By Peter Berton
MIAMI – Popular MILF performer Vicky Vette is on a roll. She continues to build her stable of Vette Nation Army girls and add more performers to her VNALive.com cam girl platform. Hardly a week goes by without someone new signing a contract to broadcast on the network. At last check, the Vette Nation Army includes 16 official websites; VNA Live encompasses nearly 60 performers on more than 50 independent sites.
How does Vette manage an enterprise that large while keeping an eye on her own performing career? YNOT asked, and she answered.
YNOT: How and why have you managed to grow your network?
Vicky Vette: To compete with the big players, you have to offer something they don’t. Brazzers and Naughty America, for example, are household names, but I think it’s safe to say no one offers as much live entertainment on a daily basis as part of their membership offerings as [the VNA]. I am very proud of that.
You won the 2014 AVN Award for Best Solo Girl Website. Did that surprise you?
It did. I haven’t won an AVN Award since 2005, when I won for Best Tease. I honestly didn’t think I would ever win another, because I don’t play the political game very well. I’m not really in that [Los Angeles] world. I’m kind of on an island by myself, because we are such a self-contained, self-sufficient unit. So much less drama!
I actually thought there was no way I would win this year. For the past three years, I went to the AVN convention and awards show and spent a bit of time promoting the yearly fan awards on Twitter. I did not win anything.
This year, I had family commitments and there was simply no way at all to get to Las Vegas [where the convention and awards show take place]. I was swamped setting up a website for Trisha Uptown over the holidays and barely mentioned any fan voting on Twitter. I honestly thought, “Nope. Not this year. No one will select me.”
Much to my surprise, I won. I guess the moral of the story is “Don’t tweet, don’t appear and stay home. [She laughs.]
I was actually very happy to win. Running my site requires an immense amount of work, and I was told years ago that I should never do it myself. To pick up recognition is actually flattering and on some level validation for the hard work.
Solo-girl websites typically operate on a different philosophy than mega-sites and studio sites. What’s the biggest draw for a solo-girl site?
Exclusivity! The content is not generic. It’s shot exclusively for the star’s website. It’s personal to her. She chose what to do and how to do it. A lot of it is also based on member requests.
What do you expect to be the hot trends in adult this year?
It’s a tough market, as anyone in adult will tell you. I am sticking to my guns, though: The more live entertainment the better. There is no doubt that surfers want live entertainment as part of their monthly subscription. We see mega sales every time special shows take place.
If I were an affiliate, I would look for programs and sites that have live content for subscribers. Plus, live is the only thing the tube sites can’t steal from you.
As for other trends, people are watching porn on their phones and tablets more than ever, so we hope to see more one-click billing options. Surfers want everything at their fingertips.
Everyone is now downloading movies straight to their TVs and tablets, rather than to their laptops. Eventually even Redboxes will disappear as people stop using DVDs altogether.
Hopefully, adult will keep up and make it easier for surfers to get content. One-click downloads and joins and instant billing to the cell phone with no need to pull out a credit card are on the horizon, I hope.
You mentioned affiliates. As an affiliate program owner, what do you advise affiliates to look for when they’re considering programs?
Retention. Affiliates need to know that when they send traffic, there is a very good chance the customer will stick and rebill. Our rebills to this day have never been higher, and we’re very proud of that. I ascribe the success of Sticky Dollars to giving surfers what they want: a daily dose of live entertainment they can’t get anywhere else.
How difficult is it to stay fresh and popular in today’s web environment?
Very, but we listen to our members when they tell us what they want. We brainstorm ideas every day.
Will you be moving into 4K video?
Nope. We have no plans to go that route until it’s been tested and tried. We didn’t jump on the 3D bandwagon and have not had a single member even mention it.
What’s your end game? When will you know you have reached your goals?
End game? On a beach with 100 people in a Thai sweat shop doing all of my uploading, editing, promoting and webmastering. [She laughs.]
Okay, funny lady — reality-check time: What is life really like for you behind the scenes at your company?
I honestly joke that I have no life. I get up, walk or rollerblade with the dogs and feed them, and then hit the computer. I’m on it until 10 or 11 o’clock every night. If I’m lucky, I get to squeeze in a few episodes of a show on Netflix at the end of the night, or a 20-minute soak in the hot tub.
Three days a week, I hit the gym to stay in shape for shooting. I still do a weekly live show for members and shoot content usually once a week.
Other than that, there literally is more work than I can handle. I am now up to 16 sites with another on the way very, very soon. We also now have almost 60 girls as part of our live cam platform at VNALive.com.
Every day there are schedule changes from the girls, content to upload, pics to Photoshop, video to edit, blogs to update, tweets to make, press to do, board posts to make, code and programming changes, designs to approve…. And we have four people who do marketing galleries for us.
I actually would not have it any other way. I do work from home, which makes things easier.
As I come up on my 49th birthday — Yikes! Did I just say that? — I am trying to make sure the VNA network is as strong as possible for the day I eventually stop shooting and stay behind the scenes.
