The Internet Escort’s Handbooks

The Internet Escort’s Handbook Book 2: Advertising and Marketing opens with a tour through some Web sites that are important for Internet escorts to be aware of and gives a basic understanding of the intersecting elements of advertising and reviews, including some of the unfortunate pitfalls.

The changing landscape of Internet escort advertising started with USC 2257, covered within. Ethical advertising is still the safest, most legal ideal and this book continues with that theme.

The tangle of creating a stage name and persona is discussed, step by step, all the way through professional and DIY photos, advertising and website writing, blogging, and website design. Though summarized in a sentence, these concerns and options take up a large portion of the book.

One of the most common concerns is how an escort knows what to charge for her time. The simple answer is: enough for her to accomplish her goals. Escorts shouldn’t allow the false economics of escort work to prevent them from earning what they should. Most Internet escorts undercharge for their time and energy. The easy math formula provided gives a proper starting point.

Eventually, escorts must interact with clients. The various ways of communicating with clients, and handling communications is the first step, followed by in-person meetings. An escort’s appearance, dress, behavior, and environment make a huge difference in whether or not clients return. Returning clients means success.

Finally, many of those little odd questions are answered, such as: what can one do if one isn’t a smashing success (there are more options than just lowering rates and hoping for the best). What about ad-scraper sites or copycat escorts? How does an escort giver herself a “raise?” Is creating separate identities ethical?

The Internet Escort’s Handbook Book 2: Advertising and Marketing is perfect for an in-depth view of how an escort can run an ethical business, advertise her personality, and successfully sell her time without resorting to deception or desperation. Retaining her happiness and personal sanity is the key to remaining successful through troubling legal changes in the industry, not to mention dealing with the predators that are often attracted to the business (and not of all of those predators are men).

The Escort’s Notebook: A Decade of Writing on Internet Sex Work spans from September 2006 to April 2015. Amanda includes unpublished pieces, as well as pieces from her side of private conversations.

The heart of the book are the blog entries from her blog, The Notebook — A Bu$ine$$ Blog For Escorts. It was a companion blog to The Internet Escort’s Handbook series. The entries are as written, with additional updates as needed.

As a companion blog to inform independent Internet escorts of news and bits of interest she didn’t include in her two books, above; the entries span from health, business, advertising, marketing, legal issues, issues with clients, personal life, and sex worker rights activism, to some of Amanda’s personal stories (and mistakes). Perhaps most compelling are the small bits of news she notes which were the forerunners of the laws known as SESTA/FOSTA today.

The book has value as information for working escorts, healthy perspectives for clients, and a historical angle for anyone interested in the mostly-undocumented history of sex workers in a criminalized country, working under oppressive, changing laws.

While Amanda’s books are an excellent foundation for safe, sane, and successful escort work, they’re not the only books to read. Many other authors, both sex workers and non, have contributed to the knowledge Amanda has accumulated over the years, and used in her own work. She has continually referred to a number of these books, and randomly created basic reading lists. Finally, she curated all these books into topical lists and put these lists into one place.

The Internet Escort’s Amazon Bookstore is one-stop shopping for rounding out your knowledge-base or building your own sex work library. If you’re in the mood to read, Amanda has a book for that!

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