D&D 5E Amazon US book sales rank.
- Thread starter darjr
- Start date
bedir than
Hero
That kind of staying power is another indication that the "new edition" will only be minor updates
Hussar
Legend
That is just so stunningly unbelievable. It's jaw dropping really. That an almost ten year old game book is selling at pretty much the same rate as it always has been. I don't think the PHB has ever dropped out of the top hundred (or just barely if it did) for almost a decade. This isn't just a best selling game book, this is getting into best selling book of all time territory. We're talking Stephen King level of sales.
Does anyone know what printing the PHB is on now? Has anyone bought a new PHB recently?
TerraDave
5ever, or until 2024
Or, to get people to buy the new edition, they will need to do more than a minor update.
But this certainly turns up the pressure, whatever they decide.
I was underwhelmed enough by Candlekeep Mysteries that another anthology of very short adventures just doesn't interest me.
G
Guest 7034872
Guest
That #42 is for the list of all US book sales??? Wow.....
They're a weighted sum of all sales on all of the books in Amazon's database. More recent sales have a higher weight than older sales, so it's not just a total number of lifetime sales ranking. The actual weights they use are as far as I know not public knowledge but the further ago the sales are the closer those weights get to 0.
Things shuffle around on the list a bit over time - for example it's just a few hours later and the PHB is now 46. So you see things that are a mix of books that are constantly selling new copies (like the Hungry Little Caterpillar, which is on the list at #19) and things that are hot in the moment (like the current #1 as I type this - Where the Crawdad's Sing - which has a film out right now).
The top part of the list shuffles around a bit because of how it gives more weight to the more recent sales, but being in the top 50 of all books on Amazon probably means that its doing fairly well in recent sales with a good history of more recent (whatever that means for Amazon) older sales.
bedir than
Hero
The PHB is both selling frequently now and a lot over time.
I think it's topped at #3
It's a mark of sales durability. If something is in the top 100 for an extended period of time it means that it's got some level of constant sell through.
Basically its a piece of evidence that the 5e PHB at least is not following the curves that we see in those numbers that Ben Riggs posted - where the first year of sales was huge and then things fell precipitously. If the PHB is in the top 50 sales rank on Amazon still after 8 years it means that even if there was a burst of sales and then a drop off the level its selling at after that drop off is much higher than the drop offs we were looking at in the numbers Ben Riggs posted. Because to be in the top 50 books being sold by Amazon in the US is an impressive feat period, but to be there after 8 years when recent sales get weighted higher than older sales means those recent sales numbers have to be pretty good.
These are things that we all have heard from the dev team - that the sell through rate of the 5e PHB is still high and its surprised them how well its continued to perform - but its a bit of independent corroboration that the numbers aren't just good for RPGs, they're good when compared to the entire book market.
But we don't have any way of knowing what "a lot" is, right? I wonder if anyone has compiled a graph showing its position over time. That might be interesting, especially if we plot specific events or trends on the graph.
bedir than
Hero
There are various threads with snapshots in time that could provide you with some time based data.
But, the details likely don't matter. The sales rank is just more proof that this edition of D&D is doing things that no other ttrpg has ever done - maintain popularity while growing.
Additional proof, D&D ttrpg revenue was up 15% last quarter year to year. With the full D&D segment only down because of Dark Alliance (which sold well enough to change revenue and profits to the positives in 2021)
darjr
I crit!
Those dips in the chart are when it was sold out at Amazon. WotC stopped the printing of the DMG for a short while to print mor PHBs to keep up. (Note I heard this both second hand and mentioned in one of wotcs oodcasts)
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