Razor42 posted at 10:00AM Sun, 12 February 2017 - #4297200

Lol, the question was pretty much rhetorical and contextual. Maybe your attempting an Argument from Fallacy approach? As I am not really seeing your actual point.

The question was not rhetorical. You made a statement that you thought proved your point and I gave you evidence to the contrary. Now you're trying to move the goal post.

The context of the question was: "Actually going it alone is probably one of the options with the highest risk, cost overheads and workloads.

And I never denied that it was, nor did I advocate or even suggest that everyone should start their own site. All I said was that there were several paths to success, some more difficult than others, and that more artists should put more effort into promoting themselves outside of the brokerages. Somehow you've twisted that around to me suggesting every content artist should start their own site. I do think that more people should attempt it (which you apparently seem to be extremely against for some reason, as though it would ever have any impact on whatever methods you chose to market your own work), but I recognize that it's not the right fit for everyone.

I think if you did a cost breakdown per unit you would find that what most marketplaces take as a cut per sale is entirely reasonable considering what they offer in return.

That is subjective. Maybe to you those costs are worth it, to others they might not be. If you're a top selling artist then I'm sure the costs feel much more worth it than to someone who is just starting out or whose content is more niche (or even controversial), and doesn't get the front page display that others get. And it's more than just cost per sale that you have to consider. What else are you foregoing with that method? How targeted is your audience, or are you just another name among hundreds or thousands of others competing for that same 50 cents on the dollar?

As for cost, it costs very little to run your own site these days if that's the method you choose, and it doesn't take an army of coders or seo experts to do it. We're also not talking about trying to start your own brokerage that houses dozens of other artists content. That's an entirely different entity than marketing yourself. And this isn't the mid 90s where a domain name and hosting package costs hundreds or thousands annually. Most self-aware artists today, especially those who are trying to make a living at it, have their own website to advertise their work, whether they're selling anything directly through their site or not. Or they're active on social media, or they post regularly to the various online galleries that caters to the type of art they produce. It may be something as simple as a blog related to the field of work they do, with links back to their content at whatever brokerage(s) they sell through. It's like a business card for the web. And it doesn't matter what type of art you're creating. 3D is no different than 2D or wood working or oil paints in that regard. All of it requires an audience in order to gain a following. If you don't put your name and work out there then no one is going to find it. And if you're relying on someone else to do all of the work for you then you don't have control over whether or not your work gets promoted or sifted to the bottom. Because at the end of the day that brokerage is going to focus most of its marketing efforts on the content that makes them the most money.

And why does it matter whether the majority sell through large brokerages or not anyway? That has no relevance to the issue of a vendor's potential for success with selling through their own site. It wouldn't matter if you were the only vendor on the planet who sold through their own site, as long as you're getting enough traffic to that site and sales to make it worth the endeavour.

Are you truly serious with this statement?

100% serious.

"No relevance" it is completely and entirely relevant. Market is one of the most major factors in any product or sellers chance of success.

It only seems relevant to you because you seem to be of the mind that no one is capable of making a living on their own in this market without selling through a large broker. Yes market is "one of the most major factors in any product or sellers chance of success", along with quality and appeal. That has nothing to do with whether a large self-contained market is more beneficial to the individual artist than a do-it-yourself approach. One does not equal the other, because everyone has their own goals and ideas about what they want to do and what audience they want to attract. It is up to the individual artist to determine which avenue is the most beneficial to them and their work/brand. When you tie yourself to a particular broker, you also tie yourself to any negative factors affecting that broker. As well, if you don't make the type of content that broker is most recognized for then you reduce your sales potential regardless of how much traffic that broker gets, unless you change gears and start making whatever is the most common content at that store (which can wind up hurting everyone's sales in the long run if you're all making the same thing). You also lock yourself into that broker's expected pricing model. Maybe you have additional features that most others don't put in their products. Should you still charge the same $10 that all the other guys are charging for their products with much fewer features? People are not going to buy from you as often if your products in that brokerage are considerably higher than most of the other products that brokerage contains, even when you list all those extra features. You're still going to get people that think "Yea, but it's still not .99 cents. It should be .99 cents. I think I'll just wait for a sale". That, or you just stop putting in those extra features because no one else does and they're making the same amount on what took you three times as long to make. If however they are familiar with your work outside of any broker then they're more likely to buy from you even if you charge a bit more but also provide a bit more quality and those extra features. Certain stores cater to a certain type of customer. It's an odd phenomenon really but it's human behavior. When you shop at a certain store you expect to pay a certain price for most anything you buy in that store. When you go down the street to another store your mindset changes as soon as you walk in the door and you're more willing to pay 5 or 10% more for the exact same pair of jeans you refused to buy down the road for the exact same price. Which leads back to the initial subject of the thread really - that being price disparities between Poser/DS content and other 3D content. If more artists took the initiative to "leave the nest" so to speak, maybe their content would start gaining more respect and command a higher price tag. And in turn it would start becoming a bit more diverse. At least it would have a better chance at coming up a bit closer to the prices of content in other similar markets and break the clearance basket "hobbyist" mold that's been the standard in this market for so long. But that first requires an understanding that there is virtually no difference between Poser content and Maya content, and it's a misnomer that "other" 3D content is priced for commercial entities or that sites like TS only sell to studios. (TS has twice the traffic that daz has. Do you honestly believe that there are twice the number of studios and professionals buying content from them than there are hobbyists and indie artists?) It might also help to attract a more diverse group of content artists who are more familiar with the higher end market. One of the main reasons this market suffers from lack of diversity is due to how cheap most of its content is expected to be. A lot of the originals have wandered off to greener pastures because of it. There are key reasons for why that is, but pointing them out would start a game of finger pointing that I'm not interested in getting into.

