I hear you. I don't know, I used to be one of those 'business customers' for number of years before making Poser content, as I did architectural and engineering Viz.

I never found useful stuff in poserdom, not because it was hard to find, but because things I needed were super specific, noring every day things.... and because often times, when you are on the clock, efficiency was paramount. At the time I was billed at $120 an hour... if it took me 2-3 hours to convert a single piece of content, I made it cost $360, rather then $12 I actually paid for... so what we would do is buy large packages of models made specifically for arch viz... yes they would cost a few hundred to 1000 per package, but i could plop them into the scene in a matter of minutes. On occasion I bought specific items on turbosquid.

It is possible other 3d users have different needs.

Another thing, even with DAZ, merely opening the website and being bombarded with even somewhat sexually suggestive stuff... well, in stuffy engineering offices that would have easily fall into possible sexual harrasement. Last time I dealt with that is around 2006. I don't know how much has changed since then.

Bringing new users would be great, snd I've seen many discussions about it over the years. Often it comes down to needing big bucks. And in last few years, we have game engines and proliferation of 3d for printing. Seems like Poser and DS are losing ground. One part of it being the learning curve to get into the hobby.

It would be interesting to see some brokerage statistics and market research to see results of current efforts to bring in new users, and come up with some strategies... not being privy to that, I can only guesstimate and speculate.... but, jut like vendoring has peculiarities that seem illogical on the surface, i'm sure briging new users has that too. Beyond grassroots efforts, I'm not sure how I would approach that.  If I did, I'd be applying for Steve Cooper's job.

You might indeed do very well in Steve Cooper's former position. But I expect it involves a boat load of stress, and while being a content vendor has its own stresses, as you've described, there must be something to being able to step out of the corporate rat race. :) <--- Please don't disabuse us of this notion; we like to fantasize. :D Sexually suggestive websites... Oh, I forgot about that. I expect it's actually gotten more restrictive since 2006. I wondered why Daz and Rendo were so keen on updating their sites for mobile devices when the overall sales figures for the web demonstrate that mobile visits don't convert into sales nearly as often as desktop visits. People are still browsing on their phones, but buying on their desktops. And this is one industry in which you can guarantee that buyers own either a desktop or a fairly powerful laptop. I guess, though, if you want to browse the Poser content sites at work... better do it incognito, on your phone. Hell, even at home you might not want the site to show up on your monitor while you shop for morphs, lest you risk your kid asking, "Daddy, why is mommy looking at naked people?" :D (If you're a clothing vendor with kids, I'd think they're used to seeing a grey naked Vicki showing up in a modelling app -- but it's not necessarily the case for every customer. LOL.)

---

@Morkonan -- I agree with much of what you say. But I don't think grammar is all that important, as long as the message is intelligible. At least, it's not important for me. But then I guess I'm used to talking to people who are not native English speakers. I also don't insist that a vendor show their ability to make good renders. Many vendors get someone else to do the promo renders. Many don't even use Poser at all. Does not make their products any less fantastic. But I agree that great renders -- in Poser -- are extremely helpful, and the more, the better.

As for gratuitous boob shots -- well, I'm not sure how well they work on women, gay men, and kids. Unless I'm specifically shopping for sexy stuff, they tend to turn me off a product. After a while, I just start rolling my eyes and clicking away. I guess, if you use the boob as your main marketing strategy, you're targeting mostly the horny teen boy (and a few horny teen girls). Unfortunately, that group is not known for the enormity of its disposable income. Not a bad group to market to if you're selling one $60 video game every four years to millions of horny teens. But if you need your loyal customers to buy just about everything you release, they might not be as reliable as say, retired people, who seem to make up quite a sizable portion of the userbase. Not saying retired people don't appreciate boobs. Surely they do! But boobs alone won't sell a product to someone unless their hormones are raging so hard that they can't think straight. :)

Ha ha, I thought about Steve coopers Job for a minute, but I only have about 60-70% of the qualifications they need at best, and I'm not able to relocate (I think I'd have to divorce first), and my health can be a bit sketchy so I'm not the most reliable full time employee - which is another reason I got out of corporate world. And also, I went to art school full time, couple of years ago, and have couple years to go before I'm done. (even my content releases are part time for now - which is why I don't release more often).   Aaand ... I really like the content making and design aspect of things, what I really want to do is build up a small studio of content makers eventually. 
Yeah, at home I'm fine with sexually suggestive stuff. Work in engineering offices was, you know, when in Rome do as romans do... and then there is the fact I live in california, the overregulation capital of the world.... everything can be considered sexual harassment in the workplace, and then companies add a fat safety margin to the laws.   Now in art school, we're drawing nude people from life all day long, almost every day. Sometimes I barely register if the person in front of me is naked or not.

