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.

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Anyway, all this would do wonders for a regular site selling -- whatever. I have absolutely no personal evidence to suggest that it would help Poser content sales. Only the broker admins looking at search words and site referrals would know that. So..... take it all with however many grains of salt you like. 

ROFL, spending all the time it takes to accomplish all this means no vendor has even an iota of time to create new models, much less rig them. You do realize you're talking about a full time job just updating social websites, right?

It's not as much an aversion to self promotion, it's the hours on a clock.

Yep yep, I was about to say the same thing. Making content is a full time job and then some, one that does not give you time for extensive marketing efforts, and not enough money to hire someone. You have to rely on the brokerages, and maybe sub groups of vendors pooling resources. There are only so many hours in the day. And if you don't finish your product, there is nothing to promote.

And that kind of thinking is what separates the hobbyist from the professional. I don't mean any disrespect, but honestly, I have to agree with Moriador here. Many of the points she lists are quite possible, along with a few others I can think of that she failed to mention, and some of the more dedicated vendors do accomplish them and still manage to have a life outside of content creation. Granted, everybody's schedules and personal lives are different, but it comes down to time management and setting priorities. If it is intended to be a full time business then you have to treat it like a full time job - actually two full time jobs, or even three, if that's what it takes, especially in the beginning, just like any other business, if you expect it to produce a full time, livable income. Yes, it is hard work, and many long hours, and it will probably require going without sleep here and there - actually no, not probably, it DOES require going without sleep here and there. Sometimes more often than not. But again, it's all about how dedicated you are and how much time and effort you're willing and able to put into it. If it was easy then everybody would be doing it. Granted, I don't have the same vendor experience that you have. Most of my work comes from private commissions, but I still have maintenance on those commissions. I still have to keep up with all my clients. I don't have the help of a brokerage to handle all of the problems that customers might run into, I have to do all of that myself. Part of why I'm not (yet) a vendor is due to keeping up with my clients and meeting their needs, which often cuts into current projects I have with other clients and sets things back, so I have to set priorities and schedule when I'm going to be working on various items. And its in the down times that I get to work on the projects that are intended to be vendor items. I don't mind going without sleep if that's what it takes to get a job done. If I'm not working on something then I'm not making money. Yet I still don't feel like I'm producing at the rate that I should be producing, and that's my fault. Something I'm working on correcting. 

But this line of work often does require working round the clock, and it's not something that can be taken as a hobby if you intend on making it a real profession. And if you don't love it then you'll learn to hate it pretty quick. There are content artists that make $50 to $100K and more per year, doing exactly this kind of work - not necessarily for Poser or DS though. For most, definitely not. The ones making that kind of money may still be working in Poser and DS at times but have branched out into the bigger scene and are selling their content at Turbosquid, or Unity, or any number of the other content markets, or their own websites. They've built up a solid customer base and a reputation for themselves and their work. And when they're not making content they're working on freelance jobs, animations, etc., because they take their work seriously and put every minute of free time they have into it, because they don't just treat it as a hobby, it's their livelihood. 

And it always helps if you have no life. That just means you have more time to work. Afterall, in this business sleep is a luxury for the weak. ;)

While you say you don't mean disrespect, you are being quite disrespectful, especially considering you are quoting me in your post. You may need to leave it to me how much time and professionalism I have and how much time, or how I invest it or at least put a little effort into learning about it before being down your nose judgemental about it. 
Just because you don't see people doing what you think they should be doing it doesn't mean it is not happening, or that they are being lazy or not dedicated and whatever else you said or insinuated here.  You're not exactly privy to what I do or what kind of money I make, or at what effort.
I'm surprised this kind of invalidating and disrespectful posting is acceptable especially by a moderator of the forum. sigh

Me too, Hornet. I don't want to come off as though I'm badmouthing vendors, because -- as we know -- we're not paying Turbosquid prices, even though, we probably should be. Marketing is a PITA, and few people really enjoy it. But -- and I could be wrong -- but I think it's worth doing a few things in addition to what I listed above. I just did some Google searches for Poser content. Generic things like "Poser mini skirt" or "Poser corvette V4 poses". Nobody's search results will be identical, but I found some eye opening things.

Top sites for Google search for Poser content are (not necessarily in this order) ShareCG, YouTube, Daz3D, and then -- growl -- about a thousand file sharing sites. Gack. The pirates should not be winning this. 

