Hello everyone! As a RPG designer that started on the #DMsGuild and has been branching out to Kickstarter for other content, I wanted to do a review of my sales activity from the OneBookShelf sites (DMsGuild and DriveThruRPG), and put down some thoughts and lessons I’ve learned. 
My first product ever was a book of extra goblins stat blocks, back in 4/2016. Decided to put a price tag of $1 on it, and I’m glad I did. My little baby has been chugging along, and is one of my 4 Silver Medal products. I’m so proud of you little goblins.
I tried a series called the Villain’s Handbook, inspired by the villain profiles from Mutants and masterminds. I made these PWYW, because I wanted to start driving attention to my products, and I knew that PWYW generally attracted more downloads. And that seems to remain true.
Out of my top 10 most downloaded products, 9 of them are PWYW.
My next paid product was an adventure. Released 11/16, it didn’t do as good as my Goblins series, and I decided that adventures weren’t big sellers for me. At least compared to monsters, which I enjoyed doing more anyway.
I have only released one additional adventure, specifically a quick side quest. This was a PWYW, and had MANY more downloads (750), but has done about the same in sales.
My first BIG project was the Book of the Dead. I worked on this for ages, converting any undead I could find from previous editions of DnD and Pathfinder. It was a big undertaking, and needed to stand out.
This book also a big publicity push from me, and I found that work EXHAUSTING. I’m much happier just working on something and releasing it. Figuring out how to drum up attention for my products (and myself in general) is hard for me, and not something I enjoy.
Good News! The Book of the Dead is my Gold Medal product, and helped me determine that 1) DM/PC options sell well, and 2) I really like making those sorts of things.
After that, I began working on my largest project to date: My Kickstarter for the Archive of Magic Items.
It launched in 4/18, and was a HUGE deal to me. For the first time I was actually managing a team of people. Plus all the marketing that goes with promoting a Kickstarter.
It launched in 4/18, and was a HUGE deal to me. For the first time I was actually managing a team of people. Plus all the marketing that goes with promoting a Kickstarter.
This was STRESSFUL, especially wondering if the project would be successful or not. I’m SO happy it worked, and plan on doing another one this year, but oh boy running a Kickstarter is like an entire project in and of itself.
After that I worked on another bestiary, this one of Fey creatures. I promoted this less than the Undead book, and the results kind of show. They were about a year apart, but the book of Fey is less than half as successful. I’m also chalking a lot of that up to less marketing.
*Note on #ArchiveOfMagicItems data: The revenue that I’ve listed for the Archive is separate from the Kickstarter. Fullfillment was through DriveThruRPG, so while the # of downloads includes the Kickstarter backers, the revenue should be new sales.
I needed some time off after that, so I worked on some small projects before doing another big bestiary late last year, the book of constructs. This was bigger and better than the other bestiaries I did, and even had new features. And…it hasn’t sold well.
This one is disappointing, because I put in a ton of work, but it’s only sold 25 copies since November. I was really excited, because I specifically planned the release around Eberron, and it even got into the DMsGuild Newsletter! But sales haven't been great.
I’m going to work on promoting the Construct bestiary more, because I think it deserves more attention, but overall the experience was disappointing (and I love robots, which makes it worse)
So, here are some thoughts about my experiences in general.
Let’s start with product types
Let’s start with product types
Obviously go with what you like or are excited about, but to me character options (monsters, magic items) are easier to create, take less time, and sell better than adventures. I think adventures can work well for those with marketing savvy and upfront cost to make them stand out
PWYW vs Paid. So, 9/10 of my most DL products are PWYW. However, they only account for about 50% of my total revenue. If you look at my top 10 highest revenue generators, only 2/10 are PWYW.
What counts as “success” for a person can vary, but to me it seems like if you are looking at downloads and attention for ‘success’, PWYW gets more attention. If you are looking at income generated for ‘success’, paid products absolutely pay better.
My approach is to release PWYW products to draw attention for larger, paid products. But even now, I'm getting better at determining what should be PWYW.
Thanks to @freeners for helping me decide to start charging for classes/subclasses!
Thanks to @freeners for helping me decide to start charging for classes/subclasses!
Overall, this is a hobby of mine. It's not a full time job, and it never will be. But I still enjoy designing things, and will continue to make products while that is true. If you are interested in making products for the DMsGuild, do it because you find it enjoyable to create.
However, that could change! I’m definitely on the small creator side, larger creators like the Guild Adepts might have a different experience! But for me, as a small designer that is uncomfortable with self-promoting and marketing, this is my experience.
Take care everyone! These are my opinions, other opinions are valid, and I’m not here to say one thing is better than the others! Overall I just wanted to peel back the curtain behind my experience as a designer and DMsGuild creator.
