D&D 5E Amazon's current ranking of the DMG.

[Astrosicebear]

Amazons rankings for book sales are based primarily on sales, with a bit on conversion. Conversion is search to sale ratio. Large quanitity orders are not rated as high as low quanityt orders. So you couldnt buy 1000 units and boost sales by a huge margin. But it is reported that NYTimes Best Sellers game the system by funneling money to "purchasers" around the world who buy 1 or 2 copies, thus boosting rankings. High rankings equates to higher sales, so they find it profitable.

I doubt WOTC is doing this. So basic fact of matter is, if its ranked high, its selling high.

 

[Mercurius]

The fact that we don't see stuff like that happen leads me to believe their algorithm is a little bit more complicated.

True, true. I was exaggerating to make a point (and amuse myself).

Yep. At least, as far as the consumer is concerned, it really is only for marketing purposes. Since we don't know how the number is generated, we can't measure anything with it.

I hear that. And so the rich get richer. But it would be nice to have some sense of time-span, some idea of what it means. I wonder if there is an official explanation for sales rank?

 

[TerraDave]

It gives us relative sales. Which is something.

We know that, relatively, the D&D core books have dominated "fantasy gaming" (which includes things like zelda and minecraft books) for the last 4 months and did well on the overall sales charts at various points, outselling many many other books at least some of the time.

 

[Anth]

i saw DMG as high as place 7 at amazon yesterday. Did anyone saw if it went higher?

 

[TerraDave]

i saw DMG as high as place 7 at amazon yesterday. Did anyone saw if it went higher?

Its number 6 in "new releases"

http://www.amazon.com/gp/new-releases/books/ref=sv_b_1

 

[Boarstorm]

It's #1 in Fantasy Gaming. Which might be expected.

 

[Mistwell]

Amazon best seller list is roughly based on a daily unit sales measure (rolling average), as discovered by Hugh Howey in some Author Earnings Reports he commissioned. Nobody has found a way to manipulate it so far, unlike the NYT best seller list.

There are a lot of his Sales Reports, but you can see some here.