Getting down to business

Let's say that you have mastered the art of 3D modeling and gained quite a bit of experience in rigging and packaging content. Now you want to enter the exciting world of 3D commerce. The business model used for the resale of 3D assets is called brokerage and it's similar to what Apple uses for its App Store. The content creator sells through an intermediate company, the broker, and they both split the profit in the middle, 50 percent to the author, 50 percent to the broker. While 50 percent can sound like a lot, and it is, the reality of the market is that many products are sold at a very low price, often below $10 and rarely above $20. The only way anybody can make any sort of money with such a low price is by selling large quantities. The broker provides advertising, storage, web bandwidth, and it processes the payment for you. The broker also pays the credit card fees, which are significant, and provides tools for tracking sales. All in all, the broker does a...