First off, let me say that I'm new here, so I apologize in advance if I'm speaking out of turn...
Secondly, I have not read all the posts in this thread, but did skim over them...again, I apologize if I'm breaching etiquitte. I don't mean to skip the double-dog-dare and go straight for the throat with the dreaded triple-dog-dare.
I work as a writer and photographer. When I shoot an image set for a client, or write an article for sale in the marketplace, it's nearly impossible to know what the outcome of content production will be. If I'm hired to shoot/write, then I shoot/write what the client wants, turn it over, and deposit my check. If I shoot/write content to sell, I shoot/write the content (at my cost), find a buyer or buyers for the content, and hope like a mother it sells. Then I take my check to the bank.
The first lesson I learned long ago is that few things remain as they began after being in the hands of editors.
Editors exist for a reason. They know (or should know) their marketplace. Like an art gallery director, they know what will and will not sell in their space. In my days of gallery exhibitions, work that I thought was stellar would routinely be passed over in favor of work I thought was blah - showable, but still blah. More often than not, when I pushed to hang my stellar work, it was almost always outsold by the blah work.
The second lesson I learned long ago: editors are always right.
Those lessons apply whether the content is pictures, text, or both.
I'm sure we can all agree it can't be ignored that some sets, particulary in porn, (without regard to niche), are simply poorly planned and executed. We've all seen shots in which the model's eyes are at half-blink; shots that are too dark or too bright; we've even seen shots that are very badly out of focus or just simply bad. Looking at some of these sets, I've often had the impression the photographer turned over the CF card to the webmaster and everything from the card was publsihed without second thought.
I understand that customers demand sites publish sets numbering 100 images or more. I know for a fact the number of images shot for an average web content set is in the high hundreds. I also understand post work can be time consuming, but it should be a relatively simple matter to eliminate the 'non-keepers'; the worst of the worst. Post tools in current versions of PhotoShop and/or Lightroom or Aperture really streamline workflows, especially when factors such as lighting and exposure are a constant - as they would be with a set shot in studio. Well, more or less.
As for my own work, I would never shoot content without doing it professionally. Being an established freelancer, it's a simple matter for me to call in a make-up and style team. Whether the client is willing to pay for it or not - that's another matter.
Clearly, as has been mentioned, being uber-professional gets you noticed.
