D&D General Ed Greenwood Working on Volo's Guide to Ormpur

[DMZ2112]

They would be doing work for hire and it would all belong to WotC either way. This way, they can publish without editor or developer feedback, meaning it can be more of their own voice and artistic choices.

Agreed - I am generally very wary of issues regarding author rights, but the DM's Guild Agreement is a rare case of contract law that is so bad it is good, maybe even for folks without recognized names in the industry.

You're going to make peanuts off of anything you create, and none of it belongs to you, but you gain access to a huge amount of D&D lore for use as a construction kit. The only other way to get that access is to be hired as a freelancer for Wizards, and that's a pretty narrow bottleneck that results in you not making the product you want or retaining ownership anyway.

For me, at least, that's the real dragon's hoard -- I could care less about the SRD 5.1, give me that setting material. Someone's got to iterate on it constructively while Wizards is focused on nostalgia cash-ins, and being a part of that has value on its own.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Agreed - I am generally very wary of issues regarding author rights, but the DM's Guild Agreement is a rare case of contract law that is so bad it is good, maybe even for folks without recognized names in the industry.

You're going to make peanuts off of anything you create, and none of it belongs to you, but you gain access to a huge amount of D&D lore for use as a construction kit. The only other way to get that access is to be hired as a freelancer for Wizards, and that's a pretty narrow bottleneck that results in you not making the product you want or retaining ownership anyway.

For me, at least, that's the real dragon's hoard -- I could care less about the SRD 5.1, give me that setting material. Someone's got to iterate on it constructively while Wizards is focused on nostalgia cash-ins, and being a part of that has value on its own.

I think the biggest issue around the DMs Guild is that most of the content in it doesn't actually use Wizards protected identity content and the creators would make a lot more money if they just published on DriveThruRPG instead. (And based on the merged best seller list, it's not like DMs Guild stuff seems to even sell more copies than DTRPG stuff does.) It's one website with two front entrances, so the same library, same great customer service, etc.

 

[dave2008]

I think the biggest issue around the DMs Guild is that most of the content in it doesn't actually use Wizards protected identity content...

I think that is probably true, but the content I buy from it typically does have WotC IP in it.

...and the creators would make a lot more money if they just published on DriveThruRPG instead. (And based on the merged best seller list, it's not like DMs Guild stuff seems to even sell more copies than DTRPG stuff does.) It's one website with two front entrances, so the same library, same great customer service, etc.

I have heard from creators before that you get much more traction on DMsGuild than DriveThruRPG. That may have changed though as DMsGuild has so much on it now it is hard to differentiate your product.

EDIT:
Just for reference there are 167 Adamantine books on DrivethruRPG and 116 on DMsGuild and a couple of those on DTRPG are DMsGuild products for some reason. So basically, DMsGuild is a big chunk of the money making market.

DTRPG:

DMsGuild:

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I have heard from creators before that you get much more traction on DMsGuild than DriveThruRPG. That may have changed though as DMsGuild has so much on it now it is hard to differentiate your product.

Maybe so, but the sales chart suggests otherwise.

I see just one DMs Guild product in the Adamantine tier (Minsc and Boo's Journal of Villainy), tons of OSR stuff, and a good amount of third party stuff like the Gardens of Ynn in the D&D-adjacent space. TSR, WotC and Extra Life books are also represented, but I don't think they represent a regular DMs Guild publisher in any way.

There are two dozen or so (I stopped counting eventually) in the Mithril tier, but again, they're massively outnumbered by OSR and third party stuff.

Things actually get worse at the Platinum tier, with DMs Guild material barely represented, while third party D&D adjacent stuff is all over it.

The company doesn't show all the listings for the tiers below that, since it would run into the tens of thousands of titles.

That means there's a handful of third-party DMs Guild stuff that breaks through, but for the most part, if you want hope to sell in the top 2% of all products across the One Book Shelf sites, you're more likely to get the big sales outside of the DMs Guild. And you get double the commission.

