Quote from: FeloniousMonk;1063075It costs a lot from what I understand. That is why I do not buy the bullshit that Zweihander somehow padded their sales b/c pub points are expensive and it requires a lot to be DOTD. Zweihander was like DOTD 14 times last year.

I am going by current numbers. When I look at the Submit a Deal-of-the-Day page, it is 457 points to do so, and when I look at the publisher points to purchase page (which you can find by searching "Publisher Points"), it's 20 dollars for 20 points, 30 for 30.

I have no idea what Zweihander's numbers are. That I cannot speak to. It is impossible for me to even speculate on. All I can say is they either got the deal of the day because they sold enough that they had the publisher points to spend on it, or they bought enough publisher points to secure that many deals of the day (which would be quite expensive). In the case of Zweihander, they may be big enough that that sort of expense would be profitable (especially now that they have an Ennie). I think for most other publishers, spending money on publisher points for a deal of the day, would be ill-advised. I don't sell enough books to know how feasible it is to get that many publisher points through sales in that time. Smaller publishers are lucky to get 100 points in a month. I don't know how high the potential publisher points are in a single month.

Also keep in mind, publisher point expenses change day to day and month to month. For anything you can spend publisher points on, the cost fluctuates. I don't know what factors adjust the cost, but even stuff like banners don't really have a set value. That changes by the day and time you choose to do them.

Quote from: Gypsy Knights Games;1062397The metal awards have been:

Copper 51-100
Silver 101-250
Electrum 251-500
Gold 501-1000
Platinum 1001+

I'm not sure what Mithral and Adamantine work out to be but my guess would be that Platinum is now 1001-2500, Mithril is 2501-5000 and Adamantine is 5001+.

These don't match with what my sales have been, unless sales of my games on RPGnow/DTRPG were actually a lot lower proportion of overall sales (along with lulu and Amazon) than I imagined.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;1063074Deal of the day is supposed to be a good way to generate sales (I've generally heard positive things about that feature).

Good way to generate sales? Sure.

Profit, no.  The deal of the day is usually offered at a big discount (hence, 'deal'). Between that and the fact that the company charges you 'points' to do it, you are almost guaranteed to lose money on it, or earn a pittance.

The deal of the day seems like such a bad deal, that when it was offered to DOM after RPGNow fucked up Lion & Dragon at it's peak sales, they offered us a 'free deal of the day' as compensation for the accidental-or-intentionally derailing of L&D, and we said no because it didn't seem like a prize at all.

Of course, buying into the deal of the day to make a lot of sales at hardly any money certainly follows the modus operandi of some publishers, who have gone out of their way from sheer narcissism to actually go into the red to make their games appear to be very popular.  A desperate need to look successful, at the cost of being successful.

Finally, I suspect that all the "Metal rankings" are dubious. We know from the experience with L&D that RPGnow/DTRPG can apparently rewrite sales figures and restore rankings that were stripped on account of website error, so what's to stop them either padding the sales figures of some products, or stopping the sales figures of others?


To whit, L&D has been by far the most profitable RPG I ever wrote, and yet it has been stuck at "silver" ranking for a year now even though the monthly profits over that year have been quite impressive, by RPG standards. So what's happening there?

Quote from: RPGPundit;1063614Finally, I suspect that all the "Metal rankings" are dubious. We know from the experience with L&D that RPGnow/DTRPG can apparently rewrite sales figures and restore rankings that were stripped on account of website error, so what's to stop them either padding the sales figures of some products, or stopping the sales figures of others?

To whit, L&D has been by far the most profitable RPG I ever wrote, and yet it has been stuck at "silver" ranking for a year now even though the monthly profits over that year have been quite impressive, by RPG standards. So what's happening there?

My thoughts would be that it's one of four things:

1> Your sales are less than you think they are.  As you stated in your earlier post, you thought it might be possible that the percentage of sales at DTRPG and RPGNow might be less than you thought.  I suppose that's possible.

2> Keep in mind that if you sold 250 on DTRPG and another 250 on RPGNow (for a total of 500), then your product would be silver on DTRPG and silver on RPGNow.  So, despite selling 500 copies in total, that product is only going to be at silver.

3> They've made an accounting error.

4> You've uncovered some proof that they are fudging the numbers against you.  


My guess is that it is probably #2.  That is something that frustrates me to no end as they are, for all intents and purposes, the same page and yet they continue this facade that they are not.  Total sales is measured in how much you sell on both sites and you cannot find out how much of that total was sold on an individual site.  It's truly annoying.

That being said, having dealt with them for almost eight years now, I would not be shocked at all to find out it was #3 or #4.

Quote from: Gypsy Knights Games;10636312> Keep in mind that if you sold 250 on DTRPG and another 250 on RPGNow (for a total of 500), then your product would be silver on DTRPG and silver on RPGNow.  So, despite selling 500 copies in total, that product is only going to be at silver.

This strikes me as quite likely. I think it is one of the big flaws in the one book system. It also affects the top seller list when the book is first released I believe.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1063613Good way to generate sales? Sure.

Profit, no.  The deal of the day is usually offered at a big discount (hence, 'deal'). Between that and the fact that the company charges you 'points' to do it, you are almost guaranteed to lose money on it, or earn a pittance.

The deal of the day seems like such a bad deal, that when it was offered to DOM after RPGNow fucked up Lion & Dragon at it's peak sales, they offered us a 'free deal of the day' as compensation for the accidental-or-intentionally derailing of L&D, and we said no because it didn't seem like a prize at all.

Of course, buying into the deal of the day to make a lot of sales at hardly any money certainly follows the modus operandi of some publishers, who have gone out of their way from sheer narcissism to actually go into the red to make their games appear to be very popular.  A desperate need to look successful, at the cost of being successful.

