Bodies and Souls: 20 Templates has been sitting at 99 sales for the last 12 days.
As a little comparison out the gate sales of Masters of Arms was around 1400; I have no idea where it's at now. Admittedly Masters of Arms will have broader appeal because of its size and the fact that its brown but any way you cut it people must like paper...
I'll add my 2 cents since I'm one of the bigger sellers of PDFs (and the fact that I do some work for rpgnow from time to time).
Many of the books in the top 10 are there from the earlier day's of rpgnow.com (which could mean as little as a 3-4 months ago). The number of PDF releases that come out each month seems to grow exponentially. So the competition for sales is getting tougher and tougher. I doubt the 1-10 ranked books will change very much over time... and if some of the books were release today, I doubt they'd reach that rank again.
That's one of the reasons rpgnow did the weekly top 10. Because the the overall rank is somewhat skewed to the time when there wasn't a big number of PDF books. If your book stays in the weekly ranking for a few weeks, you are doing really well. I wouldn't concern myself so much with overall ranking.
With that said, here's some tips for new PDF publishers:
1) Make the product as complete as possible. The larger the sale price the better. I don't find that price has a huge affect on the # of sales. I don't mean over price your stuff (or add a lot of filler content), but better to sell a 72 page book for 6.95 then a 40 page book for 5.00. You'll just make more money.
2) Do some online advertising. Online advertising on sites can be cheap. Enworld may be a little spendy, but there are many other sites that are a great value (i.e. www.gamewyrd.com). There's also a few free banner exchanges out there. Make sure you're on them.
Interesting thread guys... I can't contribute in the numbers as it's not my place. But even in print books are lucky to sell more then 1000 copies so don't get the wrong idea. Most new prints from unknown vendors are lucky to get 500 sales. Sure if you're well known and have a following you can do a lot better 1000-2000 copies in print. But most of the people doing the PDF's are just warming up to the prospects and I hope that RPGNow.com goes a long way to help.
Anyway, for the most part the top 10 of the last week has been very popular. The top 30 is to stagnant. So maybe the 10 ten should be for THIS MONTH or a longer period like 10-15 days? That would make it more stable and/or reset once a month. What do you guys think would be most relevant?
1) Change the top 10 to 2 week?
2) Change the top 10 to HOT THIS MONTH
This thread has been incredibly informative. Thanks to everyone who has posted so far. It's really opened my eyes.
It seems to me that there is definitely a niche out there for more high-quality PDF publishers---those who run their operations like that of a print publisher (with marketing, advertising, convention budget, etc.).
A little follow-up here; the print on demand options are looking much better nowadays too. The following site appears to have some pretty reasonable rates, fast turnarounds (they promise 24-48 hours from order to shipping), and the ability to print books not too far off the quality of what you can get from a regular printer:
Originally posted by rpghost Interesting thread guys... I can't contribute in the numbers as it's not my place. But even in print books are lucky to sell more then 1000 copies so don't get the wrong idea. Most new prints from unknown vendors are lucky to get 500 sales. Sure if you're well known and have a following you can do a lot better 1000-2000 copies in print. But most of the people doing the PDF's are just warming up to the prospects and I hope that RPGNow.com goes a long way to help.
Anyway, for the most part the top 10 of the last week has been very popular. The top 30 is to stagnant. So maybe the 10 ten should be for THIS MONTH or a longer period like 10-15 days? That would make it more stable and/or reset once a month. What do you guys think would be most relevant?
1) Change the top 10 to 2 week?
2) Change the top 10 to HOT THIS MONTH
The larger the sale price the better. I don't find that price has a huge affect on the # of sales. I don't mean over price your stuff (or add a lot of filler content), but better to sell a 72 page book for 6.95 then a 40 page book for 5.00. You'll just make more money.
I agree. What I have noticed is that price seems almost irrelwvant as long as you don't price yourself out. In fact, pricing yourself too low can actually hurt sales - it creates an illusion of a cheap, inferior product.
As far as I'm concerned, reducing the price of stuff only generates extra sales because it's a little extra promotion. The effect of reducing something from $6.95 to $5.00 is much the same as the effect of producing a web-enhancement, news item etc. on the product. Just an excuse to mention it.
Quote:
Many of the books in the top 10 are there from the earlier day's of rpgnow.com (which could mean as little as a 3-4 months ago). The number of PDF releases that come out each month seems to grow exponentially. So the competition for sales is getting tougher and tougher. I doubt the 1-10 ranked books will change very much over time... and if some of the books were release today, I doubt they'd reach that rank again.
