I'm not sure how many of the (currently) 3000 backers Ars 5DE has are nostalgia buyers and how many are potential readers for 3rd party material. In this thread I'd like people who publish third party material to say how they are going, because it helps first timers scope out their project budgets.
So, I'll go first:
One day in and 7 sales @ 5USD of Venice through Patreon. I'm waiting for Drivethru approval before trying social media posts and I've yet to try selling it on itch.io, which is a goal for this weekend. Venice arose out of #Dungeon/#City23 which was an itch challenge.
I know that doesn't seem like many but if you accept that the 20 paid Patreons have bought copies in advance, that's 135USD and my art costs were 201USD. I know it's not like making half a million dollars in presales, but it looks like if I set my time and work to "hobby" there's a decent chance it will pay itself off.
I'll try to pop into this thread every month or so to tell people how it has done, so others can gauge how much risk they can take with things like art and paid authors.
I published three issues of the Ars fanzine PERIPHERAL CODE. The last issue came out about 6 years ago, when I started to work at Paizo. Peripheral Code sells on DriveThruRPG for $5 an issue.
I certainly will (and have! As a patreon for Mythic Venice and David Chart's starter set, and a purchaser of Peripheral Code). I'm also planning on releasing some myself, but mostly with an eye to providing short, useful, "cheap and cheerful" resources. The one-shots I've run at my local gaming group will be first, as they are written up, just not yet in publishable format.
the surge in interest due to the Definitive Edition,
people discovering that Mythic Venice is now a free inclusion in the Definitive Edition,
It's Pay What You Want
Paid membership Patreons getting a copy.
Atlas is paying me to use Mythic Venice as a stretch goal, but that's not in these figures because it isn't replicable.
My numbers look like this. Numbers are after the platform percentage is taken out, but before currency conversion, tax and payout fees..
DriveThru:: $65. 151 downloads, 22 sales. (Sales on DriveThru include sales for $0. 22 were paid sales)
Itch: $71: 81 downloads. 12 sales.
Patreon: $57. 13 sales.
So, that's $188 pre-tax, or about $125 post tax. My art budget was $201. That being said, if you count my 27 pay-by-the-month members as additional Patreon sales, that's another $116 ($74 post tax).
Which is to say my post-tax income from the whole thing ($200) is $1 short of my art costs, setting my time as $0, if you don't count transaction fees or currency conversion (which are going to be a few dollars).
So, all the caveats aside: I spent about $200 and it was paid off in two weeks. It turns out itch is worth it as a platform. A lot fewer of them pay, but I think their anchor point for game pricing is higher because it is surrounded by computer games.
Outside these figures in terms of costs...I've spent about 40USD with Lulu because you need to buy a POD proof copy before you can sell there and as an Australian over $20 of that is shipping. I don't know if it's a good idea, but I'll report back.
To give a non-PWYW comparison: in October, I sold 14 copies of "Malady of Madness", which is more than one a day (it went live on the 19th). US$84 gross, US$58.80 after DriveThru has taken its cut. I do not expect that rate of sales to keep up (though it is so far), but its a good foundation.
I don't pay for art, so my goal for anything is to sell a couple of copies a month for game money, and to eventually "earn out" at US$0.10 a word over time (alternatively, NZ minimum wage and the CreativeNZ writers hourly benchmark, which work out to ~US$0.05 and ~US$0.07 respectively for this product). That works out to be 109 - 118 copies. 10% of the way there in the first month is pretty good.
(Its not on Itch yet because I'm still disentangling myself from DriveThru's anticompetitive exclusivity clause. But it will be eventually)
If the 3rd party product is good, I'll buy it. Doesn't matter if I think I'll ever get to use it at a table, if it has good ideas I'll give it a chance. (And I have the shelf of GURPS supplements to prove it. )
Discovering the product may be tricky if it isn't on drivethrurpg (which I fully understand, their cut from sales is very high), but if I'm made aware that something is good and can purchased in the US using a method I'm willing to trust, I'll at least look at it. My library in drivethru is uncomfortably close to 3000 products over the last 20+ years, but I've purchased indy and 3rd party stuff from itch.io, paizo, warehouse23, backerkit, humble bundle, bundle of holding, and from the publishers directly.
