Where to start: the self-producer's reading order

The single most common message in my inbox is some version of "where do I start." Sometimes it's "how do I get into the industry," sometimes it's "I just signed up for OnlyFans, now what," sometimes it's a list of five panicked questions about taxes and lighting and whether to use my real name. Same question, different costumes.

I've written something on most of it already. The problem is that a blog index sorts by date and a tag page sorts by topic, and neither of those is how a beginner actually wants to read. A beginner wants a path. So this post is the path. It's the order I'd hand to myself on day one if I could go back — roughly a quarter's worth of reading, grouped into the weeks the work actually shows up in.

I'm only about a year into self-producing. I'm not handing you a decade of industry wisdom; I'm handing you the map I wish someone had handed me when the map would have been useful. Skim what doesn't apply to you. Read the ones that do, in order.

Week 0: read this before you sign up for anything

The mistake almost every new creator makes is starting with the platform. The platform is the easiest part. The two pieces below are the framing I'd want sitting in my head before I picked a username.

• The first 90 days in the adult industry, starting from zero is the post this whole guide is an expansion of. If you only read one thing on this site, read that one — it's the decision list, in the order the decisions actually hit you.
• How to become a male performer in the adult industry is the one to read next if you're a guy specifically. Most of the job is business, paperwork, and professional conduct; the on-camera part is the smallest piece of the week.

Week 1: get the back office set up before the content

Nothing in this section is glamorous and all of it pays for itself the first time something goes wrong. The creators I know who lost accounts or money in their first year all skipped at least one of these.

• Free model paperwork tools — §2257, model release, model agreement, BDSM consent walks through the four forms you will need on your first shoot. I built browser-based generators for all of them because I got tired of needing a paid tool or a download every time a new co-star showed up. Run through them once before you need them.
• The AI clause in your next contract is the one to read first is the one to read before you sign anything a studio, agency, or platform puts in front of you. AI-likeness clauses are showing up in routine paperwork right now, and the cost of missing one is large and permanent.

Week 2: pick your platforms (one paid, one free)

The instinct is to sign up for everything. Don't. Pick one subscription platform and one social platform, do them properly for a month, and add others later.

• How to start an OnlyFans in 2026: the setup checklist is the checklist version: account hardening, payout setup, pricing, the early mistakes that end accounts before they earn anything.
• OnlyFans vs Fansly vs LoyalFans 2026: which actually pays is the comparison post once you start asking whether OnlyFans is actually the right home for your specific niche. Read it before you pick — not after, when you've already built an audience on the wrong one.

Month 1: gear and the first real shoots

Once the boring infrastructure is in place, the question becomes how to actually make the thing. The trap here is overspending on gear and underspending on the parts of a shoot that nobody talks about.

• What equipment adult content creators actually need is the gear post. Short version: lighting beats cameras, audio beats both, and a phone is fine for six months. Read this before you spend a thousand dollars on the wrong camera body.
• What actually goes into a scene (the SFW version) is the one I send to anyone who thinks shooting a scene is mostly the scene. Most of the work is before and after the cameras are on.

Month 2: build the thing they can't take away

If you only build on rented platforms, you don't have a business — you have a tenancy. The posts below are the ones about owning the audience instead of borrowing it. I'd start this work in your second month, not your sixth, because compounding cares about when you started, not how much you started with.

• Why I run my own site (and not just a Linktree) is the personal version of the argument. Why this site exists, what it does for me, why a Linktree didn't.
• Why every adult creator needs their own website is the longer general version — what a creator site actually needs to do, and the cheap ways to build one without getting sold a $5,000 package by someone's cousin.
• My content funnel: how I turn views into paying fans ties the whole thing together. Social brings people in, the site catches them, the paid platforms convert the small fraction who want more. The funnel only works if you've built all three.

Month 3: working with other people

Most creators stay solo for the first couple of months and that's the right call. Once you start collaborating, the way you pick co-stars matters more than almost any other production decision.

• How I pick collaborators (and what I look for in a co-star) is the checklist I actually use, including the red flags I've learned to spot in the first message instead of the third shoot.

The long game: your body is the equipment

This is the section nobody wants to put first and everybody wishes they'd taken seriously sooner. You can replace a camera. You cannot replace a back.

• How I train: a male performer's gym routine, in plain English is the actual structure I run — no bro-science, no supplement pyramid scheme, just a week that holds up across long shoots and travel.
• Staying healthy as an adult creator: fitness and the long game is the broader version — sleep, the mental side, the stuff that decides whether you make it five years instead of one.

After the starter sequence

If you've read everything above, you've covered the foundation. What comes next depends on which direction you grow: paperwork and legal work get deeper, the gear conversation eventually becomes a studio build, the platform conversation becomes a traffic conversation, and the body conversation becomes a recovery conversation. The blog grows in those directions over time, and the tag pages — new-creators, creator-business, independent-creators — are the right way to follow any of those threads once you know which thread you want.

The one piece of advice that doesn't fit in any of the posts above: the creators who make it past year one are the ones who treat day one like a business and let the slow compounding do its work. Don't try to do all of this in a weekend. Do one section a week. By the time you've finished month three of the sequence, you'll be ahead of where I was at month nine.

— Sly