Indie Sales Numbers
Adam Dray:
Right, which is why copies sold means more to you than dollars in your pocket, and why you're not asking about how much profit people think is good for a small indie game.
Frank Tarcikowski:
I was really thrilled when we sold more than 200 printed copies of Barbaren! in the first quarter (in German language, mind you). Barbaren! isn’t technically a small press game but it’s very similar in presentation and target audience. After this initial huge peak, the numbers have been trickling much lower and we still haven’t passed 300 printed copies one year later, which makes me doubt whether we’ll even sell out the initial print run of 500, like, ever.
That first peak, I figure, consisted on the one hand of a lot of direct customers who had been following the game’s development over the years and had only been waiting for it to come out. On the other hand, it was owed to retailers stocking up. I actually fancy the retailer sales, I think it’s great that my game can be found in RPG stores all across Germany, even if it’s just a pocket-size book sitting on a shelf. There was at least one guy who registered on the forums to post an actual play report because he had bought the game in his local RPG store. That’s exactly the thing I was hoping for.
The publishing deal I made means I have to share the profit twice: Once with the Red Brick guys who did editing, layout and artwork, and once with the Prometheus guys who did printing and distribution. The costs of the initial print run also had to be recovered first. The English version will work much the same, with the translation costs added into the bargain. It’s nice to get a little bit of pocket money but it’s really in no relation to all the hard work and I didn’t do it for the money anyway. The book looks great, and I’m getting it out to the people, even people outside the incestuous online communities. That’s what matters to me.
- Frank
Pelgrane:
Quote from: drkrash on October 19, 2010, 07:40:18 AM
But this week, I saw sales figures on Fred Hicks' blog. Dresden Files jumped out at me: almost 7000 sales since its release not that long ago. Now, I understand we're dealing with a well-established designer, a known and loved property, a system that seems to enjoy some sort of darling-status at the moment, and a build-up that was years in the making. I get all that. I'm not expecting sales like this...ever.
But still: there's a big discrepency between 500 in 2 years and 6000 in 6 months.
So my question is: is my anecdotal wisdom totally offbase? Or is it more or less accurate and Dresden is a totally special case? I don't need hard facts - just well-informed impressions will do just fine. Thanks.
Dresden Files is a special case by almost any metric. As of Q3, Vol 1 has sold 733 PDFs, 1996 by direct sales, and 4040 through retail and distribution. Vol2 sold about 15% more copies in each category, and this since April. It's an extraordinary achievement, way beyond every COP rpg I know of on direct sales alone for such a short period, and a demonstration that with the right combination of factors, however unusual, it's possible to sell thousands of rpg books. However, it's just not a good benchmarch for a typical COP release.
I think with 200 sales into Germany you've done very well. 500 was an over-ambitious print run, I think.
Vulpinoid:
You want anecdotal evidence from the other end of the spectrum.
I released my game "The Eighth Sea" at Gencon Oz 2008, well I tried to, but the print run didn't make it to me in time. I sold a half dozen games as presales based on the sessions I ran, and I sold the remaining 50 copies over the course of a year. I didn't pump money into advertising, I still don't. But the game still sells a copy or two every month through Lulu (usually a pdf, but every couple of months another hardcopy is sold), RPGNow (pdf only) and direct pdf or hard copies sent if someone credits my paypal account.
This is based on not spending any advertising money, not doing as much convention support as I'd like, and not really having the population numbers in Australia that other audiences in the US or the UK might expect.
I'm still moderately happy with the sales results of the product, it's better than I expected it to be.
V
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