It’s October!

So two years ago I would never have guessed that today I would be making a meaningful amount of money in the adult entertainment industry – but here I am. Thank you to all members, customers and supporters for making that happen. It’s not a full-time income yet by a very long stretch, but it’s the kind of money that justifies putting serious time into writing new stories.

WHAT DID MEMBERS GET THIS MONTH?

(Check out memberships in the shop.)

Early Access:

Twenty-one (21) stories were released to members through Early Access. You may have realised that this is more stories than just the ones requested by members! Yes – Early Access now includes ALL NEW STORIES ON BDSMLR.

The only story posts on BDSMLR that will not be copied to Early Access are:
(1) Re-blogs of things already published to BDSMLR; and
(2) Reposts of stories that were previously published back in the Tumblr days.

Story Collections:

Members got access to four new story collections in September:

If you’re a Stories Member, please remember to download these e-books for your personal collection ASAP, as after 14 October these collections will be archived into the Premium Member-only section of the drive!

Guide to Arth-Keros:

The member-exclusive Guide to Arth-Keros, which details a world of high-fantasy degradation, was updated with seven new entries detailing the status of women in the agrarian nation of Cadeland.

Premium Benefits:

In addition to all of the above, Premium Members had access to the following additional benefits:

  • The ability to request a story;
  • Access to all past story collections sold on this site;
  • Access to my two long-form stories.

Membership benefits are made available through an invitation to Google Drive. If you’re a member and you have ANY questions about your benefits or membership, please don’t hesitate to email me at all.these.roadworks@gmail.com, as I really want you to feel like you’re getting value for your money.

REQUEST YOUR STORIES!

If you’re a Premium Member, please check out the Requesting Stories FAQ and then send me your story request for October at all.these.roadworks@gmail.com. Also, if you were a Premium Member on 1 September and haven’t redeemed that request, it’s not too late – let me know!

Story requests are an exclusive perk of Premium Membership.

HOW DOES MEMBERSHIP EXPIRATION WORK?

Okay, my subscription handling is done through a WooCommerce extension. Here’s what the system does automatically.

  • Subscriptions expire a calendar month after you first buy them.
  • They need to be manually renewed through the site, sorry.
  • If you have any trouble logging in or handling the renewal process, or problems generally with your account, PLEASE email me at all.these.roadworks@gmail.com and I can help.
  • Once your payment date comes due, you enter a two-week “overdue period”. You will receive a couple of notifications during this period that you are overdue.
  • Two weeks after your payment is due, your subscription will be automatically “cancelled”. Once it’s cancelled, I believe you need to purchase a new subscription to become a member again.

Here’s what I do in relation to that manually:

  • If your subscription is cancelled, you are liable to having your Google Drive access revoked without further warning. I may do this at any time after you’re cancelled, but I will definitely do a purge shortly after the 1st of each month. (I’ll be doing one within 24 hours of this post, for example.)
  • I won’t cut off anyone who’s still in the “overdue” window.
  • I won’t cut off any Premium Member who’s submitted a story request and not had it published yet.
  • For Premium Members, story requests accrue on the 1st of each month. If you’re a member on the 1st, you get a story request for that month.
  • If you’re in the “overdue” window on the 1st, and you renew before the 3rd AND before your overdue window expires, I’ll treat you as if you were a member on the 1st. That may end up with you getting two story requests for the same calendar month. I’m okay with that for now – I’m going to have happier customers out of just paying out an extra story than I will from shaking you down ruthlessly. If everyone starts gaming the system to exploit this, I’ll reassess in future months.

HOW IS THE SITE DOING?

Okay, I’m not sure it’s in my best interests to publish detailed financials every month, so I don’t promise to do it in future – but I’ll give you a little window into what you’ve all helped built.

The site made about $500 USD in profits in the month of September, after deducting the (not super-large) overheads for site and software.

That amount is made up almost exactly 50/50 of memberships and individual e-book sales.

The most popular e-book was “A Woman’s Work – Stories of Workplace Degradation”.
The second most popular e-book was “The Downward Spiral – Stories of Hypnotic Ruination.”

Purchasers of individual e-books initiated a total of 113 downloads of the products they purchased. (Many of these are re-downloads, as I definitely didn’t sell 113 e-books.)
I don’t have easy stats on downloads from Google Drive by members.

The biggest two direct referrers of traffic were BDSMLR (obviously) and MCStories, although neither site produced more than about a dozen click-throughs. Almost all traffic to the site came from IP addresses originating in Canada or the United States.

DONATION

When I started the new site, I pledged that in any month that the site made a profit of more than $300, I would donate 5% of profits to a women’s charity, as part of a responsible approach to the complex niche of porn I write in. (If you don’t understand this reference, please check out this page of my site.)

We reached that goal in September, so accordingly I have made a donation of $25 to an accredited women’s charity that provides crisis shelter for women leaving domestic violence.

Thank you all for making this possible.

YOU ALSO SUPPORTED…

Your support isn’t just about rewards – it also lets me keep delivering the free content that got your attention in the first place. So thanks to you, I’ve continued to post new stories daily throughout September at alltheseroadworks.bdsmlr.com.

Here’s some of the additional work that you supported in September:

  • Setting up a more professional way to track the site financial performance.
  • Doing some research on my future obligations around taxation and reporting.
  • Doing some research into alternate ways for supporters to pay. (No results on that front yet – it’s a problem for the future.)
  • Putting up more free content on other story sites to attract more readers, including MCStories, Literotica and XNXX. Don’t worry – all new stories will still publish on BDSMLR, and publish there first.

FEEDBACK

I am always looking for feedback as to whether you’re satisfied with my product and my site. Please don’t hesitate to send me your thoughts at all.these.roadworks@gmail.com on any topic.

Thank you all again – you’re excellent!

– All These Roadworks
1 October 2019

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