At home, my poor stepdaughter, when she was a teenager or in her early 20's would bring home her friends (and my office is in the den, just by the front door) and has to go... hm, yea, this is my step-mom, she draws naked people all day long... then she would blush in embarrassment and drag them off. She is 26 now, and moved in with her fiance now.

Clothing vendors and texturers even more so at times, instead of Hi, how is your day going sometimes you go, Hi, how many hours of staring up V4's crotch so far today?

I've done freebies. I don't get feedback. "Wow, that's good" comments are nice but unhelpful. I've spent years honing my skills, so I think I'm now ready.

Connie - checked out your stuff. Awesome ! Very high quality. I'm not an impulse buyer, indeed I hardly buy anything but when I get my act together I'm going to need to buy lots more.

So what do I need now. OK, first thing is I need to figure out is how to produce appropriate injection files. My figures are very heavily morphed. Nothing like V4 really.  Eye scaling and position is very important and cannot be done with dials.

I am going to need to figure out how to adapt pre-existing textures as I currently use my own. Well that's just down to me to figure out.

Promo Images. Obviously very important. I am working on how best to light at the moment. I am pretty good at using Photoshop, but where do you get the fancy lettering and patterns you use in the promos ?

Thanks for all your help :)

ok, for rigging and poser details, Nerd 3D has loads and loads of invaluable information. Most of what I learned is by sticking my head up his arse and begging!  You can see he has a lot of published info here: http://www.nerd3d.com/

Another thing I find invaluable are Dimension3D's poser tools. Poser File editor in particular. I would die without it: http://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/poser-file-editor-3/62322/     D3D has few other amazing tools, here at Rendo and at DAZ (for DS/Genesis content)

I'm not sure what you mean by adapting pre existing textures? For characters, if you use pre existing, make sure they are licensed as 'merchant resource', or photographs meant for texturing, like what you can get from www.3d.sk. You can't take other textured characters and tweak the images (for freebies or for store items). For your own personal use, you can of course do whatever you want.  Promo images are very important of course, spending some time learning how to make a cool catchy render is smart. Look at advertising outside poserdom, fashion, movies, games... whatever may be somewhat similar to the content you are making, That is a learning curve of it's own. Whenever you can afford, hire a promo artist. I do it about half the times, especially for the main promo. You get only a second or two for the buyer to fall in love with your product - it is only after that they most will bother to read techy details - especially until you develop a following and a name recognition. And, well, you have to make sure that the product stands up to the promos, or people will feel like they've been cheated... and poser users can be very vociferous when they don't like something.

Fancy lettering - first, don't overdo it, learn a bit about graphics design and visual hierarchy of things so you don't assault the customer with everything at once and they run off with a visual migraine. ok, ok, i'm exaggerating a bit....   lot of little designs are a combo between layer effects, and whatever fonts you can find out there on the internet, there are tons out there free or for pay (check EULA's on everything, make sure you are allowed to use it in a way you want to use it.) You dont want to get in a hot water copyright wise, not only because of the other party, but if it happens more often, the brokerage starts being nervous about taking your product. Usually when there is a copyright violation they are the first to get the notice.

As a yet to be vendor, this is all a dark art. Only a few appear to be able to make a living at this but overall the 3D graphics market seems to be increasing. I have heard some vendors say that they now have no time to spend playing with the stuff because all their time is spent making product. Not for me.

The only reason I would be prepared to settle for a low income is if I enjoyed doing it. I take on board everything mentioned about being a 'professional', although I'm not sure I want to put in the hours. I do think that I could come up with something once a month though. Thinking about it, I put in huge hours lol. You just don't notice it when you are having fun ! Anyway as the saying goes - nothing ventured nothing gained.

I do need help in a number of different areas, but it looks like you have to submit a product before you can get access to the vendor community.

Find vendors who need beta testers and assistnce with things.It's a good way to learn. You give some, they give some. What kind of stuff do you need help with?

I hear you. I don't know, I used to be one of those 'business customers' for number of years before making Poser content, as I did architectural and engineering Viz.

