Book sales per company? What's average?

[Scaramanga]

I was wondering about sales. How many copies does the average adventure module sell? These figures are easy to find in other areas, such as how many copies of a novel a publishing house has sold, but I'm rather stumped concerning what, exactly, a publisher like Bastion, Fast Forward, Necromancer, Troll Lord, et al, can expect in terms of sales. Three hundred units? Three thousand? How does this compare to a book released by WotC or White Wolf?

 

[Scorpio]

I don't think any publisher will disclose even vaguely accurate sales figures in an open forum.

 

[Crothian]

They have disclosed vague info before. But exact numbers are not disclosed, RPG Industry is different from the book industry in that regard.

Edit: This thread on the best selling d20 products might offer some insight.

http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=82669&highlight=20,000

 

[Jim Butler]

I was wondering about sales. How many copies does the average adventure module sell? These figures are easy to find in other areas, such as how many copies of a novel a publishing house has sold, but I'm rather stumped concerning what, exactly, a publisher like Bastion, Fast Forward, Necromancer, Troll Lord, et al, can expect in terms of sales. Three hundred units? Three thousand? How does this compare to a book released by WotC or White Wolf?

When WotC releases a core book, they can expect to sell around 50,000 copies.

In today's marketplace, a new d20 publisher *might* sell 300 copies of his product. If it's not d20, 150-200 is probably closer. And that assumes you can get the big distributors (like Alliance, Gameboard, ACD, and others) to carry your product.

Ever since 3.5 launched, RPG sales have been down across all publishers (this isn't my guessing, it's information from the distributors I've talked to about sales in the industry). No single company has been spared this downturn.

There are lots of reasons for why this is happening (and everyone has their favorite), but the sheer tidal wave of products flooding the markets right now is cutting everyone. We thought it was bad when there were 84 products released into the hobby in a month; January saw 124.

 

[malladin]

In today's marketplace, a new d20 publisher *might* sell 300 copies of his product. If it's not d20, 150-200 is probably closer. And that assumes you can get the big distributors (like Alliance, Gameboard, ACD, and others) to carry your product.

Crikey, this sounds a lot lower than when I last looked into going to print. I've not had a PDF out for a while, so I don't know if this trend is mirrored in electronic products. If not, could pdf and print be starting to merge in terms of sales?

Ben, Malladin's Gate

 

[Flyspeck23]

Crikey, this sounds a lot lower than when I last looked into going to print. I've not had a PDF out for a while, so I don't know if this trend is mirrored in electronic products. If not, could pdf and print be starting to merge in terms of sales?

Don't think so. Although January was a pretty good month for many PDF publishers (thanks to the EN Publishing Mega Sale), as was March (thanks to GM's Day), that's not necessarily a trend.

 

[Razuur]

300 copies!

Holy smokes. I had no idea it was that low.

That number suprises me, as I would have expected it to be ten times that amount.

My RP purchasing has not really fluctuated much since D20 came out. The real difference is that since products are getting mroe expensive, I tend to get fewer of them. Last month I really blew my budget with Love and War, Frost and Fur, OGL Ancients, and B5 Centauri Sourcebook. But while that was an aberration for me - I tend to pick up between $80 to $100 per month in purchases. I am already close to spent this month with the Medeival Players Handbook, Scrolls of Skellos, and the latest Oathbound. I was trying to get Arduin in there, but... that would blow my budget again so I doubt I can.

I am so surprised that companies can stay afloat on selling so few products.

I am also surprised, because RP products ( in d20 IMHO ) being released nowadays are some of the best products I have seen for D20 (and beyond frankly). These are the products I dreamed D20 would prooduce when D20 first came out.

It saddens me immensely to hear that things are so dire for RP publishers right now.

You all have my best, and I am trying to do my part in keeping you afloat!

Razuur

 

[Monte At Home]

Double post

 

[Monte At Home]

Well, keep in mind that Jim is giving you worst case scenario for a startup, not the sales of a well-established, successful (at least in the relative context) company. Sales between game companies can differ by more than an order of magnitude, or even two orders.

I've talked to distributors as well and I don't believe that things are as dire as others will tell you, at least not for the industry as a whole.

Still, what Jim is saying is, "now's not a great time to start a game company," and I think that's probably true. What the facts really say to me is, without good distribution, some experience (maybe some luck) and something that will make you stand out in the marketplace, there's no reason to think that a startup will be viable. I think that times are dire for the guy who wants to start his own company to get a book published. Even if a major distributor will pick up a new, unestablished company--and that's a big if--he'll likely order less than 30-50 copies. And there are only a handful of major distributors. When you do the math, you end up with the 300 copies or so number. Not a good outlook.

 

[Jim Butler]

Well, keep in mind that Jim is giving you worst case scenario for a startup, not the sales of a well-established, successful (at least in the relative context) company. Sales between game companies can differ by more than an order of magnitude, or even two orders.

Absolutely. I'm not trying to say that sales of Bastion, Green Ronin, or Malhavoc are at the anemic sales levels I mentioned. But unless you plan to use Monte's name, get some uber license, or release a new product into the marketplace, then I wouldn't count on sales beyond what I mentioned above.

And by "new" I mean something that we haven't seen before. Making a "better" product isn't going to push your sales up.