Server Frustrations

You may have noticed my frustrated tweets over the last few days, so I thought it might be a good idea to explain what's been driving me batty without the 140 character restriction.

My websites (KrisMadison.com and BarefootKristy.com) are a one woman show. There's just me here. No webmaster, no server admin, nobody to help me keep my sites up and running, save from the occasional shoot where I'm able to convince someone else to get behind the camera for me. This fact used to be something of which I was quite proud. Now? I'm ready to admit I need help. My time would be better spent doing things like shooting new movies, not going through log files trying to figure out what's wrong with my server. I should be writing blog posts and responding to emails from fans, not writing up support tickets at my hosting company.

I apologize in advance for writing this whining rant of a blog post; I'm sure I'll read it with regret later. There are plenty of jobs that are a lot tougher than mine and I know that for the most part I have things pretty good. And if my sites made more money, this would be a non issue. I'd have a fully managed server and a tech guy because I could afford to pay them. But for right now, I'm stuck in the land of doing a job basically on spec. The money I've spent (OK, charged) on buying a dedicated server, scripts to run the members area, scripts to manage traffic, tech support by the hour when I need it - that's the stuff that eats up any profit my little sites generate. It starts getting really frustrating when I look at how much I'm spending versus how much is coming in. The fact of the matter is, I don't *need* a dedicated server to handle the small trickle of visitors my sites get. Especially when it means that I'm the one in charge when the whole thing goes down because apparently it's being brute force attacked so some password trading assholes can figure out how to download all of my content for free. I burned through more than 100 times the bandwidth that I usually do in 1 month this week before I figured out what was going on. Oh yeah, that's because I canceled the password trading service I used to use because I couldn't afford it. And that's what happens when the person responsible for securing the integrity of a server is *me*.

The benefit of running my own server is that I can run all the scripts I want and, back to that spec thing, when I finally hit the BIG TIME, when my sites get out there and become well known, then I'll be happy that I planned ahead. I can handle spikes of traffic (in theory). I just don't get any!

Meanwhile, as our hero waits for the elusive Traffic to appear, her credit cards are maxed out, her rent is due and she's starting to wonder if that BIG TIME is ever really coming.

I'm starting to wonder if all of this is ever going to pay off. And let me state for the record that by "pay off" I mean be able to live from month to month comfortably, without having to worry that if I buy myself a new pair of shoes I won't be able to pay the phone bill. I'm not talking lap of luxury here, just a bit of breathing room.

I love so many things about being self-employed, especially about running a business on the internet. But on days like today when I would really rather make art, take photos, even go to the gym instead of researching hosting options, it makes me long for the days when I got paid by the hour. Even at minimum wage I'd probably be taking home more money than I do now based on the number of hours I work! Of course working from home and getting naked in front of a camera doesn't usually feel like work, but that doesn't negate the fact that I never take a day off. Ever. At the very least, even if I'm out of town, I'm logging in to check my email, check my stats, maybe blog or post on Twitter, and always thinking, planning, composing future blog posts in my head, snapping pics so I can document what I did when I had a day off.

OK. Enough whining for one day! I need to get back to work. And by work, I mean masturbate.