I never found useful stuff in poserdom, not because it was hard to find, but because things I needed were super specific, noring every day things.... and because often times, when you are on the clock, efficiency was paramount. At the time I was billed at $120 an hour... if it took me 2-3 hours to convert a single piece of content, I made it cost $360, rather then $12 I actually paid for... so what we would do is buy large packages of models made specifically for arch viz... yes they would cost a few hundred to 1000 per package, but i could plop them into the scene in a matter of minutes. On occasion I bought specific items on turbosquid.

It is possible other 3d users have different needs.

Another thing, even with DAZ, merely opening the website and being bombarded with even somewhat sexually suggestive stuff... well, in stuffy engineering offices that would have easily fall into possible sexual harrasement. Last time I dealt with that is around 2006. I don't know how much has changed since then.

Bringing new users would be great, snd I've seen many discussions about it over the years. Often it comes down to needing big bucks. And in last few years, we have game engines and proliferation of 3d for printing. Seems like Poser and DS are losing ground. One part of it being the learning curve to get into the hobby.

It would be interesting to see some brokerage statistics and market research to see results of current efforts to bring in new users, and come up with some strategies... not being privy to that, I can only guesstimate and speculate.... but, jut like vendoring has peculiarities that seem illogical on the surface, i'm sure briging new users has that too. Beyond grassroots efforts, I'm not sure how I would approach that.  If I did, I'd be applying for Steve Cooper's job.

Off topic here.  Connie, if you are the same Connie that I follow on FB, wow, you have talent in all aspects of art.  I love your stuff.  Ok, back to discussion.

Yes, same Connie :-)   ...well, I think so, here's a link to double check. There is also a Bad Kitteh page :-). https://www.facebook.com/ConnieKat8?fref=photo

And, awwwwww, tank you so much blushing

I'm tempted to take a vendor I really like and do as much of this stuff as I could for him/her. He/she wouldn't even have to know I was doing it. It'd be interesting to see if it pushed them into a top sales category. :D :D

It doesn't. I've had skilled peopke do it for me, and i've gone through periods of not doing it at all, and diong it myself (i have decent marketing skilks and some marketing education too) and i can't quantify a difference. Things that make a dfference are

• product placement (make sure it appeals to enough people to be worth buying)

• product quality

• brokerage traffic where you sell. (No individual vendor or a small group can make even a tenth of the traffic a whole brokerage like DAZ or Rendo can) You're talking about a size difference of almost a lemonade stand vs. Starbucks.  With brokerages that let you see customer names or nicknames, you see very few people that you see on social media. Less then 10%.  I'm yet to see individual vendors affect brokerage traffic... well i've seen AeonSoul affect RDNA traffic on occasion by 10-20% for a day or so, and I think I've seen stonemason have some impact on DAZ traffic on occasion.  What seems to draw the buying crowd are sales, special events, themed 'oooh shiny' type group releases... storewide events.

• great catchy store promos.

• your long term reputation with respect to product quality and usability. lot of 'top vendors' fall into collectibe content category, you want it because they made it, and you hought it before you were sure if you need it or will ever use it.  This takes time to build... and... if one starts vendoring too soon and doesnt get known for really good stuff can be even harder to builD. Reputations (branding, really) are much harder reversed then built well from scratch.

-this market IS very impulse buy driven, many vendors are not too crazy about it, and have tried to play a different game. They haven't been able to reverse it. Even brokerages that created this don't really have the resources to reverse it any time soon. If they did, it would be a several year process.

• to make a living out of this, do the math... if it takes you a month to make a product (including promos, qa, documentation and marketing), and it sells for 19.95, brokerage takes 50%...  you need to sell 400 pieces to make $4000.  That translates into about $20 per hour.  Usually, you amortize that over a year.  This will put you in top vendor category If you do it each month.

I tried to list these in order of importance... although, i'm still writing it out of my head as a cadual forum post rather then a well thought out paper.

I meant to add to my last post.... one of the reasons I keep pulling on the brakes about marketing on your own a lot with hopes it will increase sales is because of this...

I had products that had agreat response on social media or in the forums, and didn't sell all that well, and the other way around. Also, not hitting the social media on certain products didn't make or break them, or even showed any noticeable blip in sales.

At first it seems counter intuitive, you would think that people who actively participate in the forums and on social media are a good statistical representation of your customers, but time and time again it turned out that this is not the case.

I had products that had 'huge' forum following.... 30-40 people in the forum can be huge. Then it hots the market, and you realize that you encountered a pocket of vociferous enthusiasts, and the marketat large ... does not exist. So... it can be a bit tricky, interpreting social media reactions. What peopke will look at or talk about, vs what they will buy are often not the same thing.

