One of the hardest parts of camming, at least that I've experienced so far as a rookie, is the terrible inconsistency of traffic from night to night. Granted, I can only speak for Stripchat.com; I haven't consistently streamed on any other platform to make any sort of umbrella statement. As I mentioned in my first post, my first weekend streaming was a nightmare. I only ever had half a handful of people in my room at one time, and I was terrified that my amateur charm had already worn off. Luckily (and in some ways, unluckily), my suspicion of weekends just being alarmingly slow was confirmed this Thursday. Granted, I doubt there are many of us that count Thursday as part of the weekend, but that just adds to the inconsistency, I suppose.
On a good night, I typically make just a bit over $30 in four hours. Wednesday, I made $32 in just a little over three hours; one of the best nights I'd ever had. The next night, I gave up after three hours because I hadn't even made $7 (half of that was a pity tip from a regular after I had ended the stream). It's already difficult for me to be comfortable and sexy, but even harder when I had put on a show for two people who literally couldn't even tip me. Even a couple shots of cheap bulk Bacardi couldn't keep me loose enough to be fun for the whole stream. So I said bye to everyone and logged off an hour early, the same as the previous night but for the exact opposite reason.
Friday morning, Shadow and I talked about it in some depth. Specifically, we acknowledged that I had to stay on for the entire stream, just in case traffic picked up in the last hour. Another thing that came up for both of us was our alcohol intake. It was in no way excessive; I would take 2 shots max during a stream or drink a wine cooler or two, and Shadow only ever drank half that much in a night. But we both quickly saw the impact it was having on us the next day. Shadow hadn't had anything to drink for a day before I stopped, and by Friday we were both able to see an improvement in ourselves and each other. I relied on alcohol to get started camming just because I knew it made me really horny and a lot less anxious in social situations. It definitely helped me get started, but even after just one cam I'm able to see that I do fine without it. After Thursday's crash and burn of a show, I was determined to have a good Friday cam.
That day, leading up to the show, I got some small stuff ready. I had a list of songs that I found somewhat sexy and fun to dance and sing along to that needed to be condensed into a playlist, and I installed a wheel spinner app (at the recommendation of a gray regular) and filled the options with sexy things like "put on collar/handcuffs,nipple clamps" or "take off one article of clothing: your choice/my choice". Shadow also cut and dyed my hair, which was absolutely terrifying but ended up looking pretty good for a first try. By 6pm, I was ready to face possible death by boredom in exchange for the chance at mad cash.
I had my Cam Jams playlist going, my sexy fun time spinning wheel loaded up, and determination to stick it out for the whole four hours I had scheduled. Again, it started slow. Some of my regulars didn't even show up, and the first hour was nearly unbearable. It was so absolutely unremarkable that I don't even remember what I did to pass the time. Did I dance and sing along to my music? I think maybe I doodled some spooky stuff in honor of Halloween almost being close. After an hour on the dot of me streaming, my all-time best regular tipped me 35 tokens, which buys a short pussy flash. There were some half-hour and hour blocks of nothing at all, but a couple regulars kept the show going, dropping 10 tokens at a time for a tit flash or 45 for a wheel spin. I ended up doing some dancing and putting on handcuffs and a collar.
Ten minutes before I was scheduled to end the show, I had nothing but my panties and a collar on. I let everyone know that I wasn't going to stay past the end of the hour unless we hit our goal, which was still 117 tokens away ($11.70 to the viewers). "Since we're still so far," I said, " I probably won't stay longer than nor-" Before I even finished the sentence, someone (who I'll refer to as DJ) tipped the entire amount in one transaction. I undressed fully and got myself and my vibrator in a comfortable position that was clearly visible to the camera. As I typically do, I typed in chat that my vibe had three settings and it was 10 tokens to turn it on or up a level. Within a couple minutes, I was at the highest intensity and feeling great. Usually, I try to say something along the lines of, the show will keep going as long as tips keep coming in every few minutes. But there were really only two viewers that could tip in the room, and they had tipped the majority of what I made that night. So I wasn't obnoxious about asking for tips.
Sidenote: One thing I'm still very much learning is how to sell myself. Underselling can show "freeloaders" (grays that don't have tokens to tip, or people who don't even have accounts and don't interact with me at all) that if they just wait long enough, I'll get bored and take my clothes off anyway. Overselling myself as a rookie who isn't even exceptionally good at camming yet can turn off potential viewers. I usually opt to undersell, simply because I'll have better luck making money that way, and I can't quite afford to be picky yet.
Ten minutes into me masturbating on camera, DJ tipped another 65 tokens ($6.50 to him, $3.25 to me) and in a private comment told me to choke myself a little. I did, and it felt amazing. I thought I saw my face turn red on camera, so I loosened up a little bit after a couple minutes. But just those couple minutes were enough for DJ to tip me another 50 tokens with the private comment: "hot." I was having fun, making money, and close to climax. Unfortunately, my vibrator just couldn't take it and gave out. Ironically, I had just given it a 5-star review that morning on Amazon, which I lowered to three after the stream since it only lasted me a month. So although I was close and somewhat disappointed that I couldn't finish, the humor of the situation wasn't lost on my audience. They were all very understanding, and DJ tipped me another 100 tokens just as a thank you for the show. I logged off twenty minutes later than I had anticipated, but made $35.50 (which is even a remarkable jump from $32 because each token is only worth $.05)!
Like Shadow had anticipated, the traffic picked up in my last hour of streaming. I also had an amazingly fun time sober, and even felt more comfortable stripping, flashing, and dancing than I did after a drink or a shot. Last night's show was honestly one of my most successful -- even if it wasn't my most lucrative night, I felt so accomplished! The ridiculousness that I broke my vibrator on a live sex cam also put me in a good mood just because of how funny it was. I bought a new one today (which is like, way WAY bigger than twice as big as my old one) that I'm going to talk up on cam and reveal when we reach the room goal.
I hope everyone is enjoying this "series." I really think that topics like this should be treated like any other topic. I'm trying my best to keep this down-to-earth by focusing more on everything that goes on day-to-day and all the work behind the show as opposed to the show itself. I'm a real person just like every other camgirl, and I hope these posts are a somewhat-relatable and entertaining recount of my experience in digital sex work. I also really enjoy reflecting on my days like this! It's nice to reflect and be able to put into words exactly what reaction each of my actions causes and how it all is helping me reach my goal.