D&D 5E One Year of DM's Guild

I'm A Banana · Jan 1, 2017

DM's Guild came out mid-January 2016 with a bang.

I've spent about a year making and releasing products on it, as kind of a side-thing (about 10 hrs/week on it, or so)

Here's what I've found.

Some surprises:

Pay What You Want doesn't necessarily mean more people pick up your product
I made about $0.003 per word (would've made TEN TIMES that amount writing for EN5IDER!)
Products based on WotC storylines generally sell better than those based on other stuff

I know there's a few other creators on here. Want to do a compare/contrast? I'm positive other folks have different experiences that can add to a better understanding of this new marketplace.

Morrus · Jan 1, 2017

Out of curiosity, how does time factor into it? So you make more a year in or less than a year or six months ago? DMsG is growing, but does that mean it's harder to stand out, or that it's easier to find customers?

CapnZapp · Jan 2, 2017

Wonderwaffles said:
People don’t comment on products

This is actually big, at least to me.

The problem is DMs Guild is about sales. The platform has no incentive to provide actually useful review material; if most comments are made by happy customers, the way downsides and flaws aren't highlighted is not a problem for the sales platform.

Contrast this to a d20-era 3PP publication (say, from Necromancer Games just to mention an example). Even if it was sometimes more to it than just a first-page google result, I could usually always find at least one, if not three, reviewers going through the module, giving me a much better idea what to expect.

I'm generally much more happy using products I feel others are using too. Using 3PP materials nobody is discussing simply isn't a priority to me.

CapnZapp · Jan 2, 2017

CapnZapp said:
I'm generally much more happy using products I feel others are using too. Using 3PP materials nobody is discussing simply isn't a priority to me.

I would love it if ENWorld set up a subforum where each new DMsG product triggered the automatic creation of a new thread (polling that site can't be hard), essentially bringing discussion away from the isolated comments system over there.

It would then make it easy to start discussion about a particular product - just ask your question in its thread, and that thread would pop back up to page one. You wouldn't have to visit each individual product page to find any discussion. There would be one single place where you could easily find ALL discussion. Leading, I hope, to much more actual discussion...

This would also be much more valuable customer feedback, at least for me, than the sales platform's grading and comments system. Simply sort this subforum on number of replies, and you would instantly see the most interesting products (the ones that garnered actual discussion).

As it is now, I have next to no way to get an actual overview. The DMsG site certainly doesn't allow you to collate comments, and if a product is discussed it can be anywhere. The only way to get an overview would be to google each and every single product individually - a hopeless endeavor.

Sorting that site on grade feels like Amazon. I'm just far too aware how relatively worthless simple grades are to me. If you can even trust them; far too many sales platforms simply make up or inflate grades. Compare to IMDB or BGG - even though they attempt to make grades more useful (by weighing grades made up of few or biased graders), I still end up getting much more useful info from actual reviews or actual discussion.

MerricB · Jan 2, 2017

CapnZapp said:
I would love it if ENWorld set up a subforum where each new DMsG product triggered the automatic creation of a new thread (polling that site can't be hard), essentially bringing discussion away from the isolated comments system over there.

There are just too many of them. You're talking of hundreds of threads each week... and any discussion gets lost in the flood.

And the sales aren't there to generate discussion of most products. D&D sells millions of books. The best selling products on the DMs Guild - all 34 of them - have only a bit over 1000 sales each. That of over 7,300 products...

cbwjm · Jan 2, 2017

There are a few products I should have commented on, at best, I rated them but a full on review is not something I'm really all that good at. I know that I have glanced at some products but passed them over because they haven't had a review and I wouldn't be surprised if others do that same.

bmfrosty · Jan 2, 2017

I have to agree, onebookshelf is pretty underdeveloped feature wise, and I'm not even a seller. I'd like to be able to sort purchases in to different libraries, and also be able to see more metadata about each product so I could search better.

LordEntrails · Jan 2, 2017

CapnZapp said:
I would love it if ENWorld set up a subforum where each new DMsG product triggered the automatic creation of a new thread (polling that site can't be hard), essentially bringing discussion away from the isolated comments system over there. ...

Nice idea, but as others have said, pretty useless. There is already a sub-forum on ENWorld for DMsG stuff, but it gets hardly any posts, and speaking from experience, no one comments on product specific threads. People say they want to read critical reviews before buying products, but they refuse to make reviews themselves, claiming they aren't any good at it etc.

Maybe they aren't any good at it, but a simple and honest comment from someone is better than nothing. You don't have to be a professional writer to post a useful review.

Ah well, just one more aspect of our world where people aren't willing to step up and be part of the solution. But are happy to complain about it.

Ancalagon · Jan 2, 2017

I'm a bit... opposed to the "pay as you want" feature. In a way it's brilliant, but if this option is available, for that option to *make sense*, the decision on what to pay should be made *after* you've had a chance to read/use the material, not before!

I mean, some works are... erm... not good... while others are brilliant.

MerricB · Jan 2, 2017

Ancalagon said:
I'm a bit... opposed to the "pay as you want" feature. In a way it's brilliant, but if this option is available, for that option to *make sense*, the decision on what to pay should be made *after* you've had a chance to read/use the material, not before!

You can go back and pay later.