It's easy to get a following of non-buyers and spend significant time interacting with them.

At the same time there are smaller things a vendor can do to maximize their exposure. I do them even though I can never correlate them to tangibe influebce on sales... and being an engineer and no stranger to a variety of statistical analisys, i'm pretty decent at noticing and interpreting what affects my sales and what doesn't.

Anyway, let me stress this: I KNOW vendors work hard, really hard. And I also know that we customers are the beneficiaries of 

And of course you're right BadKittehCo -- you can't sell product that you've haven't finished making! :) Clearly, "make good quality products" is the first commandment. Some people are so inherently conscientious that doing that will take up all their time. I get that. But if you're not a vendor yet, and this is still a hobby, THEN it might well help to consider how you can use marketing to your advantage because the competition is deadly fierce. The fact that you and Stefan and Male3Media and Glitterati and Zev0 posted in this thread proves the last part, at least.

Honestly, the best way to deal with competition is to have a better product. (in a way of quality and what is interesting to people - which is a form of quality)  The biggest reason I do some of the hands on marketing is for market research. Gage some of the ideas to see who responds to them and in what manner. I even use warez sites or market research. If noone has warezed your stuff, in a way it means people don't care for it much, even for free. Anyone with intereating and quality content in this market gets noticed fast, by brokerages and customers. Huge percentage of theis market is impulse buyers. Which is, interestingly a bit different then TS and couple of other 3d stores. TS tends to be more focused on need based buyers. There are historical brokerage marketing strategy reasons for this, but that's another thread branch.

it's too late by now to get anything in the rmp for Valentine's day?

Given my past experience, yes.  Even an exclusive product won't get through testing and in a store within 10 days. Thanks. :)

The next seasonal theme would be Spring, i guess.  But then again, the other side of the world is heading into Winter.

It's the northern hemisphere seasons that people follow. Most of your customers come from Europe, US, Canada, Japan and Australia. ... so mostly north half.

is anyone using uu3d in their workflow?

looks about the same price tag as uvmapper pro.

uvunfolding odd shaped objects, with minimalist distortion, takes a very long time with my current tools.

thanks :)

UV Layout is what will give you professional speed and quality, unless you have cinema4d or maya or max or zbrush. You will also need UV mapper Pro for preppinfg the OBJ's for poser... mat zones, grouping, welding and occasional vertex and normal manipulation.

Well, you can just release a product with promos and let the sites marketing team do their bit, but nothing stops you from starting a product thread to gain traction or add a promo vid showing the product in action. I have found that extra effort has really helped. People know before hand what is to come and it generates some hype instead of just being drawn to their attention when it is released in the stores. So yes, you do pay these sites to handle marketing for you, but nothing stops you from giving your work more exposure. That does require more effort, but that is strictly up to you if you feel it is worth it or not.

Nod Nod! Most successful vendors do a good amount of that. Preview the product, create some anticipation, give your user base some chance to interact with you, stir some interest, run a contest. All those things help with building a following. It is also possible to build a following without this - some vendors do it, some don't.
Personally, I like to do it, I enjoy a degree of interaction with my customers. I'd actually like to do it more, but have to limit my time at some point or it becomes cost prohibitive. On a larger piece, I'll typically spend a day to two promoting the product (not necessarily all in one lump of time) To do it the way I would really like to do it, it would take 50% of my time, and that is not affordable, because it would not increase my sales enough to cover the time investment. As a vendor you're constantly evaluating if something is/was worth doing or not, and whether it is a short or long term investment you are making. Some things pay off quicker than others.

I have recently considered becoming a Vendor, so thank you for the helpful advice. I guess my main concern is that all my skills revolve around Poser and V4, but I can see that a number of Vendors have jumped ship to Genesis. If back sales are important, would it be best to spend months now acquiring the necessary skills to focus on Genesis or jump in immediately with V4 stuff ?

It depends on where you are planning to sell.  Genesis is very strong at DAZ, at Rendo it looks like G2 and V4 are about even, looks like G2 may be gaining but I haven' talked to anyone about that since the summer. I see several vendors I talk to on occasion consistently putting out G2 content. You can still do really well with V4, but also consider your overall skills. Some people like to wit till they are ready to be a major player, others start early and go through more growing pains. To me some of the growing pains (low sales and mistakes) would have been too discouraging if I was trying to be a vendor, so I waited till I felt I could be decently competitive for one of the top seller spots.  Back catalog matters, but it still needs to be quality product.