One vendor's own site showed up, however, near the top. So it's possible to fight back. He's going to capture sales from anyone using Google to find content (Does anyone do that? Yes!). Depending on the keywords in his site and on his page, me may even get quite a few people who don't own Poser or Daz Studio -- yet. If the promos on his site are as mindbendingly attractive as some of the promos here, he's going to be adding to Poser sales/DS downloads, and possibly getting sales for himself. Every vendor should have a blog or frequently updated site with two way links to their content plus information on what Poser or Daz Studio is, a Facebook page that updates with every new product release, as well as upcoming releases, a Twitter account that does the same, a YouTube channel with a tutorial or two or even some trailers for product releases (I've never seen this for typical Poser content, but why not?), some freebies on ShareCG, and helpful posts in 3D forums that are indexed and permit a signature banner link.  That's kind of a minimum. The number of places and ways you can use to promote your work -- without spamming -- are almost infinite.

Descriptions in all of these places should be a detailed and imaginative as possible. Where possible, images should be named and tagged with something that can be recognized in search engines and apps (not "promo1.jpg" but "v4_mini_skirt_promo.jpg"). Where you can use alt tags on images (your own site particularly), they should be detailed: "Product Name V4 in a black snakeskin and white leather mini skirt showing voluptuous, utopian, and young morph and lace netting t-shirt with a rose embellishment, facial piercings, including one gold eyebrow piercing and a gold ring lip piercing. Character Name in promo is wearing Product Name hair.... etc etc etc" ) Links should crisscross and go back and forth between all these sources, and it'd be even better if every vendor who had his/her own site linked to each other. High quality linkage is still a powerful force for search engine ranking. Facebook is also huge for driving site hits. Arguably, it's even more important. But isn't going to do much unless it gets beyond a fairly high minimum amount of activity -- and that's where vendors could really help each other.

I know that lots of vendors have their names in many places, like YouTube and ShareCG, etc. But where it all comes together is when you have a clear marketing strategy, so that you have a coherent set of words and descriptions that keep popping up in relation to the vendor name and the links to where you can buy the products. So much space in so many of these venues for bios and descriptions that get used to apologize for the quality of an upload rather than promote the vendor -- IF the space gets used at all. :) 

I know a lot of people hate to promote themselves. I'm such a person. I'll apologize for something I've created and point out all its flaws before I'll say anything else. If a vendor has a similar problem they should probably get other vendors, and/or their testers and customers to write some promo text for them. Other people can be way more enthusiastic because they're not worried about being modest or humble about someone else's stuff. :)

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Anyway, all this would do wonders for a regular site selling -- whatever. I have absolutely no personal evidence to suggest that it would help Poser content sales. Only the broker admins looking at search words and site referrals would know that. So..... take it all with however many grains of salt you like. 

ROFL, spending all the time it takes to accomplish all this means no vendor has even an iota of time to create new models, much less rig them. You do realize you're talking about a full time job just updating social websites, right?

It's not as much an aversion to self promotion, it's the hours on a clock.

Yep yep, I was about to say the same thing. Making content is a full time job and then some, one that does not give you time for extensive marketing efforts, and not enough money to hire someone. You have to rely on the brokerages, and maybe sub groups of vendors pooling resources. There are only so many hours in the day. And if you don't finish your product, there is nothing to promote.

I thought exclusive, in that regard, meant that you only sell at that store, as in, being an exclusive vendor to that store.

It seems kind of silly to sell the same item at multiple stores. Kind of competing with yourself in that regard, if the commission rates are different from one to the next. 

I know other stores do require exclusive vendoring in order to get the higher commission rates. I think squid is one, (not 100% sure though). 

Daz, Rendo or RDNA don't require or even ask about exclusive vendoring. Only exclusive items.  You get higher percentages by having higer sales numbers. You get a smaller percentage boost for exclusive items. It's also quite possible a brokerage may turn down a non exclusive item, especially if you are trying to place the same item at Rendo and DAZ. Lot of vendors choose personally to sell at only one store, because you get higer perventage when you sell more and because content making is sufficiently time consuming that in most cases you spread yourself too thin trying to have product at several places.

