We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Elaina St James. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Elaina below.

Elaina, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to hear the backstory behind a risk you’ve taken – whether big or small, walk us through what it was like and how it ultimately turned out.

I have taken many risks in my life, but always well thought out. Having weighed the pros and cons, I consider it “Calculated Risk Taking.” I have started businesses on my own since I was in my 20’s. None were what one would consider successful, but I learned from each one. Some were gratifying creatively, some were challenging from a design standpoint, and one made me “heart rich” but lost a lot of money. At 54 my life changed forever when I took the calculated risk to become an OnlyFans creator. An unlikely time in my life, and quite risky as I was working in an office in a small conservative Midwest town. Key to this decision was that the job was dead-end, boring, and I felt un-appreciated by my boss. After having a career in National Consumer Sales with a great salary and benefits that dead-end job with zero benefits was not going to fund my retirement. I was just getting by. I felt that, unless I could have that Big Idea, this would be my life forever. I feared it was realistic I would never have a comfortable retirement, but would be working until I couldn’t anymore. Then I saw an article online about women that were making 6 figures a month on a platform called OnlyFans. It sounded too good to be true, but I researched and discovered it was a legit business. I worked hard at putting a plan together and dreamed of making $10,000 a month, thinking that would change my life. My driving force was always giving my son a better life. I had taken the calculated risk on becoming a single mother, completely on my own via a fertility procedure after the painful end to an engagement at age 40. Thru the years I was always looking for the idea or the invention that could offer me financial stability. Something told me this might be the way. I made my first posts on Instagram and OnlyFans on April 1, 2021 and by April 4th had my first two subscribers. I wasn’t showing my face at the time, because I was afraid of being found out by my boss. By month two I was making twice my monthly salary that I did at my full time office job. I knew if I could devote myself to being a full time Content Creator I could make more. I put in my two weeks notice, and in my first month working for my self I made $11,000. In other words at the end of the third month, I had made over my monthly goal and it has only increased since then. My life has changed forever, and in some ways not in a good way. But it was the right risk for me.

Elaina, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

When I created Elaina St James, I thought the brand would be more sophisticated, sultry, and a bit like a Boss Lady. As I actually created content, on Instagram and OnlyFans, then later on Twitter and TikTok, I had to pivot as I realized the best responses I received on content were when I was smiling and having fun. I realized rather quickly that the brand I created, would need to change because what was working was a big smile, cheeky, flirty, and fun. The natural friendly Midwest Mom next door was what my brand evolved into. As a creative choice, the name I chose would certainly have been different, but I have learned to work with it. I watched and learned from watching others, using data but also my gut for the nuances, the “it” factor of what made social media posts work. I quickly learned that for Instagram the new “Reels” feature was helping me gain followers quickly, so I leaned into that. I tried new things but would build on things that worked. When I veered “off-brand” it rarely worked and I learned the branding term “brand dissonance.” I had zero social media experience before becoming Elaina so it was all a learning experience. Every successful business has a niche and I knew mine was MomBod and Older Woman. What makes you different is what makes you special and in this arena, there are many more young women and many more men looking for young women. I knew I couldn’t compete with youth, so I leaned into what I had and that was the Older Woman niche. The Elaina St James brand is very positive and my goal whenever I created content was to make the person seeing it feel happier, even if it was just a little, after they viewed it. I started looking at ways to maximize exposure and contacted a UK tabloid that featured OnlyFans creators and pitched a story. I started looking for a publicist in the Adult Industry and reached out to several, only one responded right away and later that month I was featured in a story by Newsweek. Being a creator on OnlyFans, your time is split between making content and running your page with the heavy lifting of social media aka marketing and advertising. Without marketing, you will have nothing. I was able to do some networking and learned from other women on the platform. The social media landscape is forever changing. The challenges can be extreme. Shadow banning, losing accounts, online trolls – all of it can be extremely taxing on one’s mental health. I have tried different ways to expand my brand, to set myself apart, by writing a book and earlier this year self-producing a podcast, Chat N Laugh with Elaina St James. Talk about a learning curve! Did I see any difference in income, no, it was not the game changer that an adviser had said it would be, but it was a challenge I took on and I am proud of what I produced. It was also on brand.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

It really centers around social media. As social media is where many of us do our creative work, the nastiness and keyboard cowboys can affect us, but what causes much more anxiety are the Social Media platforms themselves. The thing about TikTok, Instagram, Reddit, Facebook and X (formerly Twitter) is that they need us. All of these platforms benefit from what we as “Spicy Content Creators” post. I can only imagine what impact would happen if we all left but I think it would be significant. But despite this, they work against us. The anxiety creators have over Community Violations is massive and it is always hanging over us, like a threat. Most content creators I know, try to follow the rules, but it’s seemingly impossible. The violations are completely arbitrary. I have gotten in trouble for wearing a one-piece swimsuit with a fully covered back and the same day see a creator dancing wearing a sheer nightgown. While I realize most of this policing is generated by bots, we have no way other than “Appealing the decision” to actually point out why our content meets the rules. There is no way to be heard and it is unfair. I am a mother, so I want children to be protected by things online, but a grown-up woman dancing in a dress is a lot different than violence or hate-speech.  In my opinion, the social media companies who are benefitting wildly from our creations would better served society by hiring actual human beings to discern if content was following community standards and be able to tell creators what the problem was instead of broad brushing. Most creators I know want to follow the rules, but an arbitrary ever-changing set of rules makes it impossible, and it squashes creativity. Many of my friends would never use social media again if it wasn’t for their business.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

Actually, thru my 2 1/2 years as Elaina St James, the biggest piece of advice I have for all the woman that contact me, is find your niche and make sure it’s true to who you are. Does it feel natural? Does it work with your look? I’m not blonde and petite so there are certain characteristics that wouldn’t fit my persona. You have to look at yourself and analyze the first impression someone will have of you and start there. You can build from there. What works for me, will not work for someone else. For instance, I noticed 2 years ago a lot of successful creators were wearing cowboy hats, cut off jean shorts and boots. I tried it and it absolutely bombed across the board. It wasn’t true to me – I’m not a country girl and even though the photos and videos were well done it didn’t resonate to the fans. They didn’t like it. They also don’t love when I wear anything too “costumey” though I love costumes. What did work with crazy success last year were satin floral robes. Now in my real life I wear robes, though not this type, but somehow it worked with my brand and reels with my robes have gone viral many times. So, I do more of what works, tweaking it a little here and there, but always analyzing. The biggest piece of advice is know yourself and start doing, then watch to see what gets the best response and keep doing that! There are many similarities to how actors or musicians have brands – think of those we think of as action heroes, Rom-Com, or dramatic actors. Are there some that cross-over? Sure, but we as a public generally think of them and are comfortable with them in one type of genre. Jay-Z and Blake Shelton are phenomenally successful performers, but if Jay-Z put out a country album and Blake Shelton a rap album, while novel and maybe a passion project, I would bet, neither would be their best-selling work. Do what feels true and comfortable to you – its always the best way. The secret to success online is there is no secret. It’s creative work and trying day after day, putting out content even when you feel defeated, until something clicks.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.elainastjames.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/elainastjames
• Twitter: x.com/elainastjames
• Youtube: youtube.com/elainastjames