How much?

Here are my thoughts on "How much does an escort earn?" and related posts. Yes, I know, I'm way behind. It seems like I just finished "The Courtesan and the wive part 7" yesterday.

First of all I don't think any statistical survey will be reliable, unless some methodology can be shown to be convincing. For a stripper analogy, her tips depend on her looks, how many patrons visit the club, how many clients she has, how hard she works and how far she would go. It doesn't make a lot of sense if you average the earnings of strippers even in just one club.

There's a website of a city that has been consistently on the world top 100. There is a 10 fold variation on the fees. And since the number of transactions per month of each girl doesn't have any relation to the price, getting a meaningful representative number is difficult. So, a United Nations' survey or an adult webmaster's survey are just as not useful.

Belle de Jour's first commandments is never let no one know / How much dough you hold. The only hope to get some statistical sense is the tax collectors, when escort income are taxed. But even so, huge amount of cash transactions are the heaven for under reporting.

Comparing individuals' earnings are not easier. It's a common practice to have a rack rate on one's personal website, or some escort mall, and permanent specials on some discussion boards. Whoever ask them, they will always give you the most respected answer, the highest rate.

My observation is that, "It's not about how much you earn, but how much you want to earn." So Belle is right not to be honest about your dough, or you will be setting targets for your competitors close and far. Even with the Internet, escorts are constantly discovering new areas to them with a lot of money but little competition. They either relocate or change their travel plans.

I met a Eastern European girl that I mentioned. She came over twice per year via a boy friend visa of sort. She hit on the Internet agencies to get jobs. She told me she was very happy to be on the portfolio of an LA agency, when the other girls look so gorgeous. For the rest of her time she did a lot of agency work all over Europe. It was me who got the last laugh. Even though she is a lot humbler without the makeover in her pictures, she is still way better qualified than the other girls with stock pictures. The lesson - you can only compare if you met them in person and experience them too.

I'm very much against the concept of "escorting as the new temp job". Being asked a long time ago on this blog, my advice was not to do it unless you have to. Simply put, the odds are very much against you. The phrase sounds too easy, causal, leisurely.

Before the age of the Internet and the age of indies, you find an agency to take on you. Agencies have an equalizing effect. They try to spread the work equally without putting all their eggs on one basket. They don't like super stars because once you have seen the best, you don't want the rest. If you can't give the less popular girls enough work, you don't have an agency. I have seen pretty nice girls not running away to London in search of fame and fortune. After their day job, they may get an assignment or two at busy times, which is a pretty nice supplement to their nurses', teachers', secretaries' salary, or students' grants. Burning out isn't on the table and they take every call seriously. For that matter, putting an ad on the classified, or setting up yourself at the telephone booth are pretty much the same, in that no individual standout very much from the others.

With the Internet, escorts show of their cooking skills, sophisticated taste in the arts and literatures, body parts and even skin cells. The difference is that the traffic is terribly high and can be very focused on individuals.

A good way to do it seems to be setting how much you want to earn, setting your exit strategy, going in with a bang and fading out quietly, in case you want to get back in again. If you don't think big, you are squeezed on all fronts.

There are the true jet setters, (or 1st class train setters?), whose clients would fly them around from coast to coast, or castle to castle. Some have permanent tour schedules. For the smaller flies they drive around from city to city, advertising on Craig's List or the like. They are famous, they are high profile, or they come in packages that you can't refuse.

Even in areas with seemingly unlimited choice of girls, these pro's manage to have clients waiting for them before they arrive. Those who offer half hours, and offer extremely safe sex, are talking about $1,000 a day, $10,000 a week, that sort of thing. Some are so bold as to brag that, for the "going rate", which is $300, they have a 9 am or 9 pm cancellation for anybody interested to fill in at the last minute.

On the other hand, many girls don't think too much about it. They just need the money fast when they need it, as experienced girlfriend explained it nicely. They can earn a lot more money but their mind is not in it. So you can't out sell them.

So what are your chances of putting up an ad in one of the major escort malls and wait to be discovered?