Also, having a back catalog plays a significant role, every time you release a new, likeable item, people look at your other stuff too, and good 20% sales will come from the back catalog. If your back catalog is not huge, that effect is lost very fast. Releasing at one, or at most two brokerages definitely has benefits.

by exclusive, i meant the agreement wouldn't sell something in more than one store.

trying to shift my workflow to new modeling tools.  i keep hitting the spacebar >.< doh

DAZ, Rendo or DNA, while they say you can go non exclusive really prefer exclusive stuff. I tried non-exclusive route in poserdom, and place things in smaller third party stores, and you hardly get any sales (compared to the big ones i just mentioned). I have not seen any advantage to going non exclusive. For the most part, it's the same people who shop at the stores, so you are not getting any new audiences (not significant anyway).
Also, going non exclusive means more promos and more store pages to make, and making each needs to be worth your time. If it takes you half a day to prepare an extra product page, and you make 5 sales on a 10 dollar item, at 50%, that is $25. Do you want to spend four hours working for $25? I don't.

Now, when you go and rework your product to function in a game engine, for example, it's no longer the same product. Similar, but not the same, so exclusivity rules are different on that.  Mesh prepped for 3D printing isn't the same thing as a piece of conforming clothing for Poser or DS, even if the design is the same or shares some of the textures.

When things are well made, and well thought out, they will sell. My point was that props aren't any easier of a sell then charactets or clothing in poserdom. Medium quality props won't sell better or bring you more money then medium quality charactets or medium quality clothing.

Sure, there are other 3d markets, but MistyLara has asked about Poser related content. Different 3d markets have different dynamics. That falls under researching your target market.

Some of the prop makers you listed here, I talk to on regular basis, and a few othes, not listed here, and I've done props myself and have first hand sales numbers too. Lot of content makers talk to each other, hang out, or on occasion collaborate. By all means, I would encourage that you verify the veracity of what I'm saying. This is not about who is right on the forums, I'm just offering some of what I leraned over the years of being a content maker. If you don't want the knowledge, or prefer to make your own mistakes, go for it. It only makes it easier for me (and other vendors) to stay competetive.

I have serious reservations about armchair quarterbacking someone's interest in making a living out of this, because there is a significant amount of misconceptions in forums, and I hate seeing people learning the hard way, and suffering losses.

I don't think anyone is disagreeing with what you've said here.   

I'm the one disagreeing with specific statements (without elaboration) that props make it easier to make it in the business.

What helps one 'make it' is understanding the market segment where they want to sell. It's not always props.  What bothers me is that I hear more and more about props being an easier sell, and I know that is not the case. There is a number of different paths that can work well. Some people may have preference for making props, some people have preference for other things. 
I just don't like throwing newbies (to the business side of it) to the wolves.

if the company changes its direction I think for the number of people who still use Poser this was a big mistake,  that are always the same few people who post things and the most important thing , the new users have virtually disappeared

Younger 3D enthusiasts are playing with game engines. Those things are virtually free, and much more capable.

When things are well made, and well thought out, they will sell. My point was that props aren't any easier of a sell then charactets or clothing in poserdom. Medium quality props won't sell better or bring you more money then medium quality charactets or medium quality clothing.

Sure, there are other 3d markets, but MistyLara has asked about Poser related content. Different 3d markets have different dynamics. That falls under researching your target market.

Some of the prop makers you listed here, I talk to on regular basis, and a few othes, not listed here, and I've done props myself and have first hand sales numbers too. Lot of content makers talk to each other, hang out, or on occasion collaborate. By all means, I would encourage that you verify the veracity of what I'm saying. This is not about who is right on the forums, I'm just offering some of what I leraned over the years of being a content maker. If you don't want the knowledge, or prefer to make your own mistakes, go for it. It only makes it easier for me (and other vendors) to stay competetive.

I have serious reservations about armchair quarterbacking someone's interest in making a living out of this, because there is a significant amount of misconceptions in forums, and I hate seeing people learning the hard way, and suffering losses.

To make money at this, full time living money, and not pocket change you need to develop a large catalog, release often, and find a way to stand out from the crowd.

Only people who consistently get a product in top few of what's hot lists are making  money above minimum wage.

You have to treat it as serious business, with product planing, researching and understanding the market, keep up with tecnology, beautiful marketing and product presentation, and quality product.

Props and scenery are not a sure sell.  Follow the brokerages for a few months and take note of who and what keeps hitting the top spots.

Make friends with a few vendors, offer to test or help eith things here and there, and you will gain an invaluable mentor.

Makes me think of Lance Bass from N Sync.

Hivewire is working on ++ type morphs they showed a few previews on their facebook and in their forums.

kitteh waves

Real company backing a figure is a big deal. Makes Dawn not so third party.

With WM V4, there is more then one out, and none 'official' so, which do you support as a content maket?????

Nice stuff guys and gals!!!! I wanna see moar!!!

Not yet, but if you need it fast, take a morph brush to her and make one ;)