Quote from: Christopher Brady;863992I think the answer is more in the middle, and all of the above.

Much of the problem is the famously opaque economics of the industry.  A lot of people have made conjectures.  Some of those are smart people, and some of them have pieces of the puzzle.  But there has never yet been a comprehensive, accurate survey of the books industry-wide.  Too much of the "evidence" is anecdotal, of the "The company I worked for had $X in sales in 1994 ... (as far as I know, and it's not like the books were ever reviewed by an independent auditor)" kind.

Quote from: RPGPundit;864002First, your stats don't sound like they make sense to me.  Although I guess maybe it might work if (almost) all your sales are happening only on DTRPG and you're talking quite high hundreds.

Second, you're saying "order of magnitude". I don't think you know what that means. Either that, and you do know what it means and you're using it wrong on purpose.

On DTRPG the difference between Copper and Electrum is the difference between the top 12.34% of all products on the site and the top 3.43% of all products on the site (with Silver being products in the top 10.09%).  So trying to make it sound like if you've sold 900 books on DTRPG that means Lords of Olympus must have sold 90 is ridiculous and stupid of you to attempt.

I'll note that on RPGnow, Other Worlds is only Copper rated, which is the same as Dark Albion even though Dark Albion has been out for a few months while OW has been out for years now. Arrows of Indra is also Copper rated, but it switched distributors and as a result of this had all its previous sales WIPED, before which it was Silver.  That means that as a product, Arrows got all the way to Silver, then from absolute zero got all the way back to Copper again.  The values mean something else there compared to DTRPG too; Copper is top 9.4%, while Silver is top 5.56%.

So again, that means Arrows of Indra became one of the top 5% of all products for sale on the entire site, then from nothing and more than a year after its first release got all the way back to being one of the top 10% of all products for sale on that entire site. It did close to the same thing on DTRPG, getting to copper after having all its sales figures wiped.

And Dark Albion is right on your book's heels after about 6 months of life compared to your book's years.

Oh, and yeah: Dark Albion on either of those sites? That's just the PDF. It doesn't even count the Hardcover sales, from Lulu, or the Softcover sales, from Amazon.
I can tell you this: Dark Albion has been by far the best selling RPG book I ever wrote; followed by its predecessor AoI, followed by its predecessor LoO.  Every single product I make does better than the last one.

Keep trying then, maybe next time you'll get there.

You're right that apparently I don't know what order of magnitude means, I thought the key to the sales bands used that phrase but it does not. My bad. What I meant was simply that they are progressively harder to achieve, which is true, especially given that a lot of products on there are shovelware that probably only sell a handful of copies.

Like you, the majority of my sales come through OBS. Like you, the majority of my sales came in the first few months of the product being available. Like you, I also sell through other sources, including Lulu, a couple of stores, and IPR.  

Who knows, maybe your combination of these things works out higher than mine, and the DTRPG standings are not the true picture. I fucking hope so for your sake if RPGs represent a third of your income. But even if so it is amusing that it is this close, for all three books. According to your review Other Worlds isn't even an RPG!

Quote from: Tod13;864058That's what I meant by Luddite, I didn't mean it in a negative sense.

Then you are not using the word as it is commonly used.

Quote from: Ravenswing;864061Much of the problem is the famously opaque economics of the industry.  A lot of people have made conjectures.  Some of those are smart people, and some of them have pieces of the puzzle.  But there has never yet been a comprehensive, accurate survey of the books industry-wide.  Too much of the "evidence" is anecdotal, of the "The company I worked for had $X in sales in 1994 ... (as far as I know, and it's not like the books were ever reviewed by an independent auditor)" kind.

These conversations are so conjectural that to me they always seem a lot more like two little kids arguing about whose dad is the toughest or whether Superman is stronger than the Hulk than they seem like a business case study.

Quote from: soviet;864088Keep trying then, maybe next time you'll get there.

You're right that apparently I don't know what order of magnitude means

Wow. Well, ok.

QuoteLike you, the majority of my sales come through OBS.