Note that only about 42% of products even make it to the Copper level, which means 51 or more sales.

 

[dave2008]

Maybe so, but the sales chart suggests otherwise.

I see just one DMs Guild product in the Adamantine tier (Minsc and Boo's Journal of Villainy), tons of OSR stuff, and a good amount of third party stuff like the Gardens of Ynn in the D&D-adjacent space. TSR, WotC and Extra Life books are also represented, but I don't think they represent a regular DMs Guild publisher in any way.

There are two dozen or so (I stopped counting eventually) in the Mithril tier, but again, they're massively outnumbered by OSR and third party stuff.

Things actually get worse at the Platinum tier, with DMs Guild material barely represented, while third party D&D adjacent stuff is all over it.

The company doesn't show all the listings for the tiers below that, since it would run into the tens of thousands of titles.

That means there's a handful of third-party DMs Guild stuff that breaks through, but for the most part, if you want hope to sell in the top 2% of all products across the One Book Shelf sites, you're more likely to get the big sales outside of the DMs Guild. And you get double the commission.

Note that only about 42% of products even make it to the Copper level, which means 51 or more sales.

I think you are mistaken, your are only looking at DTRPG sales list (some products are cross listed). Look at the post above yours again. Evidently you were typing your response when I added the sales charts for DTRPG and DMsGuild (they are not the same).

DTRPG has been around much longer (2004 vs 2016), yet 116 DMsGuild products have reached Adamantine (.39%) vs 167 for DTRPG (only .13%). For a platform that has been around a lot longer and has lot more products on it, it doesn't perform was well as DMsGuild IMO. Notice that gold, platinum, mithral, and adamantine all have a higher % for DMsGuild than DTRPG. However, the total % of ranked products is higher for DTRPG (41.37%) than DmG (37.93%). This could easily be explained by having a 12 year head start though!

 

[EthanSental]

Just noticed the ad banner at the top for Ed greenwood.net and some clothing items.

It might just be me, but I wish lived near the library where Ed worked(s) as he seems like a lively and energetic story teller…and seems to enjoy just giving people a creative nugget that their imagination and can run with.

 

[Shiroiken]

Just to be clear, you do know he already has books on DMsGuild about the Forgotten Realms?

I didn't, I was just being snarky about the fact that WotC doesn't care about the realms outside of the Sword Coast. I'm glad Ed has been able to expand the post-Sundering Realms, which has been a concern for our DM who loves the Realms (I'm ambivalent).

 

[dave2008]

I didn't, I was just being snarky about the fact that WotC doesn't care about the realms outside of the Sword Coast. I'm glad Ed has been able to expand the post-Sundering Realms, which has been a concern for our DM who loves the Realms (I'm ambivalent).

Here is the list of all of the 5e supplements he had credits on in the DMsGuild. Note all of them are at least platinum ranked and most are mithral ranked. However, some of these only have a small contribution by Ed while others have a large contribution.

EDIT: Oddly that list only has the FG version of the Border Kingdoms, so here it the link the print/PDF version: The Border Kingdoms: A Forgotten Realms Campaign Supplement.

 

[Rabulias]

Just for reference there are 167 Adamantine books on DrivethruRPG and 116 on DMsGuild and a couple of those on DTRPG are DMsGuild products for some reason. So basically, DMsGuild is a big chunk of the money making market.

Thanks for this interesting info. Did you compile that by hand or is there somewhere on the sites that summarizes that info?

I wonder if some DTRPG items get counted as DM's Guild items if they are sold through that interface?

 

[dave2008]

Thanks for this interesting info. Did you compile that by hand or is there somewhere on the sites that summarizes that info?

I wonder if some DTRPG items get counted as DM's Guild items if they are sold through that interface?

Look at the screen clips I posted. The total sales and % are listed below the medal.

I quick visual review showed some DMsGuild products on DTRPG, but I didn't notice any the other way.