This article originally appeared as the cover story of the July 2016 issue of AVN magazine. Click here to see a digital edition of the magazine.
LOS ANGELES—Jules Jordan admits he wasn’t looking too far ahead when he took what at the time was the biggest risk of his career.
Armed with the confidence that his product could stand alone, he began distributing his own movies in January 2006, leaving the pioneering company Evil Angel that had been selling his porn since 2001.
The former number one-selling director in John Stagliano’s Evil Empire stable did not have a long-range business plan, just belief in what he was doing.
“I take it day by day,” Jordan says. “There’s so many challenges. You don’t know what format there’s going to be in 10 years. You don’t know what the user experience is going to be.”
No matter the delivery system or how the complicated the industry climate, Jordan did what he’s always done—adapt and innovate. Employees and distribution partners came and went, but the heart of his operation—his singular vision—has always been in tact. Now a decade later on a balmy Monday evening in mid-June, he stands in an immaculate warehouse in the San Fernando Valley, buttoning up his black tuxedo for the photo that will become the July 2016 cover of AVN magazine.
And while two of porn’s most bankable stars, Jesse and Alexis Texas, receive the finishing touches on their makeup in the next room, the 44-year-old former adult store clerk from Hershey, Pennsylvania, is reflecting on success.
“Just being able to persevere with all the changes in the industry and still stay relevant, transitioning from format to format—VHS to DVD to all medias, all the way to digital and the web,” he says. “Just being able to keep my brand relevant through all those times. Being able to stay original and keep up with technology.”
Indeed the timely rebranding of Jules Jordan Video as not only a gonzo studio but also a distribution hub has turned into a multimillion-dollar enterprise that is synonymous with premium adult content. Jordan now sits atop an organization that releases up to 10 new titles a month that still include his own movies that he produces, directs and often performs in.
It’s not uncommon for Jordan to book the talent, shoot the “pretty girl” still photos, film the opening tease, hand off the camera, perform with an A-list girl, edit the scene, compile the movie and then weeks later oversee it being marketed, sold, shipped and then sent to various broadcast channels. Jordan’s unusual daily life not only is unique in adult entertainment, it has made him one of a kind.
“Some people think of me as just a director,” Jordan says. “They don’t realize I have an office with 20 employees and DVD racks up to the ceiling. And we’re shipping movies all over the world and supplying broadcasters with content that’s on DirectTV, Time Warner, et cetera, et cetera; or doing deals with hotel chains.”
Those deals now number in the dozens since Jordan left the security of the Evil Angel umbrella, where he not only proved he could compete with the industry’s heavyweights, he flourished.
“We went from the old school guys of Caballero and VCA, VCX, etc. in the 80's, owners who had the balls to get into a legally dangerous business, to company owners like me at Evil Angel, Jules, and Christopher Alexander of Anabolic, who knew and loved porn and made our names after most of the legal battles were won,” Evil Angel founder John Stagliano told AVN.
“The old guys made it possible for Jules and me to set out on our own… Jules became successful because he loves porn, knows porn and studies how to do it better. Today major competition comes from the tube site data geeks, who operate on just trying to produce stuff that produces the most clicks. That is a great way to gauge porn taste, but new ideas come from the intuitive guys like Jules who come up with things the data can't measure yet.
“I have to thank him for providing years of tough competition. He has made us all better.”
Jordan, who is drug free, never been married and has no kids, says he learns something new every day with the administrative side of his company. Whether it’s dealing with a warehouse issue, solving a human resources matter or approving someone’s vacation time, he remains hands-on.
“It’s easy booking scenes to shoot; it’s a challenge to run a company and a warehouse at the same time and have to worry about all that as well,” he confesses. “I have to worry about customers paying me. A lot of my customers they go out of business or they owe money. That’s a challenge too trying to collect money from people you’ve done business with for a long time that are having troubles. You have to be firm but you still have to approach it in a different way because you’re friendly with these people and you’re sympathetic to their issues because they helped you get to where you were.
“But some of the true art of doing sales is collecting the money. You can sell all day long, if you can’t collect it it’s worthless to you.”
When it comes to managing his days, Jordan tells AVN he tries to do the things that take the least amount of time to do first.
