we're looking for a sponsor with good content, that's not overpromoted (i.e. lower alexa rank) and without FHGs that everybody and his mother uses. Please also take your time for this research, that can easily take up to 1 workday.

Step 2: Hosting
Only go with paid hosting, and if possible with your own dedicated server since virtual accounts would get too expensive rather soon. To start I'd say a dedicated server with ~1000GB data transfer/month should be enough for the first months, as you'll need some time to get started anyway. At best your hosting plan should be expandable, as you'll need more bandwidth after a few months. Something like that is available for $100 per month or even less these days. Just ask on the WM Boards and you'll get some offers.

Step 3: Domains
The domain for galleries isn't so important at all IMHO, it doesn't hurt if it suit's to the niche of your galleries content somehow, and you should be able to use an email like webmaster@yourdomain.com

Step 4: Stats Program
Many people underestimate the value of a good stats program, at best use a webserver based stats program (like urchin.com), a image counter like sextracker.com should only be a temp. solution since it'll never be as accurate as a counter with access to your server logs, and that's especially important if you want to dig a bit into SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) later on.

Step 5: Build your galleries
I'm not a designer, so I've never given too much about fancy graphics on my galleries, it's more important to have good content IMHO.
Before you start you'd have to select a Picture or Movie Set. At best choose one with a girl (or guy) that's actually featured on the front page of the paysite you're promoting. Many people click through to the actual gallery because they want to see more of that content, so you should give them a bit more on the main page, and hope that they wipe out their credit card to see even more inside the members area.
For a TGP gallery I'm always using 16 Thumbs, the fullsize pictures should have between 40-100kb, and should have at least 600 pix on the short side. For MGP galleries the common standard is 3 Movies, with ~20sec runtime each, and ~1.5-3MB Filesize. You can also use 4 or 5 Movies, that will actually give you the chance to submit to more sites, and doesn't have a too big effect on your bandwidth bill, since most surfers only download 1-2 Movies anyway.
The actual thumbnails on your gallery should be as good as possible, don't use any automated tool to create them, make them by hand in Photoshop, crop them to at least 100 pix on the short side (better more), and adjust their colour balance, and brightness. Take care that the general layout of your gallery looks clean, don't mix up landscape and portrait format, if you have to, do it in a way that it actually suits the gallery layout.
And don't use more than 2 outgoing links to my Sponsor, cause some sites have a very harsh limit upon these, and if your content is good enough the surfer will look for a way to get more anyway, you can't force him to signup with more or blind links. As links I personally always use text links, try to talk directly to the surfer, and tell him why the site you're promoting is the one he should signup for. If you can't come up with a good reason you should choose another Site to promote :-)
Stay away from banners, cause most galleries look rather crappy with them.
A 2257 link would be also good for your galleries, I'm not from the US either, but it doesn't hurt, and many site owners require it.
I also put lot's of SEO work into my galleries, although a gallery is pretty much the worst thing to optimise for Search Engines it pays of, and I get ~30% of my long term sales from SE Traffic. But how to do that would be enough to write for a separate Tutorial.

Step 6: Preview Thumbnails
I've made a separate explanation for these, since I think preview thumbnails are more important than many submitters might know. At first preview thumbs are required for so called "Thumb TGPs" or "Thumb MGPs" (madthumbs.com). As you can see almost all of these sites trade traffic with each other, that means that they need a good overall productivity (number of clicks per visitor) on their sites. To get that high productivity these sites would need good thumbs, that means for us submitters, the better we make our preview thumbs, the more likely it's to get listed at these sites. So don't make your preview thumbs with any automated tool, make them by hand, and make them with a program like Photoshop. Adjust brightness, colour balance and sharpness if required.

Step 7: Submission Tools
If you're absolutely new to gallery submitting, stay away from any tools at the beginning, just start with good old manual work to learn everything. A while ago I've built a list for handsubmission at AdultSponsorTest.com, you can use that one to get started, although it's a bit outdated by now :-)
Just use 3 Recips per gallery and submit away. If possible use an email like webmaster@yourdomain.com, you'll need that later on anyway.
When you get used a bit more to the very basics, you can start using a submission tool like AdvancedSubmitter.com, you should only use it as a manual submission tool, that means only to create your mirror galleries with Recips, and to fill the submission forms. When you're also used to that tool, the next logical step would be to expand your existing submission list with either the TGP Database or the MGP Database I've built. In the end you should be able to submit a TGP and a MGP Gallery per day, but at first I'll have to show you how to get started with them.

