[BoVD] How's it doing in the marketplace?

[Gizzard]

The other BoVD thread got me to wondering if the book was doing well, bad or just the same as anything else. So I took a look at Amazon to see where it ranks. I'm not sure what I learned, partly because I'm not absolutely sure how accurate their figures are. (Someone tell me how sorting items by "Bestselling" leads to a title which has a lower "Sales Rank" appearing above one with a higher rank. Or how the #6 item on the list hasnt been released yet. Hmmm.)

Anyway, heres the results:

Monster Manual 2 #147 (Sept)
BoVD #198 (Oct)
Epic Level Hndbk #661 (Jul)
Players Hndbk #733 (Aug 00!)
Masters of the Wild #1100 (Feb)
City of Spider Queen #2018
Silver Marches #7260 (July)
Stronghold Guide #7429 (May)

Can anyone put some more concrete meaning to these numbers? Note also, that I only checked WotC since theoretically they are aiming to sell many many more than the smaller publishers. And I tried to get a wide assortment of stuff rather than anything particularly scientific.

Perhaps someone has another idea of how to research the topic? Or actually knows the answer? ;-)

 

[Crothian]

BOVD is selling well here. I've been to at least one place that was, at least at that time, sold completely out.

 

[Xeriar]

Well, the GURPS Basic book (Softcover) has a rank of 96,670, the Hardcover is just over a million. Of course, top 100,000 is probably not too shabby for a ten-year old book.

Considering the numbers reach well into the millions, #198 is pretty good.

Vampire: The Masquerade: 11,821
Werewolf: The Apocalypse: 24,328
Mage: The Ascension: 39,840

And, heh
Legend of the Five Rings Player's Guide: 2,375,914
Compare to the d20 conversion:
Rokugan: 48,933
Oriental Adventures: 9,578

Cthulhu forever! sitting at 4,894 for the freaking hardcover non-d20 version.

Relics and Rituals II seems to be the best-selling d20 product at 10,690

The numbers are probably a little bit skewed to favor D&D and the World of Darkness series, but even still, looks pretty healthy to me

 

[Gizzard]

Mmmm, for reference, more research reveals:

Wheel of Time (Book 10) (Hardcover) #70
The One Thousand Orcs (Hardcover) #150
Harry Potter (Book 4) (Paperback) #179
Storm of Swords (Paperback) #314
The Silmarillion (Paperback) #384

 

[Mouseferatu]

Unfortunately, these numbers don't really tell us anything, since the vast majority of RPG sales--even online, let alone in person--don't go through Amazon.

 

[MeepoTheMighty]

Unfortunately, these numbers don't really tell us anything, since the vast majority of RPG sales--even online, let alone in person--don't go through Amazon.

No, but I still think it's statistically significant, because I'd bet the gamers who do shop Amazon buy roughly the same products that other gamers do. Then again, that's pure speculation on my part, but I don't think Amazon attracts a more or less vile-darkness-enjoying crowd than any other store.

 

[Sammael99]

Mmmm, for reference, more research reveals:

Wheel of Time (Book 10) (Hardcover) #70
The One Thousand Orcs (Hardcover) #150
Harry Potter (Book 4) (Paperback) #179
Storm of Swords (Paperback) #314
The Silmarillion (Paperback) #384

The thing is bestselling over what period ?

Harry Potter 4 was Amazon's number 1 best selling book for months even before it was released... I seriously doubt that WoT vol. 10 even approached the level of sales HP4 did. So how do they rank it ? If it's this week's bestselling then probably any figure over 100000 means nothing since I doubt that they would sell more than 100000 different books each week... Or do they ?

 

[Buttercup]

Amazon's ranking system clearly isn't measuring how many copies of a title they've ever sold, because I can't believe they sold more BoVD than PHB. It must be a weekly or monthly total of sales, or outstanding orders, or something else similar. It is therefore a useless number for our purposes. Maybe we'll get lucky and Anthony Valterra will drop by, because I bet he knows how many copies they've sold.

 

[Xeriar]

The thing is bestselling over what period ?

Harry Potter 4 was Amazon's number 1 best selling book for months even before it was released... I seriously doubt that WoT vol. 10 even approached the level of sales HP4 did. So how do they rank it ? If it's this week's bestselling then probably any figure over 100000 means nothing since I doubt that they would sell more than 100000 different books each week... Or do they ?

They're obviously counting pre-orders, they've had that in place for who knows how long...

It's probably weighted where each sale today counts for full, yesterday a little less... and so on. There would be a number of simple ways of doing it.

 

[Griswold]

I buy alot of books from Amazon.com, this explains generally what sales rank means

What Sales Rank Means

As an added service for customers, authors, publishers, artists, labels, and studios, we show how items in our catalog are selling. This bestseller list is much like The New York Times Bestsellers List, except it lists millions of items! The lower the number, the higher the sales for that particular title.

The calculation is based on Amazon.com sales and is updated regularly. The top 10,000 best sellers are updated each hour to reflect sales in the preceding 24 hours. The next 100,000 are updated daily. The rest of the list is updated monthly, based on several different factors.

We hope you find the Amazon.com Sales Rank interesting!

Doesn't say much...but there ya have it.

Being a WoTC hardback, I imagine it will sell really well for the first few weeks and then die off as other books are released.

-G.