Don't you think if it was easier and more profitable to sell through an independent website, the majority would participate?

Again, I never said that it was easier. And No, I don't think that at all. Because the majority of artists in any field often don't know how to market themselves effectively (hence the term starving artist). Or they aren't interested in marketing themselves, especially if they have someone else that's willing to do it for them. That has nothing to do with which method is more profitable.

Daz3D currently has 33 PA's whose name starts with the letter A...

Of all those 33 names for the letter A, how many of them are featured, or even mentioned, in the newsletter when they release a new product? If I want to see everything that's been released that day I have to go to the site because that newsletter only showed me 1 to 3 products from the top sellers. And if there's nothing in the newsletter that makes me want to go look at the site, then I don't see anything else that got released that day unless I make a conscious effort to do so. It might even be weeks before I see something in that newsletter that compels me to go check out the site, and by then how many products from other lesser-known artists will have dropped off the front page? Going by your logic everyone that sells through one of these large brokers who has more than a handful of items in their catalog should be making a full time living on their content due to all the exposure they get from being at that broker, when we all know that is the complete opposite from the truth. The brokerages put most of their efforts into promoting their top sellers while the rest get to hope their content gets seen by the ones looking for whatever featured product was in that mailer. This is not targeted marketing. It is essentially survival of the fittest while everyone involved pays the same for advertising costs. In order for a new content artist to gain the exposure that their 50% cut is supposed to be paying for, that artist essentially has to prove themselves to the broker. I'm not damning the brokers here, they're in it for the money and I have no major gripes with how rosity or daz do things.

Seems like your saying because we don't see many people attempting to flap their arms and gain the power of flight, it doesn't mean that it isn't possible to do so if you flap hard enough...

And it seems to me you're saying most vendors sell through large brokers because it's virtually impossible for anyone to advertise themselves or make a living on their work otherwise.

Of course if you have more traffic then all the marketplaces combined you will be as or more successful then they are,

You don't need more traffic than all the marketplaces combined. Where is the logic in that? You don't even need as much traffic as one of the market places. You only need enough traffic to generate the interest and sales your business requires to make it successful. And because all of your traffic is targeted at your products you aren't competing for sales. People visit your site because they're interested in your content, not the content of 600 other people.

The hard part is actually getting that traffic.

It's not that hard. Like I said before, there are numerous methods for generating your own traffic - whether your store is located in a large brokerage or on your own site, the methods of obtaining it are virtually the same. A large brokerage gives (the potential for) additional exposure, absolutely, but unless you're one of their top sellers then you're just another name among all the others. Filler.

Just to put it into perspective Xurge3d.com is ranked about the 1,900,962 mark for global site traffic ranking, Daz 3D is 10,206. I wonder how many more customers that translates to in the long term? How much more brand exposure? How much more increased chance of being successful as a content producer in the long term.

Ranking means very little. You have to look at actual traffic numbers. How much of the traffic from that 1,900,962 ranking is directly targeted to xurge3D's products? (hint: 100%), as opposed to the traffic from Daz's ranking of 10,206 spread among 600. Also, anyone at daz or the other brokerages who sell add-on content for xurge's clothing sets are driving at least a small amount of targeted traffic to xurge's site. Clearly he's never going to get the same amount of traffic as daz gets because his content is specialized and he's just one artist. But does he need all that traffic driving up his bandwidth costs if they aren't buying anything because he doesn't make what they're looking for?

