Things have gotten a little tougher at the site this year. But as the saying goes, “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.”
(Note: this ended up being a really long letter- but it’s really important- so I added some random sexy pics taken from MG-renders to help keep things interesting til the end)
First of all, I don’t say it nearly enough: Thank You to everyone who has helped support the site through Patreon these last several years. I’ve spoken to some people in the internet ad business and they tell me that sites of this size only occasionally hold out for three years without doing ads, so lasting five (six!) years like this site has is pretty remarkable. And that’s all thanks to the passion and generosity of so many of you out there. You guys are awesome.
Thanks to some clever help I’ve gotten in regards to caching images, costs were kept in a holding pattern for the first few years. Unfortunately, hosting costs started to rise in 2018. From the start of 2018 to the start of 2019 hosting costs nearly tripled, and there were a few months this year I had to take out loans just to barely clear enough money to keep the site going another month (my credit card maxed).
I wasn’t really sure what to do about this. I thought for a while that I could maybe fix this on my own, but each month I’d been scrambling to cover. I knew this would be a problem by last November, and I knew I probably needed to write this post in February at the latest. But I kept putting it off hoping I could figure out a way to not have to. I got more hours at my job, I’ve spent thousands of dollars of my own money to make up the difference. But it’s been a real struggle, since I currently live below the poverty line and of course have my own life expenses to pay (rent, etc).
Things are so different now than when I first started this site six years ago. Back then, I was a NEET with all the free time in the world. For about six months, I worked on video compilations 20 hours a day. Every day. It’s just so crazy to think about how hard core that was. Now I’ve got a job and responsibilities, including a much bigger price-tag on maintaining the site.
But here’s the thing. I’m not a quitter. Nor should I be- we have everything we need right here to keep this party going. Here’s how:
Patreon Overhaul
Very soon the Fapservice Patreon page will get a revamp. There will be an obvious aesthetic update, but more importantly there will be some function changes. For starters, the financial “goal” will change month to month to reflect the primary hosting costs (in April, that figure was $213). If that goal is met, there will be a reward, both for Patrons and even non-Patrons. There’s a lot of fun stuff you can do with Patreon to reward donors, and that’s something I’m going to start looking into.
So what might those rewards look like?
Here’s the big one. Any month where the minimum hosting goal is met, I will personally commit to making a fanservice compilation video by the end of said month. How significant is that? For comparison, in the past twelve months I’ve only done three total video compilations, and two of them were TV based. In the past 31 months only six, and three of those were TV based. So basically, one BD based comp every ten months. Imagine the difference between that and having one comp per month instead.
Of course, the reason things have slowed down is in large part because of burnout (the videos are a crazy amount of work), but if it means I get to save the site, I think that will be enough motivation. And having a few extra hours freed up from not having to pay the server costs will help get those videos done too. As an extra thank you, Patrons will get the videos roughly a week before they are published on the site. But even if you don’t donate, this is still pretty great news for you, as the number of compilations being made could potentially increase by ten-fold. That’s just great for everybody.
There are some other ideas I’m considering to reward patrons. If donations are well above the minimum, I’d be willing to buy ecchi manga that have yet to have uncensored public releases and scan them to share with Patrons (and later the greater community at large). One example- awesome nude ecchi manga Blade Play stopped getting scanlations many years ago, around volume 8. I can purchase and scan up to volume 15. This is just one example of many many many such manga.
For non-donors, don’t worry about losing content compared to before. Anything that would be going onto the site is still going there. With that said, there’s definitely stuff I’ve done, or wanted to do, that I’ve avoided posting on fapservice because I didn’t feel it fit the vibe, and Patreon gives me an outlet for those kind of experimental projects. So for those who donate, not only will you help drive more video creation, not only will you get early access to videos and manga comps, but you might get a few cool exclusive videos every once in a while too.
Ultimately, I want Patrons to donate because they love the site. But I also want to make sure those Patrons feel like they are getting something special in return, too. You guys are awesome and you deserve a little something extra.
I still have a lot of work to do revamping Patreon, but when the overhaul is completed I’ll be sure to post an update here. It shouldn’t be too long.
Exploring Advert Options
I’ve totally avoided ads at fapservice, with the exception of the ads that play from openload, which I don’t profit from and can be blocked easily with an ad-blocker. However, after the cost increase tsunami that was 2018, it’s opened my eyes to the reality that costs aren’t going to be static, and in all likelihood there will be another big jump in costs down the road. It’s inevitable.
So I’m going to start dipping my toes into advertising. My goal is to find advertisers with at least some relevance to sexy anime women. Hentai sites, Hentai games, web comics, you get the picture. I will also strive to avoid pop-ups. Ideally, I’ll have something nice and clean like a small rectangular side-bar advert, or maybe a full side-background advertisement (which is, ironically, the exact thing I got the Eris and Rias background artwork from, as some sharp observers have spotted).
Bottom line, I won’t do anything that will feel like visiting this site will give your computer aids. I think there are some good common sense options here. If advertising goes well, I can factor that into the minimum Patreon number, making it easier to hit and earn more videos. It would also mean I wouldn’t have to work as many hours which would help free up more time for content.
The lone concern I have is my own inexperience. This is the first website I’ve owned, and when talking to advertisers I really don’t have any way of knowing if I am talking to a good partner or a shark. If there is anyone reading this who has experience and can offer advice, I would certainly appreciate it. You can contact me by email or by direct messaging me on discord at @wizardofecchi#0380 . I recommend discord as I tend to reply to it much quicker.
Make Fapservice Great Again
If you would like to join our writing team for covering various ecchi stuff, we are always taking recruits. As much as I like the final result of a manga or video compilation, it’s always the blogging aspect of this place that is the most fun I think. If you think blogging about anime T n’ A sounds like a blast, we’d love to have you.
But even if you don’t want to donate, and don’t want to contribute content, which is to say 99% of you reading this, there is still one more very important thing you can do to help.
Participate. Post comments. If you see a funny comment, like the shit out of it. If you see a sexy comment, give it lots of likes. The more a blog post has comments, the more rewarded the author feels. I know it might sound dumb, but the writers here really do notice how many comments they get, as well as how fun and engaging those comments are. It’s a real driving force for their work.
Remember too that we have an active discord with plenty of discussion and image sharing. Discord is also a good way to directly message writers, including myself.
We have an opportunity here to not only pull the site from the financial ledge, but make it the best it’s been in years at the same time. I’m hopeful, and maybe even a little excited about it. I hope you guys are too.