I might or might not. What 3P material are we talking about?
Fifteen poorly thought out characters?
A detailed village setting?
The decently researched and decently written ArM friendly history of southern France, 1000-1500 AD?
Kinda broke right now, but if it's decent quality will probably buy. I've bought a fair amount of Mage the Ascension and Exalted 3rd party products on drive through.
More notes on those scoping out their own work. Income in USD.
Mythic Venice:
DriveThru: 114 Itch.io 76
Patreon 57
Lulu 40*
(*Note this implies a cost for your galley proof which cost me USD33 I also ordered a second one in hardback which cost $40 that was interesting but not necessary, really.)
Ars Magica Monsters Volume One
DriveThru 73 Itch.io 15
I sold another 10 copies of A Malady of Madness in November, for another US$42 (net). So far I've sold only three in December though - the holiday slowdown is real.
I'm now halfway to copper status, and there's that many again potential sales stacked up on wishlists and in carts, so its a solid foundation.
Income in USD. Numbers are after the platform percentage is taken out, but before currency conversion, tax and payout fees. As per 21/02/2025
Mythic Venice:
DriveThru: 162 Itch.io 76
Patreon 57*
Lulu 116**
*This was before it was added to crowdfunding campaign for ArM5DE: refunds were offered but no-one asked for one.
*Note this implies a cost for your galley proof which cost me USD33 I also ordered a second one in hardback which cost $40 that was interesting but not necessary, really.)
Unrecorded: note that this was also given as a pledge reward for my Patreons, so they should be in these number somehow.
For sake of comparison my art budget was USD201.
Ars Magica Monsters Volume One
DriveThru 73 Itch.io 15
Art budget nil.
So, at this point the products are mature: they seem to be picking up the occasional long tail sale but there's no big push to buy them. That's OK: they have covered costs excepting my time and Mythic Venice is an odd duck because it is a reward for the crowdfunding so there's a lump sum from Atlas eventually.
The next big project is the fanzine, and because it pay the authors a little, it has a far higher cost base. So, it won't be PWYW. I'm guessing it'll be around 7.50 USD but that depends how much of it I write myself and what font size I select. Mythic Venice may get a bump when I put out accompanying material about the Zeno Brothers. Monsters: Volume 1 might get a bump when the eventual Volume 2 comes out. They're not likely to be PWYW, but they are nothing more than sketchy outlines in my notebooks at the moment, jostling with all the other things I've shoved to the back burner.
On my end: 6 sales of A Malady of Madness in December, 5 in January. None so far in February. I agree that it looks like we're into the long tail phase now. IME this means sales bumps when I release a new product in the same category, or when DriveThru has a sale and it gets discounted (and all those people who put it in their wishlist click "buy").
By way of noting why I keep saying "I don't pay myself", I just paid USD229 for an article for Mythic Europe Magazine, and that's at 5 cents a word, which is shockingly low as a rate.
So far I've paid about 600USD to writers. So, to get that back I need the magazine to do far more serious business than Venice, and I still have a zero art budget.
I've been kind of preoccupied with other stuff recently, but am certainly not averse to buying 3rd party materials (I subscribed to Sub Rosa for a long time), but I think we'd need some kind of of platform to help advertise and promote such items.
Maybe Atlas would be willing to tolerate such a thread here on the fora? I mean, it's not direct in direct competition with their books after all..
Regardless, I feel like you might see a boost in sales once the Definitive Edition finally drops as it really does feel as though that the target of a lot of the enthusiasm right now - plus, I personally spent quite a bit more on it than I should have...
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