DMs Guild Pay What You Want on the DMs Guild - An Analysis and Explanation

[Morrus]

As a data point, here's one of my PWYW efforts on an OBS site. I made about $60 on over 1,300 downloads (under half a cent per download - essentially nothing at all). Content-wise, that is for a full-color, high production value, 40+ page book.



The reason the royalties are such a low percentage of gross there is because there's a handful of PoD versions in there, which pushes the effective gross up. So ignore the gross figure.

 

[CapnZapp]

I like PWYW, but so often they equate with "free". Which is easier to dismiss.
When I opted to price my products, I wanted them behind a pay wall to avoid the "free" stigma. I also wanted them priced low, as PWYW often asks people to throw in a buck or two and I didn't want people paying that much for my content. I wanted them to pay... but not that much.

There is a disadvantage by going "low" but not "free" - you require the customer to enter payment data (credit card details or PayPal or whatever). Doing that is a nuisance if you're not a regular customer on the site: it takes time, the account data might get stolen, there's the risk of fraud etc.

Many people might be interested in your work, but not be THAT interested.

By this I mean only that by going completely free, or pay what you want with zero included, you increase the chance that a customer will have a look at your work.

 

[CapnZapp]

PS. I consider early entries on the DMG as "notice me" efforts.

I'm not sure the income from going "low" allows me to quit my day job. Better to go PWYW/free until WotC hires me...

 

[Jimbro]

As a data point, here's one of my PWYW efforts on an OBS site. I made about $60 on over 1,300 downloads (under half a cent per download - essentially nothing at all). Content-wise, that is for a full-color, high production value, 40+ page book.

View attachment 74899

The reason the royalties are such a low percentage of gross there is because there's a handful of PoD versions in there, which pushes the effective gross up. So ignore the gross figure.

Wow. That's crazy, especially when you consider it's so easy to go back and pay something for a product after downloading it for free... I wonder why more people don't do that.

 

[Morrus]

Wow. That's crazy, especially when you consider it's so easy to go back and pay something for a product after downloading it for free... I wonder why more people don't do that.

Well, luckily that particular product serves also as an ad for a whole product line. It cost a couple of grand to make (not counting my writing time), including all the full colour art and layout and stuff, so $60 total income would be a disaster otherwise. But I'd have been OK with making this one free given its purpose.

I mainly posted it because I didn't want you to think your products were deficient in some way; it's - IME - a universal experience with PWYW.

Your experience with reviews on OBS sites I share, too. The last comment any ENP product got there was back in October 2015, and that was for a 3/page free preview of something. Folks just don't tend to review stuff.

 

[Jester David]

There is a disadvantage by going "low" but not "free" - you require the customer to enter payment data (credit card details or PayPal or whatever). Doing that is a nuisance if you're not a regular customer on the site: it takes time, the account data might get stolen, there's the risk of fraud etc.

Many people might be interested in your work, but not be THAT interested.

By this I mean only that by going completely free, or pay what you want with zero included, you increase the chance that a customer will have a look at your work.

This only affects those people not just unwilling to pay for my work, but unwilling to pay for *anyone's* work including some fantastic stuff by other great fan publishers, content by well established and reputable 3rd party publishers, expansion content for official adventures by the original authors, content by former WotC designers, and even official PDFs.

At that point, I'm not sure I want their downloads if they're that entitled they with *only* take free content and won't even pay for WotC PDF material.

Y'know, plus much of my stuff is available free on my website as OGL content. It's revised and expanded for the PDF but not new...

 

[Sacrosanct]

Well, luckily that particular product serves also as an ad for a whole product line. .

Bingo. That to me is one of the best values of the items. I only have one PWYW product more than a dozen pages or so; a full RPG book. I've actually had better luck with people paying for that one, but that was almost entirely when it was released. 99% of downloads after that first month people stopped paying



My one-page adventures have around 2000 downloads each, with about $25 in earnings each, by comparison.

 

[Weird Dave]

I've got 5 products up on the DMsGuild site at low prices that I tried to price in relationship to their content (an article on the Plane of Elemental Fire for $1.99 with new monsters, adventure sites, and hooks; a 4-hour adventure mod that fits easily into the Moonsea region for $2.99; a smaller article detailing the history and faculty of a wizard guild, the Guild of Wintercrest, for $0.99; a smaller article adding the School of Cryomancy tradition for wizards and a pile of new thematic spells for $0.99; and the first in a series of Undermountain adventures that includes a history and overview of the dungeon, patron details on the Yawning Portal, random dungeon dressing tables, and a short 2-hour adventure for low-level characters for $2.99).

None of these are high movers, I haven't received any reviews from them, and shortly after release they are buried by the other content on the site. I've been worried that I priced them too high, especially looking at the number of PWYW and $0.00 content out there. The prime benefit of a PWYW title on OBS - getting a list of marketable people who at least went through the process to add your product to their library - isn't available right now on the DMsGuild site, so I've been very hesitant to put a product up for that.

Nobody gets into RPG design expecting to get rich, but it's nice to be able to get some compensation for the work that gets done. I might slash the prices in half soon to see if that does anything.

 

[ThirdWizard]

I have a modest little addition to the PWYW section of the DM's Guild. It's a small data point, but in about a week's worth of being up, it has been downloaded 166 times and 12 people have paid (so a 0.07% pay rate). I never expected to make any money off of it, but it is interesting what a low percentage of people do pay when it is PWYW.

I think a lot of people see something as PWYW and the barrier to obtain the items becomes so low that there really isn't a reason not to click on it and add it to your cart. With about 10 minutes worth of time, you can add a hundred items, download them all, and peruse them later or never look at them again. I know I've been guilty of going on a binge download and not even looking at something. Then, months later, I'll be looking over my downloads section, and I'll see a bunch of stuff that I've never even opened. So even if an item has been downloaded 1,000 times, there's no way to tell if a dozen, a hundred, or several hundred people have even read the work in question.

I think it's partially this uncertainty that makes PWYW dangerous. Oh, not dangerous in the sense that you shouldn't do it, but in the fact that it is difficult to know the numbers or expectations of readers, and use that to gauge future ideas you have. Working on Volume 2 now, it would be nice to have some feedback on my product, for example, and I feel that if I had charged money then people would be more willing to give feedback (negative feedback is still feedback) or review than they are with PWYW. It's easier to ignore, I suppose is what I'm saying. That's probably one of the big reasons people charge money. Yes, less people may read your product, but the ones that do will feel a bit more mentally invested in your product, because they actually did invest in it in a literal sense.

 

[FrogReaver]

Wow. That's crazy, especially when you consider it's so easy to go back and pay something for a product after downloading it for free... I wonder why more people don't do that.

Could be they didn't like the product that much?