I've never done a deal of the day myself (at least not that I recall--its possible I did one way back and don't remember, or received an offer ages ago like you one you mentioned and took it). I imagine though many of these things are different for people depending on what tier they reside in in the industry. For me they just cost too many publisher points. I'd probably only earn enough points right after releasing a big core book (and I am not sure putting it all into deal of the day is a good idea, when I could spread those points around to lots of different features and banners). But overall people aren't making huge amounts of money doing this. And I think its wise to be cautious spending things like publisher points on one feature like this.

Publisher Points are not something I would advise anyone to pay actual money for. Maybe in sufficient quantity, it creates more momentum and its worth it, but I doubt it based on my own experience. I've generally stuck to using my regular allotment of Publisher Points (which you get automatically each month based on your sales) for things like banner ads on the site. I've found those to be somewhat effective, but also the banner you put up and the product itself matter. Perhaps publishers that have more broad appeal may get different results through.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;1063632This strikes me as quite likely. I think it is one of the big flaws in the one book system. It also affects the top seller list when the book is first released I believe.

Yeah, the top seller lists are also site dependent which, to me, is also quite annoying.

The "hottest" lists are generally crap these days.  They have made a significant change to the "hottest" list that favors higher priced PDFs.  In the old days, the formula for "hottest" was  # of units sold / days available.  Now the "hottest" product is determined by Gross sales in $ / days available.    So it's no longer what's selling the most but what is making the most money.  

So if Company X is selling a $50 PDF and Company Y is selling a $1 PDF, then 2 sales of Company X's product is equivalent to 100 sales of Company Y's product.  I'm not sure how one justifies that Company X's product is "hotter" than Company Y's product when the former has only sold two copies and the latter has sold 100.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1063613Of course, buying into the deal of the day to make a lot of sales at hardly any money certainly follows the modus operandi of some publishers, who have gone out of their way from sheer narcissism to actually go into the red to make their games appear to be very popular.  A desperate need to look successful, at the cost of being successful.

What publishers would you think would do that though? I thoguht Deal of the deal was profitable because you sell alot of pdfs.

Quote from: Gypsy Knights Games;1063631My thoughts would be that it's one of four things:

1> Your sales are less than you think they are.  As you stated in your earlier post, you thought it might be possible that the percentage of sales at DTRPG and RPGNow might be less than you thought.  I suppose that's possible.

2> Keep in mind that if you sold 250 on DTRPG and another 250 on RPGNow (for a total of 500), then your product would be silver on DTRPG and silver on RPGNow.  So, despite selling 500 copies in total, that product is only going to be at silver.

3> They've made an accounting error.

4> You've uncovered some proof that they are fudging the numbers against you.  


My guess is that it is probably #2.  That is something that frustrates me to no end as they are, for all intents and purposes, the same page and yet they continue this facade that they are not.  Total sales is measured in how much you sell on both sites and you cannot find out how much of that total was sold on an individual site.  It's truly annoying.

That being said, having dealt with them for almost eight years now, I would not be shocked at all to find out it was #3 or #4.

No. Being aware of this I've done ALL my publicity efforts on RPGnow. I have shared only the RPGnow links, whenever I'm promoting the book it's on RPGnow.

I can't fathom that the situation would be one of equal sales in spite of a completely one-sided promotion.  Not in a product like this where word-of-mouth is usually the main way to sell it.

Quote from: FeloniousMonk;1063687What publishers would you think would do that though? I thoguht Deal of the deal was profitable because you sell alot of pdfs.

It's standard to sell at half-price or less. So yes, you're making a lot of sales, at half the profit per unit you would have before.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1063700No. Being aware of this I've done ALL my publicity efforts on RPGnow. I have shared only the RPGnow links, whenever I'm promoting the book it's on RPGnow.

I can't fathom that the situation would be one of equal sales in spite of a completely one-sided promotion.  Not in a product like this where word-of-mouth is usually the main way to sell it.

I don't know.  I do the same thing except I only promote DTRPG and not RPGNow.  While a lot of my sales are at DTRPG, I still sell a lot on RPGNow and it does skew the metal awards (quite unnecessarily in my opinion).

However, if you're solidly sure that it's not #1 or 2 on my list, I'd say you need to contact them.  Because if it's not #1 or #2, my next best guess is that it's an accounting error (#3) and it's something they can fix.  If they start stonewalling you, then I'd say you'll know for sure that it is actually #4 and this is some attack with malice against you.

Quote from: Gypsy Knights Games;1063722I don't know.  I do the same thing except I only promote DTRPG and not RPGNow.  While a lot of my sales are at DTRPG, I still sell a lot on RPGNow and it does skew the metal awards (quite unnecessarily in my opinion).

.

I base it on the book. The top lists and layout of each site is just different enough that some books benefit more from being on Drivethru, while others benefit more from being on RPGnow. I generally feel more at home on RPGnow though.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1063700No. Being aware of this I've done ALL my publicity efforts on RPGnow. I have shared only the RPGnow links, whenever I'm promoting the book it's on RPGnow.

I can't fathom that the situation would be one of equal sales in spite of a completely one-sided promotion.  Not in a product like this where word-of-mouth is usually the main way to sell it.

OK. I was interested in the discussion, and may be able to enlighten people (publishers) as to individual's shopping habits (or at least mine).

As soon as I saw this post I had suspicions that I was one of your L&D customers that bought on DriveThru rather than RGNow, 'cos I've got a direct link on my browser to the former, and can't be bothered to have two links in my toolbar. I ran back through my emails and found that (i) I'd actually bought it from RPGNow (which actually surprised me as I rarely go there) and (ii) had got the character sheet from DriveThru (which was what I expected).

As you say having had their backend incorporate both sources into my one 'library' of purchases, I can't see why they have distinct  ratings for individual platforms.