Absolutely. I'd never had though it would happen, but the PDF market has reached a similar position to the print market - that of saturation. The pie's still the same size, but now there are hundreds of products competing for those dollars on an even footing where once there were just tens of them.
Just selling at RPGNow with no promotion will result in pretty poor sales. You have so many PDFs there competing on an equal footing that your chances of being the PDF the customer selects are pretty slim.
Of course, my problem with promotion is that I feel obliged to curb it as much as possible because I know it annoys people. I'm convinced I could double my sales with next to no effort, but that doing so would just be irritating to a lot of EN World visitors.
Last edited by Morrus; 13th November 2002 at 07:26 PM..
Originally posted by Morrus Monthly would be my preference. Otherwise it fluctuates so much that it's more just a random list of recent products.
Given that a PDF's shelf life is realistically about 3-4 weeks, a period matching that shelf life would be ideal.
But that would skew books released in the middle of the month.
I think a "Billboard's Top 10" style would work pretty well.
Current Rank | Last Week's Rank | Title
James can even generate the past data from his database. This would allow you to see how a book did in its first few weeks as it moves up and down the chart. (Maybe it's my musical background but I've always wanted to land a number one with a bullet. )
The Top 10 would basically list last weeks sales figures.
Joe
Last edited by jmucchiello; 13th November 2002 at 07:25 PM..
Originally posted by Morrus I agree. What I have noticed is that price seems almost irrelwvant as long as you don't price yourself out. In fact, pricing yourself too low can actually hurt sales - it creates an illusion of a cheap, inferior product.
This is a point I've been trying to get across from day one. So many vendors would come to me wanting to sell their product for $2 or $3. What's the point when the processing charges eat up a large portion of the sale as well? People have to realize that there is a "perceived" quality besides the true quality. For example, a good book priced at $3 might sell a few more copies then if it was at $6.95 but, but the chances are you'd not make up for the lost margin at all. As a rule of thumb I don't like seen PDF's go for less then $5 if at all possible.
Quote:
Originally posted by GMSkarka It seems to me that there is definitely a niche out there for more high-quality PDF publishers---those who run their operations like that of a print publisher (with marketing, advertising, convention budget, etc.).
I'd have to second that ... RPGNow grows steadily and with more and more Out-Of-Print works coming to us (WEG, Atlas, Mongoose, Pinnacle, etc) we expect to see more acceptance of this format for both new AND old product.
I would never say do PDF _instead_ of print, but myself, Monte Cook, Bastin Press, and RPG Objects firmly believe that doing PDF _and_ print runs. Just get the bugs worked out of your PDF first and then send it to the printers
As for our POD options - we're still finalizing them. But the concept of having our vendors pre-pay for 10 copy runs and then warehousing them at RPGShop.com has been well recieved from the Vendors (which was our major hurdle in the past for POD). The printer we're thinking of using isn't the one mentioned above, but POD services are getting very cheap and very high quality. Just ask Goodman Games.
Morrus, so you think a 3 week top list would be better?
Originally posted by jmucchiello James can even generate the past data from his database. This would allow you to see how a book did in its first few weeks as it moves up and down the chart.
So now you want little graphical arrows for it's volocity on the list? Is that really something a customer cares about? The lists are there to help draw attention to "popular" products, not to say X is better or being bought faster then Y.
Quote:
Originally posted by jmucchiello
The Top 10 would basically list last weeks sales figures.
Actually, that's what it is right now - well sort of. It's sales for today - 7 days. They are generated nightly at like 2am or something.
I agree they should probably take a larger sampling so they don't change so quickly. But 2 or 3 weeks seems to be the wiser choice. Maybe it should just be the amount of time till someone would normally fall off the front page.
Tell you what, I'll go change it to 15 days and call it the HOT LIST and we'll see how that works for a bit.
OLD LIST:
1. DM Dungeon Designer (WIN)
2. Modern Day Maps
3. The Guard Tower
4. Death by Corium Light
5. Everyone Else
6. GM Mastery: NPC Essentials
7. 101 Arcane Spell Components
8. 101 Mundane Treasures
9. The Complete Guide to Drow
10. Call of Duty – A Paladin Sourcebook
NEW LIST:
1. The Guard Tower
2. Everyone Else
3. Modern Day Maps
4. The Book of Curses
5. The Complete Guide to Drow
6. GM Mastery: NPC Essentials
7. Call of Duty – A Paladin Sourcebook
8. DM Dungeon Designer (WIN)
9. Skreyn's Register: The Bonds of Magic, Vol. 2 -- The Faithful
10. 101 Mundane Treasures
Now is that any better representation of good product or just a new sorting?
