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Originally Posted by Angellis_ater  @One Bad Egg: Considering your RPGNow ratings I'm surprised you haven't broken even yet. Was it the art that "broke the camels back" on this project? I came here to congratulate you on selling well, but it seems I was misguided in my views. |
We're selling well in terms of how that list measures it, but keep in mind all of our products have been around for less than a month, less than a week in many cases. The hot sellers list definitely weights newness heavily; the Apelord, which we released at the beginning of October, has sold in the mid-80's in terms of quantity. All of the others are hovering around 20-ish or less.
It's not a true complaint, mind you. We're happy to be seeing these sales out the gate, and they're at least comparable to my experience wearing my Evil Hat publisher hat in terms of sales potential in a month.
But yeah, as others have noted, the full color artwork thing does boost the expenses a bit (but we're also paying writers, editors, and layout on top of that -- small fry costs individually, but they add up in aggregate).
Saleswise, we'd need another 60 or so on RPGNow (or 50 or so on IPR) in order to cover the Apelord's expenses, at its pricepoint. That said, we did intentionally underprice that product a little in order to get our name out there, and we had two pieces of art in that one, so this is not a shock. Some of that's gotta be seen as a promotional-expense sacrifice.
The other products are perhaps too new (a week or less) to be making many predictions about their staying-power and long-term expenses-neutralization. Their expenses are generally lower, too, and most would break even or get profitable if they reached the Apelord's current level of sales. The next few weeks will be telling, there.
Then, beyond this, there's the longer haul -- after the initial burst, what will their rate of sale look like over the course of a year rather than in their first month? If they stay low-key but consistent, we'll eventually hit our minimum goal of breaking even in every case (I hope).
But for the moment, I'm looking at the short-term concerns simply because we're needing to "make our bones" and get established as a real name in
4e. I think we're off to a good start, but any fan-support we can get in terms of public reviews, tell-your-friends efforts, etc will help make a modestly successful launch into a solidly successful one. So that's what motivated my comments upthread.
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