Lords of Olympus is sold through Precis Intermedia's web store, I can't say for sure what percentage of it's sales are from there, and what are from OBS, but I suppose it's likely OBS is a majority, though not likely to be a huge majority.

As I said (and you ignored) for Dark Albion, NONE of the print sales are from OBS (which only deals with the Albion PDF at this time). I can't say for certain if the majority of sales of Albion have been PDF rather than print (though that seems plausible given pdf is cheaper), much less if the actual profits are more from the PDF than the Print sales, but a very significant percentage of Albion's sales are NOT from OBS's storefronts.

QuoteLike you, the majority of my sales came in the first few months of the product being available.

That's pretty much true of any book in the hobby. However, given how quickly my games have caught up to yours in the comparatively shorter time they've been around, it seems pretty clear to me that their ongoing sales are better than yours.

Arrows of Indra, for example, that got back to Copper after having had to start back from zero a year after it was first released.

And Other Worlds isn't an RPG. But non-RPGs have their own little fandom of course, and someone can make a decent bit of money exploiting that.

Quote from: Bren;864114These conversations are so conjectural that to me they always seem a lot more like two little kids arguing about whose dad is the toughest or whether Superman is stronger than the Hulk than they seem like a business case study.

Yep.
As Pundit just so nicely demonstrated.

Quote from: Simlasa;864137Yep.
As Pundit just so nicely demonstrated.

But apparently with even more bruised egos.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;864201But apparently with even more bruised egos.

Humans tend to be even more defensive of their babies than of their parents.

Quote from: RPGPundit;864127Lords of Olympus is sold through Precis Intermedia's web store, I can't say for sure what percentage of it's sales are from there, and what are from OBS, but I suppose it's likely OBS is a majority, though not likely to be a huge majority.

As I said (and you ignored) for Dark Albion, NONE of the print sales are from OBS (which only deals with the Albion PDF at this time). I can't say for certain if the majority of sales of Albion have been PDF rather than print (though that seems plausible given pdf is cheaper), much less if the actual profits are more from the PDF than the Print sales, but a very significant percentage of Albion's sales are NOT from OBS's storefronts.

Wait, I thought you said that OBS had a monopoly over the hobby, to the extent that you cannot run a viable RPG business without being on there and being removed from it is the same as being censored? Now you're saying it might not even be half of your sales?

Quote from: soviet;864577Now you're saying it might not even be half of your sales?

That isn't what he said. He said non-OBS sales were a "very significant percentage."

Quote from: Bren;864589That isn't what he said.

Um, yes it is. Read again.

Quote from: soviet;864577Wait, I thought you said that OBS had a monopoly over the hobby, to the extent that you cannot run a viable RPG business without being on there and being removed from it is the same as being censored? Now you're saying it might not even be half of your sales?

It is the print and pdf division. I can't speak for Lords of Olympus, but with all of our print books, including Arrows of Indra, print sales are usually at least half of the pie (it is a little hard to judge because print sales tend to be really big the first few months in comparison to PDFs, then slow considerably, whereas PDFs are more even over time for us---though that first month you have a bit of a boom). OBS is essential for the PDF end of things (at least for us, that is where over 90% of our PDF sales come from). They are also complimentary. Being on OBS is important to your print sales because of the awareness it creates (especially in the first day of release).

Quote from: soviet;864590Um, yes it is. Read again.

I quoted what he said. So yes, what I quoted is indeed exactly what he said.

What words did you read that you think support your claim?

Quote from: Bren;864606I quoted what he said. So yes, what I quoted is indeed exactly what he said.

What words did you read that you think support your claim?

...you DO realize who is on the other end of this conversation, don't you?

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;864610...you DO realize who is on the other end of this conversation, don't you?

No, not really.

Quote from: Bren;864606I quoted what he said. So yes, what I quoted is indeed exactly what he said.

What words did you read that you think support your claim?

Quote from: RPGPundit;864127Lords of Olympus is sold through Precis Intermedia's web store, I can't say for sure what percentage of it's sales are from there, and what are from OBS, but I suppose it's likely OBS is a majority, though not likely to be a huge majority.

Likely
Not definitely
Thus might not be