I'm not a publisher/writer and not close to being one, but I thought I offer my 2 kopeks worth.
It would be interesting to hear what Monte Cook's opinions are. (I assume he hasn't been posting under a handle I don't know.) Does anybody know why he went into primarily PDF publishing?
I think one advantage PDFs have from a seller's point of view is how easy they are for certain consumers to buy. Just point, click, and buy. OK, you can do this with Amazon, but you have to wait.... PDFs offer an instant, easy, and painless (assuming they're cheap, and they usually are) purchase.
Originally posted by rpghost
Tell you what, I'll go change it to 15 days and call it the HOT LIST and we'll see how that works for a bit.
I still think that's a little short and that it'll fluctuate too much. I'd go for 30 days, but 3 weeks seems reasonable.
How about this:
1) Drop the Top 30 list. As you say, it's stagnant. Replace it with Top 30 in the last 30 days (or 3 weeks if you prefer).
2) Then, have a Top 10 ever list, just for the gimmick of it, and something fun for the PDF publishers to compete to get onto. It means nothing, but we all watch the list for purile egotistical reasons, so you may as well pander to it. Just not the the extent you do now, where it takes up a lot of space and is essentially useless.
Basically, swap the lengths of the two lists around and increase the recent sales one to 3-4 weeks. I think you'll get the best result that way.
Last edited by Morrus; 13th November 2002 at 08:24 PM..
Given that a PDF's shelf life is realistically about 3-4 weeks, a period matching that shelf life would be ideal.
The PDF shelf life used to be a lot longer. The more items that have been added to RPG now have changed those figures rapidly. Originally it used to take several months before the sales took off. Now they either take off immediately or probably never do.
RPGHost said:
>>>
But even in print books are lucky to sell more then 1000 copies so don't get the wrong idea.
>>>
No legitimate print publisher I'm aware of feels "lucky" to sell 1000 copies. In fact, I strongly doubt that a product that sells 1000 copies is even profitable.
I think it's safer to say that smaller publishers would feel "lucky" to sell 2000-3000 copies, and mid-tier d20 companies regularly sell 3000 or more copies, and would view 1000 copies sold a failure.
Perhaps print publishers can tell me I'm wrong (I only know what people tell me), but I think there's still a VERY wide circulation gap between PDF and print publishing.
Originally posted by tensen The PDF shelf life used to be a lot longer. The more items that have been added to RPG now have changed those figures rapidly. Originally it used to take several months before the sales took off. Now they either take off immediately or probably never do.
Sales plummet when you fall off the front page. It's that simple. Out of sight. No sales. Sales bump when you get a review on a popular board (and when you shamelessly hawk the book on ENWorld in the forums when the topic aligns with the book's topic). That's my experience anyway.
Perhaps print publishers can tell me I'm wrong (I only know what people tell me), but I think there's still a VERY wide circulation gap between PDF and print publishing.
Absolutely - yes, there is. A massive gap.
However, with the vastly lower costs of PDF, I think that a *successful* PDF publisher (one of the top-tier ones) can compete profit-wise with some low-tier print publishers if they handle it right. But it's not easy.
I don't think that the Top 30 list is meaningless to consumers (and perhaps not to publishers, either).
It certainly isn't a direct indication of quality or current sales, but it does allow newcomers to get a quick list of works that might not currently be hot, but have been popular in the past. So if someone comes to RPG now, having just discovered Malhavoc Press, they will have a quick list at their fingertips that includes works from other publishers on other subjects that have been well received.
It could mean the difference between purchasing Dwarf Product A or Dwarf Product B, or cruising into a category that you hadn't intended to check out.
Those lists are as close to browsable shelf space outside of the catagories and current releases as exists on the site (as far as I can find). I can't help but think that removing the list (or shrinking it) will cut the sales of some products from a few per month to zero per month. It's not much difference, but you'd pull the product if you thought those few sales were beneath you.
But sales aside, it does add to the shopping experience for customers so I'm not sure that the decision to remove or contract the Best Sellers list should be taken lightly.
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