Step 8: Different ways to get listed
Before I can continue here I'd have to explain what kind of different TGPs and MGPs are existing.

-At first there are the ones that accept your submission for free and without any limitations. That means you (and ~5000 other submitters) can submit their galleries to them completely for free. After a review the site owner might decide to list your work, or to not list it. Obviously the competition there is rather big, so you'll not get listed very often, and the number of these sites keeps declining too. So at max. you'll be able to get ~10-15k uniques per day from these sites. But considering that an average gallery should be able to make a sale every 20-40k uniques it's a start. That would mean ~$200-250 per month for the beginning. You'll remain at that stage for the first 1-2 months.

-The second group is more important. Many sites pre-select their submitters, that means you'd have to contact them, or send in an application with your name, nickname, email, some sample galleries and a short story about yourself. If your application was good enough you'll be granted with a Partner Account for that Site. This Partner Account enables you to submit with less competition, which means that you'll get listed more often. And those Sites are bigger than the ones from the first group too, so with a reasonable number of Partner Accounts (150+) you'll get ~70-150k uniques per day. And since your galleries should also convert a bit better meanwhile I'd say that would be ~$2-$4.5k per month. Since there are more and more sites out there that require a Partner Account I've developed PartnerRequester.com a while ago, that tool gives you a ready to go list with ~1200 Sites, so you wouldn't have to built/maintain that list yourself.
You should also consider that it takes a long time to went through this stage, so if you're completely new to gallery submitting it will take you at least 1 year from now until you'll reach these traffic levels.

-The third group contains sites that require a payment or a fee to get either a paid partner account, or a paid gallery spot. These sites are obviously the biggest ones, but many of them give a rather small ROI, so you'd have to know what you're doing. If you're able to make use of lot's of these sites you'll be able to get 300k+ uniques per day, but take care of your overhead costs. Consider that it takes a lot of work to get there, and at least 2 years of experience and networking.

Step 9: Submitting
Now after I've explained the different ways to get listed I'd like to explain how to continue with submitting. Meanwhile you should be familiar with AdvancedSubmitter.com, and if you're using my DBs you'll start to submit to the sites from the first group I've mentioned. It takes a while until traffic builds up, so just keep submitting, and don't draw any conclusions until the first month is over. As soon as you have a few samples of your work, signup with PartnerRequester.com and start applying for Partner Accounts.
You can also always drop me a message at ICQ#344688791 or tutorial(at)adultsponsortest.com with samples of your work. I'd review them and give you a few hints before you actually start applying.
Add your new partner Accounts to your actual submission List ASAP, and after a month or so start to remove those sites from your list that never list you. Always follow the site rules perfectly, that means correct descriptions, correct preview thumbs, correct Category, etc.

Step 10: Things to think about!
-Always keep in mind that you're competing with ~5000 other submitters, that means to get good results you'd need to be better than at least 90% of them. So average work isn't enough, if you want to belong to the top 10% earners, you'd have to deliver top 10% quality.
-Try to do some networking on the boards, many site owners only give away partner accounts on WM Boards, so don't be shy.
-Never get lazy, the harder it is to get listed at a specific site, the harder it is for others too, which means that you have better chances to get listed if you comply with the sites requirements.
-Don't get mad about a specific site or webmaster, it'll happen quite often that you'll have to bend over. Get over it and see it as a business expense :-)

If you want to know more about partner Requesting you can take a look at the Tips & Tricks Section, or feel free to ask any questions in these WM board threads:

http://www.gofuckyourself.com/showthread.php?t=573984
http://www.netpond.com/showthread.php?t=80318
http://boards.xbiz.com/showthread.php3?s=f83317b71068f62b3ce24c98fef703cc&threadid=31609

Finally I hope my little Tutorial is helpful, if anybody wants to ask me some questions, hit me up on ICQ 344688791 or tutorials(at)adultsponsortest.com