D&D 5E Amazon best and worst sellers for 5e so far
TheSword
Legend
That is the year of release, not the year sales are being measured.
Every product has one aggregated sales rank on Amazon that is comprised of weighted sales numbers with more weight given to recent sales than old ones.
PHB has literally been number 1 every year. But this data just shows that it still is now.
darjr
I crit!
The PHB has had weeks less than #1.
One time Fizbahn’s unseated it for a while.
I think it’s also been the CR books, all in presale, I think, and Curse of Strahd? And maybe Tasha’s and Xanathars.
Other books may have bumped it for shorter times.
Note this is all from memory. Take your salt.
One time Fizbahn’s unseated it for a while.
I think it’s also been the CR books, all in presale, I think, and Curse of Strahd? And maybe Tasha’s and Xanathars.
Other books may have bumped it for shorter times.
Note this is all from memory. Take your salt.
Henadic Theologian
Legend
Take into account that setting books are expected by WotC to be niche products, they don't sell as well as other books, but they still very profitable, and they don't cause burn out like releasing adventures too fast or lead to complaints of bloat, so doing a bunch of setting books allows you to increase the amount of books your selling without the consequences and risks of other higher selling books.
Also a lot of MtG setting books likely sell at MtG LGS instead of Amazon.
Also a lot of MtG setting books likely sell at MtG LGS instead of Amazon.
Parmandur
Book-Friend
As established, these are live sales numbers, not historical, and just for one retailer. Somewhat interesting, still
There are no "player options" books: literally every book with player options has multiple tines more DM information...which makes sense, since WotC has said that DMs do most of the buying, either individually or corporately for the table.
Again, live sales, but also consider: Magic is a very game store centric community (even though most people who play have never been to a game store), so the hardcore Maguc fans would buy where they get their cards...not Amazon, for the dedicated fans.
But the thing is, they didn't hit their numbers: 3E, 3.5, 4E and Essentials all crashed and burned within a few years. The 5E product strategy was explicitly designed around trying to do the opposite of what had failed... and here we are 8 years later, with Rise of Tiamat still in print.
Parmandur
Book-Friend
Heck, not just 5 years old, but reprinting material from the 70's.
The 70's.
Hoard of the Dragin Queen will have been in print longer than 3E and 3.5 combined in a couple months.
darjr
I crit!
Wait?! Really? Wow!
Parmandur
Book-Friend
The 3E PHB was published August 10, 2000, while the 4E PHB was published December 5, 2008. That's 8 years and 4 months.
Hoard of the Dragon Queen was published August 19, 2014.
That means it will hit the combined publication lifetime of all of 3E at Christmas this year. Currently it's only the #6,096 selling book on Amazon...but it is still selling, and you can find it in stores. That's pretty shocking, all things considered.
Lyxen
Great Old One
And this is conveniently ignoring 3.5...
Parmandur
Book-Friend
Well, not out of malice or anything: that's the gobsmacking thing: absolutely no 3E book had as good a run as Hoard of the Dragon Queen, one of the lesst of the 5E books by most measures. Indeed, Tales of the Yawning Portal and every book from 5E that is older than that has outdone every 3x book, including Core!