“But you have to really compartmentalize your day the best you can because I’m more of a creative person than a business-minded person,” he says. “So I’m more driven by creative things than numbers and all that. The real challenge is to remain creative while still dealing with administrative stuff.”
Jordan says thus far he’s sacrificed a “normal family life” to "stay focused and be where I am.”
“A lot of people come to L.A., get in the business and they’re sucked into a party atmosphere. It’s not a good situation to be in especially if you’re an 18-to-21-year-old girl. You have quick money and parties right next door and everybody wants to give you the world. That’s a challenge for a lot of these impressionable girls,” Jordan says. “And then unfortunately a lot of these girls blame porn for their issues when porn was never to blame.”
While the consistency of Jordan’s own line continues to provide the foundation for everything, he now also distributes several other blue-chip brands such as Greg Lansky’s Blacked and Tushy, the BDSM juggernaut Kink.com and the popular new-girl site Amateur Allure.
Recently, he signed veteran sharpshooter Jonni Darkko and new power couple Johnny and Kissa Sins for their Sins Life imprint, aligning them with long-standing distribution partners such as Mike John Productions, who was his first producer client in 2006; the Bang Bros.-owned The Dancing Bear and College Rules lines; and his own all-anal off-shoot studio, The Ass Factory.
That’s in addition to ongoing agreements with established directors such as Chris Streams, Manuel Ferrara and Prince Yahshua to helm various series for Jules Jordan Video.
“I turn down lines all the time just because it has to be something that I really feel is going to bring something to the DVD market,” Jordan says. “Because there’s companies that will just load up and take everything they can get their hands on. But I need distributors and stores to know that I’m putting my seal of approval on this product.
“So I was approached by Mike Moz and Greg Lansky about a new line that they were doing which turned out to be Blacked. Greg was always known for his girl/girl stuff. And he was never fortunate enough to be promoted as an individual for all these years that he’s been shooting for these websites.
“So they told me the concept—it was directed by him. It all sounded great; it sounded like a premium product. They trusted me to handle the distribution and everything. Now it’s the most popular thing that’s out there—Blacked and Tushy.
“I think it was a good time for something new to hit the market with a minimal look for packaging and shot real clean. And shot with more of a filmmaker’s perspective. And I think the timing was perfect and they’re truly doing numbers that were numbers that we could get eight years ago. Their product right now is pretty unaffected by the downturn in DVDs. That’s been a cool thing to be involved with someone’s product that’s really selling well at a respectable price in a time where the norm is for the retailers to go to the dollar to three-dollar product to stock their shelves.”
Jordan calls that brick-and-mortar retail trend “a truck-stop mentality.”
“Look, it’s tempting to buy all this stuff for a dollar. If you line your store with garbage, with all these one-dollar DVDs, it doesn’t matter. If it doesn’t sell, it doesn’t sell,” Jordan reasons. “But some retailers think that’s the only way they can compete. But they’re actually driving people to the Internet to get some of the more collector’s item-type shit, instead of training people to come into the shops. That’s one of the things that’s killing the DVD market, too.
“For some of these studios it’s just like an inventory blowout because once you sell off all your DVDs for a buck you can’t really replicate them again. What are you going to do, replicate them for a buck-fifty when you just sold out of them for a dollar? So it’s kind of a clearing house mentality.”
Jordan has never been a follower, taking pride in his ability to run an “unorthodox” business.
“We’re one of the few companies that can still charge 15 to 22 dollars for a new release when there’s people out there selling new releases for five dollars and a couple months later for three dollars,” he notes.
“So we have to be real protective of our brand. Certainly these days we can’t base what we shoot on DVD sales that much because at best the DVD sales alone will recoup your budget for the movie hopefully these days. Luckily, we’ve transitioned into one of the most popular pay sites on the Internet and it’s been a good transition.”
Jordan started distributing Blacked.com, the 2016 AVN Best Membership Website, in the summer of 2014; he picked up Greg Lansky’s sister site, Tushy, an all-anal venture, in August of 2015. Those two sites and Lansky combined for 16 AVN Awards in January.