Personally, I don't worry so much about developing a back catalog, I focus on making each new product being the best  I can make at the time, and the back catalog just builds over time.  I noticed that every time I take shortcuts on a product, I regret them, every time I go all out, it pays extra. Also my personal focus is on high detail, closeups, so I found a tactic that works for a combination of what I like to do and what sells. It is definitely not the only way to approach being a successful vendor.

Anyhow, my recommendation is to let your skill be the determining factor about when to become a vendor. Another things that worked well for me it to not be in a rush to become a vendor, keep learning, make my own stuff and freebies, and let your freebie users, or the brokerage encourage  you to become a vendor. Then you know for sure you're getting close to being good enough... and not getting repeatedly rejected or having bad sales (like 5 sales for two weeks of effort) is a plus. It is hard to stay confident and enthusiastic about what you are doing if you are getting a lot of rejection. This is also a bit tailored to my own personality - I tend to be really hard on myself where I'm always on the verge on running myself into the ground, so a lot of external negativity would not be a motivator to work harder, it would 'finish me off' so to speak.

So in my case roughly by my third product I was inching into top vendor category, but I also prepared to be a vendor for about 3 years (some of it while I was still working full time, so it wasn't 3 years of full time work)...

Soo... Individual mileage may vary.

Wow. I'm not being judgmental Connie. I apologize if you took it that way. My comments weren't directed specifically at you but at the conversation as a whole - notice how you weren't the only one whose comments I quoted - and I wasn't trying to start or perpetuate an argument, or step on anyone's toes, vendor or otherwise. I specifically never said it was an easy field to get into - in fact, I've stated multiple times that starting off slow to test the waters and see if it's really something you can see yourself doing full time is the best way to go ('you' being in general here). Because a lot of people try and soon discover they just don't have it in them. Many think it's easy work that most anyone can do and make a quick buck "if they just learn the software", until they actually start trying. It's not for everybody. And I wasn't intentionally implying that you're lazy or don't approach your work the way you should, because again, my comments weren't directed at you specifically. I don't have the first clue how you, the individual approaches your work. (I've looked at your catalog and you have a solid body of work and definitely some strong talent). But at the same time I know the kind of work and hours it entails because I've been doing it for a number of years now - 3 of those years were spent in school, working in a nose-to-the-grindstone production environment where work days were anywhere from 12 to 16 to 20 hours, 6 to 7 days a week with zero tolerance for excuses, because that's how most studio environments are in this industry. They don't want to hear "there aren't enough hours, or there isn't enough time". You make time, or you get replaced. And yes, I do make my living as a content artist. So you aren't speaking to a novice here, or someone who "hasn't done their research" or doesn't communicate with other vendors and content artists. But I don't want to argue with you about it. If you say the (pretty much universal) laws of business and promotion don't apply to being a vendor then I'll take your word for it. 

Once again, vendors that sell their products through stores give a portion of their sales to the brokerage in exchange for several benefits including promotion of their products and visibility. How well those products are seen is dependent on how good their Marketing Department is in getting their store into promotion channels and direction they give their vendors on how to set up their products so that they are seen in search engines. Brokerages should have way more reach in promotion than an individual vendor would themselves, as the things they could do would only minimally impact their sales. This frees the vendor to devote their time for production of their products and building their stores. If they were to do the amount of promotion that has been detailed in this thread, there would be absolutely no need to pay a brokerage a fee.. you may as well set up your own store and sell there. So it's a bad idea to devote that much time to promotion and taking away from your own production when you're paying someone to do it for you. So it's not a matter of professionalism or not, vendors are paying for a service in exchange for a cut of their product sales where the result should be beneficial for both the store and the vendor. I hope that makes things clearer, as I don't think many seem to know this.

Vendors are happy to hear suggestions... from those that actually had experience from vendoring through brokerages. Otherwise, honestly, you're just speaking without basis, giving suggestions that most often cost us money and production time rather than making more income.

Well said, thank you! For many of us, we pay several thousand dollars per product for brokerage marketing.

Ambient sahde, I never said marketing wasn't important.

This sort of reminded me why Vendors don't usually frequent forums, I seem to forget that about once a year when I'm in between projects.

hehe

I know, some old habits still pop up on occasion... go figure.
I think I was avoiding doing homework.