So what exactly is alt-porn? The most important thing to keep in mind is that alt-porn is a niche, such as blondes or BBW, and not like spanking or bondage. Basically, the niche tends to focus more on the appearance of the talent and not so much on what the talent is doing.
Although people involved on the content-production end, myself included, can get quite heated while debating this topic, for the purposes of this article, I'm going to approach it solely from a marketing perspective. Adult Internet professionals tend to refer to the niche as Goth, whereas adult video professionals tend to refer to the niche as alt-porn. The fundamental fantasy consists of fabulous misfit girls with unusual styles—appropriate for rock concerts, art schools, and coffeehouses—who may be more poetic and wilder than the norm. If you use talent with bright green hair, painted leather jackets, a lot of torn fishnets, extreme makeup, or extensive tattoos, you probably can sell the site to an alt-porn audience.
Because a photo of a hottie with a pink Mohawk tends to stand out on the page, alt-porn can be marketed very successfully using traditional means, such as TGP traffic. If you are experienced with TGP traffic, you will do well either by adding an alt-porn/Goth TGP to your portfolio, or by adding an alt-porn/Goth section to an existing TGP. The most important thing to remember is that just about all alt-porn content will fit into at least two niches: the alt-porn/Goth niche based on the model's look and style, and the activity niche based on what the model is doing or wearing.
For example, SpookyCash has a site called RubberDollies.com, which contains high-quality fetish photos of alt girls in rubber clothing. This means that galleries promoting the site can be listed successfully on either alt-porn TGPs or on latex-niche ones. In the case of RubberDollies.com, all of the content falls into two specific niches, but often you can break it out by gallery, as well. If the free-hosted gallery contains a heavily tattooed redhead tied to a chair, you can promote that gallery on a TGP or TGP section categorized as alt-porn, Goth, tattoo, redhead, bondage, or fetish. KinkyDollars.com uses some alt-models, so some of their BDSM galleries can be used on alt-porn or Goth TGPs. In general, alt-porn and fetish frequently tend to cross over and sell well next to one another. SpookyCash offers a full-hosted TGP, which you can link to with affiliate codes from your existing TGP traffic trade lists and such if you want to test the alt-porn market but are not ready to commit the time to editing an entire alt-porn TGP yourself.
Because blogs thrive on having interesting little tidbits to share with readers, the uniqueness of alt-porn content makes it particularly suited to blog promotion. A few words of caution about terminology are in order here, and I can't stress this enough: Don't write rude things about alt-porn talent. I think most webmasters have the hang of this when promoting BBW or gay sites, and it is important to keep good manners in mind for most niche sales. If you are trying out a site like LizVicious.com or BarelyEvil.com on a teen blog, it is fine to acknowledge that a model is a bit unusual or "out there," but you will not make sales if you are rude about it. If your audience is not deeply steeped in the finer points of Gothic versus emo versus punk versus rave, then you probably don't have to worry about it, but you don't want to tell your readers there is something wrong with them if they find what you are promoting hot. If the readers of your blog have an opinion on whether Sid Vicious or Jello Biafra is more punk rock, then, of course, you also must have something to say on the topic. I recommend learning about RSS-embedding technology, because it really can cut down on how many updates you have to write yourself for your blog.
SpookyCash, jaYManCash, and KinkyDollars all offer RSS feeds for affiliates, and although each program offers somewhat different feed options, if you learn how to embed a feed in your blog, you can get automatic updates to mix in with what you write. To keep things interesting for your surfers, appropriate single-girl sites, such as NaughtyNati.com from SilverCash, often can be nice to put in the mix. Altporn.net is the nexus of the alt-porn world, so you may get good promotional ideas surfing there and on other niche blogs and TGPs. The more sales tools you have, the more you can keep things profitable for you and fresh for the tech-savvy, alt-porn audience.
Amelia G has written for all the major adult publishing houses, from Playboy to Hustler. She runs alt-porn affiliate program SpookyCash.