“I mean you never know. It’s always a gamble,” Jordan says. “You never know how a product’s going to be received. But luckily the distribution chain trusts what we introduce into the market…In some cases it can affect my sales, too. So I’m kind of putting my neck on the line bringing the stuff into the market. So it’s an interesting perspective to see it all the way around.”
Blacked and Tushy aligning with Jordan is an example of a distribution success story on the highest level.
“That’s what we try to do. When it takes on a life of its own like they have, sometimes it can eclipse other things that we do,” Jordan adds. “But there’s a market for everything. There’s a reason why what he does penetrates deeper than what other people do. It’s just a perfect time for that product and that’s unique from what pretty much anybody else does.”
Jordan showed his willingness to diversify his suite of offerings in March 2013, when he announced he would be distributing DVDs for the San Francisco-based Kink.com, the world’s largest producer of BDSM and fetish entertainment, featuring content shot for some of the company’s most popular websites.
“Kink was a great pick-up,” Jordan says. “There hasn’t been anyone significant in the BDSM or bondage market since Bizarre, and Bizarre kind of stopped doing stuff for a few years and what-not. And the interesting thing about Kink was is they were using a lot of the mainstream adult stars for their BDSM titles. So there’s kind of a crossover of interest there where they can benefit off the star power of a certain star which may turn the mainstream porn fans into a fan of BDSM.
“A lot of their elements and their whole look just had a great look to it and the way they package their stuff with the girls’ compliance statements before and after the scenes. It shows that they really have fun. We had been back and forth for years about possibly doing something.”
Meanwhile, Jordan says he was aware of what Amateur Allure was doing since the early days of the Internet, securing a deal to bring their web content to the DVD market for the first time in July 2013.
“They always had great casting choices and unique girls that weren’t over-shot,” Jordan recalls. “Pretty much true amateur girls. I thought they had an interesting, clean look that would be good for the movie market, DVD broadcast, VOD, etc. And that’s been a great relationship. It’s something that diversifies our monthly releases.”
That Jordan has arrived at this point of his career is all the more impressive considering he’s self-made. Twenty years ago, the former high school wrestler was working at an adult video store in Philadelphia when International Video Distributors (IVD) founder Frank Kay hired him to do sales.
After two years of long drives to find girls willing to shoot amateur scenes, he directed the first full-length movie of his career in 1998 for Kay’s Pleasure Productions, releasing Live Bait. Eighteen years later, his personal catalog totals more than 220 titles, while he’s distributed hundreds of others during the past decade.
“I think I’m the same person I was 10 years ago,” Jordan says. “I think that contributes to my success to this day because I haven’t changed at all. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing sometimes. But I’m happy with where I’m at right now. I haven’t had to compromise anything.
“That’s what’s good about having your own company…you don’t have to compromise and you can do what you want when you want without compromise.”
With a team behind him that’s now 20-something deep hustling full time at his Chatsworth, Calif.-based headquarters, Jordan is able to pick and choose when to shoot the next fresh face, take a lap through the office or even get away to exotic destinations. While his work-life balance is healthy, he says business is always being done, even if he’s parked on a beach filming a big-wave surfing competition with a drone camera just for fun.
“It’s always on my mind, whether I’m in Hawaii or Tahiti, there’s always some work going on,” Jordan says. “There’s a never true vacation…I still have to stay on top of it. Fortunately, I’m not really driven by money, so it’s not like I’m salivating to get releases out all the time. I have good people working for me.”
People such as Elliot Clixx, his long-time right-hand man on the set that shoots stills and does video when Jordan performs whom he met in 1998 during a trip to Mexico for Pleasure Productions; Clixx now also does the videography for Prince Yahshua’s line in addition to office duties supporting Jordan’s websites; and his national sales manager Rob Serota, a fixture at the company since the late 2000s.
“My theory on sales people is so many people have been in this industry for 30 years,” Jordan says. “I always try to go outside the box to hire people that are unaffected by the previous trends of the industry or what’s happened in the past or how things were done in the past.
“I think it’s important that as a company I haven’t had five different sales people coming through my door. I think distributors and retailers respect being able to talk to the same person all the time and not having a new person in there every year. And that’s always a challenge in the industry to find really good people.”