Let's put it in another perspective - the guy's been in business for 11 years. Maybe this is just a side gig for pocket change and he's not really worried about how much he makes at it. Who knows, I don't know him and I'm not familiar with what else he does. But regardless, if he thought a large brokerage was more profitable or a better option than his own site, don't you think he'd be selling at one by now? For that matter, why haven't the guys at Poserworld not given in and gone to rosity or daz by now?

Some vendors even use brokerages as lead-ins to their own site. Kind of like free advertising - that pays you.

Or kind of like a dependence on a larger market for upstream click through to their own site? That kind of setup could also be described as a parasite market I guess. Which is fine if that kind of approach appeals to you.

Parasite market? Then wouldn't just about every vendor in that brokerage also classify as such, whether they are promoting their own products or someone else's. By that logic even Daz would classify as such, since - even though they only sell in their own store, every one of these vendors at all the stores are indirectly marketing for Daz when they build content that supports daz content, or that requires their software. That's what daz's business model is based on, after all. Instead, I think a better term for those using this method would be more akin to loss-leader, not unlike what retail stores do when they sell products at or below cost in order to get people into the store in hopes that they will buy other products while they're there. The difference of course being that it is all under the same roof. If you're selling 'sample' content at one of the large brokerages, then it serves as a lead-in, or loss-leader, if you also sell other content at your own site or a different site. You're potentially losing money on that 50% cut, but you're generating more potential traffic to your site if people like your content and want to find more of it, which they often do, so they pull up google or bing to see where else you sell. That's not parasitic. That's advertising.

Though the practice may be at the expense of the host in the long term, especially if it is more widely adopted by others, and in time it may flow on to be your expense.

How? Explain. Because this is essentially how this entire ecosystem we've created actually works. All the brokerages, no matter how big or small, indirectly promote another store's content by allowing vendors to sell supporting content for figures and content that have to be obtained from outside sources. Every vendor at Renderosity who makes content for V4 is indirectly advertising for Daz. Every vendor who makes content for Pauline is indirectly advertising for Smith Micro. The only way that would not be the case is if the store only allows vendors to sell products that support other products within that store.

Social media in many circumstances is not as effective as some may think it is at translating to general sales or even brand awareness.

Is that so? Then why do rosity and daz both have affiliate programs, with quotes like this: >Many of our top affiliated make $10,000+ in commissions monthly. Where do you think those affiliates are doing all that advertising if they aren't using social media and/or their own sites? Or is daz just making that up to attract more affiliates?

Most customers in this type of industry will not actually see your Facebook page until they are already aware of your brand, what you do and your existing sales point(s).

Sounds like speculation to me. Where is your proof of that? It also sounds like you don't really understand what social media is used for or how it works. People. Sharing. That's it. That's your marketing machine. People share everything these days. From pictures they like, to recipes, to boyfriends. However Facebook would not be my first choice as an artist to promote myself. It definitely has its merits but there are other more appropriate platforms for an artist to build an audience.

A general brand presence is all that is really needed on social media and in most cases may lead to the occasional independent contract, but the direct translation to sales is nowhere near as effective as marketing methods such as direct email. How many do you think your startup Facebook page will reach in its first five years?

5 years is a long time. Half a decade. How many do you want it to reach? How active with it are you? You can't just create a page, make a post or two and hope someone sees it or shares it eventually. You have to work at it. Consistently and routinely. I've seen several artists of various mediums grow their social media audience from nothing to thousands in less than half that time. And again, facebook is just one of numerous platforms, each having its own strengths and weaknesses. You have to find the one that works best for what you're trying to do.

Independent contracts for the creation of Poser DS content are also not as common as some seem make out. Often an independent offer will be well under the financial mark of what is achievable for the same item in terms of sales in the mass market.

It's been my primary means of income for a few years now and while it hasn't been great its been decent for me more often than not. I've also made content for people that's extremely niche and I know would not generate enough sales to make my time invested worth it. But it was worth it to those people to pay me good money to make it. Had I put those items in the stores I might have gotten half a dozen sales at best.

The majority of 3D artists are freelancers and the median annual income for 3D artists in the US is around $50-$60K. If it didn't pay very well then that would not be the case. There is no rule that you have to or even should keep Poser and other 3D content separate from a marketing perspective. There's zero reason for it that I can see.

And my entire point was simply that there are a lot of paths for content artists in this market to make a living doing what they enjoy doing and more would be able to do so if they took the initiative to market themselves and take advantage of the tools that are available to them virtually for free.

A quote from Dreamlight 3D's blog, from back in 2010:

Those who make it big are those who learn to sell and market. Not content creators… ...I would have been out of business a long time ago, if I didn´t learn to sell on my own…