Quote - Just wanted to throw my two cents in here.  I agree completely with your original concern.  I've thought often about more efficient ways to get things done so that the process is more streamlined and my time will start to = enough $ to make it worth it. 

As many people in this thread who said they take quality over quantity - well I think that might be great in ideal but it doesn't seem to be the way it really works.  There is a vendor partnership here on Rendo for example that sells numerous items.  They are constantly one of the top vendors and put out many different pose and scene and character packs.  Maybe as many as one a week sometimes.  They are all horrible (except for the character textures).  The scene sets always come with the same recycled textures as the ones before - minor changes.  The pose sets are almost unusable.  - Yet they all sell like crazy.

People in this thread might digress but - someone is buying those products.  and someone is buying a whole crapload of them.

Me myself - well I don't want to go down in quality at all, but I do need to find more efficient and organized ways to work so that my time is better utilized when I do work. 

Quantity versus quality DOES work however, as I noted in my posts, do you want to expend the effort as an individual artist?  It takes time for one person to make a product even if that product is crap.  Two people might be a little easier and more efficient.  Three are better and so on and so forth..  If you have the time, you can certainly try to compete based on chance.  Millions of companies do that successfully.  Everything from household bleach to canned corn is embroiled in a commodity market heavily influenced by outside forces including chance and price-point - the two most unpredictable and undesirable strategies there are.

Quote - Also people are always saying on the forums how there isn't much unique out there.  But when something unique is created it only sells very few copies to those few who are interested in that niche.  Swords fairies and big boobs are where it's at.  So watching top sales for a month or so to see exactly what items are selling most is probably a good idea. 

You're right - Everyone likes swords, sexy fairies and boobs.  Well, they like what they imply at least.  BUT, what if you're the "best sword-wielding big-breasted fairy" producer in the market?  Which is better; being one of the bajillions of sword-wielding-big-breasted-fairy" producers or being the top producer of the steaming heap in that genre? 

Quote - In the end everyone wants everyone to be the great samaritan of vendors.  Put in 400 hrs of work for 400$ is something that is just outright expected.  To me that's just not good business sense.

I agree.  So, in order to avoid that you have one of two choices - Quantity or .. something else.  The "Something Else" I already discussed.  But, there is something I didn't discuss and that is marketing.

Let's face it, most online marketplaces don't market your products, they sell them.  In fact, that's all most businesses in the world do - Sell other people's products.  The successful ones develop marketing campaigns together with their vendors.  The marketplaces for Poser do this only with a select few of their top producers OR their own product (high profit margin) lines and that's exactly what businesses in the "Real World" do as well.  If you're not already a top-seller, it's likely you won't get that extra help.  Yeah, it's a vicious cycle but, that's the way it works here and that's also the way it works in the outside world.

A while back ago I mentioned how terrible some of the product renders were.  In fact, some of them are actually detrimental to the product itself.  Bad renders = Bad impression.  But, I received several "poo poo" responses and "NO U!" sort of feedback as people defended the "most common denominator" approach towards selling their product.  The response was "I want the customer to see the quality the average person would get with the products."   I hope I don't have to explain what that truly means but, if anyone reads this and doesn't recognize that, I'll go ahead and say it - 99% of the Poser community's renders are crappy.  If you want to show the worst your product will ever look then follow that trend.  However, as a potential buyer, I want to see the BEST that product will ever look. I can make anything look like crap but I can't make something crappy look outstandingly good!  There's only so many silk purses one can make out of the piles of sow's ears.

This goes hand in hand with marketing - The first thing anyone ever sees of your product is the render.  In fact, that is ALL they can see.  If you insist on bad renders then you are putting out bad marketing materials.  As a producer, it's your responsibility to show the potential customer the best they can hope to achieve with your product.  Otherwise, they won't know the true value of your work.  The easiest and most effective way to begin marketing products appropriately is to start out with an appropriate and quality presentation of the product including any features that make it stand out from other products of the same type.

You seem to have a good head on your shoulders for what is practical as a producer of products.  IMO, if you want to keep the quality of your products high and maximize your efforts, the next step is focusing on Marketing.  For a few bucks a month you can get a website and pile renders and information about your products into it.  You could even use free sites.  You can also announce your products on other websites, visit their forums a few times a month and post a render of one of your products.  Most of the top-sellers no longer have to do a heck of a lot of footwork-marketing.  But, breaking into those ranks, they definitely had to do at one time.

Marketplaces don't market products, they sell them.  Only in a few instances are people's products actively focused on for marketing efforts.  That expenditure of effort is limited - The marketplaces only have so many resources to devote and they are going to devote it to what they are reasonably sure will sell.  It's up to the producers of products to not only produce quality products that people want to buy but to also actively market those products.  Handing something to someone else and asking them to sell it "for you" is another way of relying too heavily on chance, IMO.

Edit - I checked out your blog and the links there.  You're on the right track.  What you may want to do is mix-up your product line just a little bit.  Why?  Because, if you only ever produce blue-buckets then only people interested in blue-buckets will be familiar with your products.  I would suggest making a couple of items outside of the genre you normally work in as "hooks" to get people recognize your name in other circles as well.  Also, bump up the exposure of your products on your blog.  Maybe even throw some renders on "that other place's forums."  (I haven't been there in awhile and don't know what their policies are though.)  Something else  you might be able to do : Ask your primary seller what possibilities there are in getting involved with a marketing campaign.  Basically, ask them that if you put the effort into producing an ZOMGZWTFTHAT'SAWESOME! product, will they go to bat for you and partner on marketing it?  If you have to give up some profit margin to get them to do so then DO it.  The exposure is worth a few percentage points.