His web presence—JulesJordanVideo.com and JulesJordan.com—has become an integral part of Jordan’s arsenal in recent years.
“We trade traffic with all the top sites out there. We convert well for them and our traffic converts well for everybody else, too. That’s kind of a good way to monetize our traffic that comes in,” Jordan says. “I think we have a lot of unique members to our site because it’s such a unique cross section of content and genres. The revenue that’s brought in every month has really helped us to have the budgets that we have these days.”
Jordan pointed to the importance of taking control of his online presence by hiring an in-house team, rather than commissioning an outside company.
“It’s important today to be able to hand-craft your website. I took the mentality of a mid-2000 website and I figured I’m just going to do it grassroots,” Jordan explains, noting his webmaster Ezra leads an efficient three-man team.
“We have a domain that generates organic traffic, meaning you don’t have to search a million places—people know to come to my site for content. People are typing my name into the URL which is an invaluable thing. It’s the only way you can have a great website these days to have that organic traffic. Otherwise you’re paying out 50 percent, 30 percent all day long for people sending you traffic. The revenue’s just not there.
“Since I did have such a strong brand we decided to bring it in-house, keep it small and tight and do everything premium.
“Of course that adds to my crazy life, too, because I want to put scenes up right away, take things down, change things. But I think all that’s important to have a site where it really looks like somebody’s emotionally behind it and not just a content machine.”
Jordan says his site was one of, if not the first to show 4K content.
“And that’s one thing that’s driving technology is adult sites are some of the forerunners for 4K,” he continues. “First of all you can’t really download Hollywood movies unless it’s ripped and they’re not available in 4K unless they’re up-res-ed or something.
“But our content is truly available in 4K downloaded to your computer. And a lot of our fans are putting them on their drives and plugging them right into their 4K TV. And you have the best porn you could ever imagine, better than any Hollywood resolution in some cases.”
Jordan continues, “It’s one of those things you always hear adult drives technology and we’re providing a pretty interesting experience for fans. And I’ve always been about new technology.”
The trick, however, has been driving traffic from the more information-based JulesJordanVideo.com, which contains free trailers, photo galleries and full-length movies, to JulesJordan.com.
“Because you have two different mindsets: you have the people that want to see a movie in a linear fashion that are fans that are used to seeing that and we provide all the information for that. And then you have fans that are used to seeing scene by scene, a la carte, subscription-based content, too,” Jordan says. “Usually, what we have to do is we have to treat JulesJordanVideo as an information site and still funnel the traffic to JulesJordan.com, but JulesJordanVideo is a great source for free content and previews of things to come. And with social media people pick that site apart all day and post stuff on Twitter.”
Jordan points to the delicate dance of prioritizing scenes for release on DVD or for his website. Often times, as with most of his business, it’s a gut decision and he tends to “go with the flow.”
That kind of fluency has helped him stay inspired as he makes his way through his 20th year behind the camera, leading to a remarkable collection of AVN Awards that place him among the winningest producer/directors of all time with more than two dozen trophies.
In January at the 33rd annual AVN Awards Show, his namesake studio received honors for Best Gonzo (Eye Contact), Best T/A Movie (Bra Busters 6) and Best Anthology Movie (Oil Overload 12), while Jordan claimed the Best Director-Non Feature award for Jesse: Alpha Female.
Alpha Female was the first gonzo showcase for his contract girl, Jesse, the AVN Hall of Famer formerly known as Jesse Jane that he signed to a two-year, exclusive deal in 2015.
“If I was ever going to have a true contact girl I wanted to have someone that’s worthy of having an exclusive arrangement with because it is a big responsibility,” Jordan says. “With Jesse we try to put her in all showcases because that’s kind of what fits the way we shoot.
“What I shoot is more like a sporting event like UFC as opposed to a film that some other people shoot. But I still think that we provide interesting perspectives. Sometimes there’s a tease with all sex; sometimes there’s a little scenario. But I think what we shoot has a more universal feel.
“Jesse’s been great; she’s got a great fanbase. It was a real statement to be able to get her at the time we got her. I think we gave her a whole new set of fans. …Of course we shot her first anal scene which was a big thing and people loved that.”
