D&D 5E What a small industry 5e publishing really is, and WOTC are thieves.

[FangTheDelectable]

I never realized how small this industry is until now. I assumed that huge industry names like "Ed Greenwood" who has written thousands of novels for TSR/Wotc would sell 100,000 copies easy. But its only just today that his Forgotten Realms supplement, Border Kingdoms, after a year, had sold 2,500 copies.

Given that most are sold at $15 and WIZARDS OF THE COAST TAKES 50%. That leaves $18,750 minus art and split with other authors.
He probably made $5,000 minus taxes.

Not surprising he still has to work at a library.

Incredibly sad.

 

[Morrus]

WotC doesn't take 50%. DMs Guild does, which is a cooperative venture between OBS (DTRPG) and WotC. Whatever WotC's share of that is, it's a lot less than 50% of the product price. DTRPG's usual cut of a product is 35%. Print-on-Demand products complicate that, as individual printing costs have to be factored in.

In comparison, selling a book into retail is usually at 40-50% of the cover price. So it's a better deal than that.

Nobody makes 100K sales of a single product at an OBS site, let alone easily.

 

[overgeeked]

No one goes into RPGs for the money.

Ed would have been much better off had he held onto the Forgotten Realms and written them up as novels. Not a lot better off, but somewhat. And working at a library is an amazing job. He might not want to leave it. Most librarians don’t. They hang on until the very last.

 

[BookTenTiger]

I think you meant to write that WotC are Rogues. TSR were Thieves.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I used to work for a small book store. It failed and we had to send unsold books back. Depending on the publisher, we got back 30-48% of the price.

Under standard royalties, an author gets roughly 20 to 30% of the publisher's revenue for a hardcover, 15% for a trade paperback, and 25% for an eBook. So, very roughly, every hardcover release that earns out brings the author something like 25% of all revenue earned by the publisher.

Are Royalties Fair? A Publisher Weighs In — Literary Agent Mark Gottlieb

The Authors Guild released a chilling report on January 5th showing a drastic decline in author earnings over the last decade. The New York Times article on the report largely blames this decline on Amazon’s dominance of the book marketplace. There’s no getting around the reality of this. Amaz

literaryagentmarkgottlieb.com

I don't see WotC being worse than other publishers. Note that publishers aren't the only companies that get a piece of the action. Amazon typically gets 15% of the price of a book sold on their website (and it seems to be the same whether it's an ebook or a new hardcover/softcover).

 

[J-H]

The 80/20 principle would suggest that 80% of the revenue is made by 20% of the authors. For publishing, it may be worse and is probably more like 90/10.
50% of the sale price going to the authorial+art team is well above industry standards and is pretty good.
It's a setting book for a niche market, not something huge amounts of people are going to buy.

The "starving artist" and "writer working at 10pm after a day at the main job" are stereotypes for good reasons.

 

[MatthewJHanson]

Yeah, I think the issue is that you had unrealistic expectations of the RPG industry.

I think this is danger of bubbles. Of the people on ENWorld, probably a lit know who Ed Greenwood is and might be interested in buying stuff from him. If you ask somebody who doesn't play D&D, or many casual D&D players, they'll have no idea.

RPGs are already a niche. The best selling RPGs sell far less then best selling fantasy fiction.Within that niche only a smaller niche plays/reads about the Forgotten Realms. Within that groups is a smaller niche that shops on DM's Guild.

 

[Irlo]

I never realized how small this industry is until now. I assumed that huge industry names like "Ed Greenwood" who has written thousands of novels for TSR/Wotc would sell 100,000 copies easy. But its only just today that his Forgotten Realms supplement, Border Kingdoms, after a year, had sold 2,500 copies.

Thousands of novels?

 

[not-so-newguy]

...working at a library is an amazing job. He might not want to leave it. Most librarians don’t. They hang on until the very last...

Came here to say this. I can't say this is true everywhere, but the few that I have known are happy with the job.

 

[hunter1828]

How do you get to a million dollars working in the RPG industry?

Start with two million dollars...