D&D 5E 5E Books and Amazon Sales Rank

[Mercurius]

My apologies...I tried putting this list in spoilers for clarity's sake, but was having trouble not creating multiple spoiler tags. Anyhow...

77. Fizban's Treasure of Dragons (2021)
89. Call of the Netherdeep (2022)
229. Player's Handbook (2014)
334. Tasha's Cauldron of Everything (2020)
481. Monster Manual (2014)
539. Xanathar's Guide to Everything (2017)
587. Dungeon Master's Guide (2014)
740. Volo's Guide to Monsters (2016)
793. Wild Beyond the Witchlight (2021)
1272. Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes (2018)
1963. Candlekeep Mysteries (2021)
2086. Eberron (2019)
2149. Waterdeep: Dragon Heist (2018)
2150. Strixhaven (2021)
2335. Ravenloft (2021)
2359. Wildemount (2020)
2381. Tales from the Yawning Portal (2017)
2836. Theros (2020)
3237. Icewind Dale (2020)
3530. Curse of Strahd (2016)
4122. Ghosts of Saltmarsh (2019)
4130. Waterdeep: Mad Mage (2018)
4641. Baldur's Gate: Descent (2019)
4667. Tomb of Annihilation (2017)
4987. Ravnica (2018)
5188. Storm King's Thunder (2016)
6731. Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide (2015)
7452. Hoard of the Dragon Queen (2014)
7618. Out of the Abyss (2015)
8503. Acquisitions Incorporated (2019)
15429. Rise of Tiamat (2014)
26147. Princes of the Apocalypse (2015)

Can anyone make sense of the above? I mean, does the Amazon algorithm mean anything? I'm still not certain how it works, but assume it has some degree of correlation with ongoing sales.

A few things that strike me:

• Splats sell really well. They account for four of the top 10, and some of those books go back several years.
• Older adventures don't sell all that well, although this isn't all that surprising.
• Was Acquisitions Incorporated a dud? Second lowest and it is only two years old.
• Setting books seem to be solid, if unspectacular. Eberron is #1, still.
• Of adventures, Strahd, Dragon Heist, and Tales seem to be holding consistent sales the best.
• The worst-selling, relative to year and rank, seem to be Icewind Dale, Ghosts of Saltmarsh, Baldur's Gate, and Acquisitions Incorporated. Princes too, but it is really old.
• General trend: Best ongoing sellers are (obviously) core rulebooks, then splats, then settings, then adventures.
• General trend: Adventures sell really well at first, then drop quickly (e.g. Wild is falling behind the splats already).

 

[TerraDave]

The main thing is that sales rankings are finally going back to normal. When I get a chance I will look at some older sales threads, but WotC had so many top sellers for so long.

The second is that they have come out with 32 books, plus the box sets. 5e is under-supported no longer.

As for the question, the long standing pattern is that core books sell better then splats which do better then adventures. But adventures may facilitate sales of other books.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

There is nothing particularly surprising there. The things that are just released/announced at the top, and the really old stuff (apart from core rules) at the bottom.

Splats sell really well. They account for four of the top 10, and some of those books go back several years.

This has long been known to be the case. The main thing is players buy them. Adventures are pretty much only bought by DMs.

Was Acquisitions Incorporated a dud?

That was certainly my impression. It barely gets mentioned anywhere. I haven't got it.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

There is limited value to this data without having this sort of data going back to the launch of 5e.

But yeah adventures Spike early, mostly bought by DMS or if they have interesting lore also by fans of lore, but them drop down as they old little appeal to players.

PHB, Splat Books, and Settings books tend to be more resilient, because they appeal to new players.

One thing is the SCAG is by far the oldest and the most critized setting book, which it barely qualifies to be called really, in previous editions it would be called a regional book, so it's lack of current sales should not be taken as reflective of the popularity of the Forgotten Realms. A new FR setting book that goes into more details about none Swordcoast regions with new player and DM options would out sell Eberron and CR easily.

It's also interesting that despite being an older book, Eberron is still out selling Wildemount (which was a well designed book as some who isn't a CR fan, it's just a cool setting to me). It under cuts the idea that CR is the primary driving force of D&D's surging popularity, when really its just one source among many.

 

[Morrus]

Yeah, a better metric would be figures during the first month of release for each. Otherwise older stuff drops and new stuff comes in at the top, as should be the way in any kind of bestseller list. That's almost more just a ranking of how old each book is, with the exception of the core books.

 

[darjr]

There are snapshots of rankings all over ENWorld. It would be interesting to gather them all.

 

[darjr]

Fizban’s is back in the top 20 again. I think it hit 1 again too but I dint have a photo.

It’s cool and important but also a lot noisy at the moment.

 

[Steampunkette]

Critical Role.

Starting in 2015, they were quite popular by 2017. By 2019 they were so popular they could afford to break off from Geek n' Sundry and become their own thing.

Look at the four splat books at the top. No specific setting, more or less, compared to SCAG. Something you can use for a fresh new campaign in a homebrew campaign setting. Yeah, Wildemount is an Xandria setting book, but Critical Role encourages people to create their -own- thing.

As far as PHBs and stuff: Lots of people head to a gaming shop for their first purchase but the convenience of online shopping during a global pandemic... Mmf...

 

[see]

The Amazon "Sales Rank" algorithm is secret, but reportedly combines a lot of stuff (including page hits), and the decay-over-time isn't disclosed. So I mostly treat it as noise.

 

[HomegrownHydra]

The Amazon "Sales Rank" algorithm is secret, but reportedly combines a lot of stuff (including page hits), and the decay-over-time isn't disclosed. So I mostly treat it as noise.

No, the Sales Rank is just that, sales. And people have been able to figure out the algorithm. It's pretty simple and emphasizes consistency rather than short term spikes.