# DM's Guild: One Week In - The Best & The Worst



## Sacrosanct

And popularity doesn't necessarily mean quality.  There are 3 in the top 10 that have less than 4 stars.  7 in the top 25, and the includes some that aren't even reviewed.  To round out the rest of the top 25 as popularity:



    11.
    Additional Archetypes
    $1.00
    12.
    Demonologist - Arcane Tradition (5e)
    $0.99 $0.50
    13.
    Tome of Templates
    $0.99
    14.
    D&D 5e Monster Expansion
    Pay What You Want
    15.
    D&D Denizens: Goblins
    Pay What You Want
    16.
    D&D Denizens: Orcs
    Pay What You Want
    17.
    15 New Backgrounds - World Builder Blog Presents
    Pay What You Want
    18.
    5 Minute Workday Presents: Feats
    $0.50
    19.
    D&D Denizens: Duergar
    $2.95 $0.99
    20.
    Monster Mausoleum
    $2.95

    21.
    Adventurers of Kara-Tur
    $1.95
    22.
    18+1 Feats by DiBastet
    $1.00
    23.
    D&D Citizens: Elves
    Pay What You Want
    24.
    Booklet of Infinite Horrors
    Pay What You Want
    25.
    Races Revived: Rare Elf Subraces
    Pay What You Want
    26.
    D&D Citizens: Dwarves
    Pay What You Want


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## SunGold

Thank you for not singling out "the worst" items. I made a bit of a face when I saw the article title, so I was glad to see you didn't actually go there. That's the sort of thing that could crush new and inexperienced content creators who may have stumbled on their way out of the gate. 

I'm grateful to everyone putting their content out there for the rest of us, and hope that those with low ratings can take it in stride and learn from their feedback.


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## Sunsword

As an author with 5 products launched and 3 with reviews, feedback is important.  Its hard when you get a single, low review.  But I've already revised one product and am having multiple people look at a second product based on feedback.  A low review, while a stab in the heart, especially an honest review helps you learn and hopefully grow.  Its been an interesting 2 weeks.


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## Xethreau

Sunsword said:


> As an author with 5 products launched and 3 with reviews, feedback is important.  Its hard when you get a single, low review.  But I've already revised one product and am having multiple people look at a second product based on feedback.  A low review, while a stab in the heart, especially an honest review helps you learn and hopefully grow.  Its been an interesting 2 weeks.




Yeah, exactly. I only have one product, but it has received only a single star-rating (2); and yet I have also seen some poorly executed products given a 5-star rating. And at least mine was proofread.

One of the things that is happening, and which I hope to remedy in part with this thread, is that only the (spasmodically) top-rated titles seem to get attention. If everyone does their part and downloads a few titles, _at least looks at them_, and then rates them, the community will have a much better idea of what is available and what is worth exploring.

I rate, uh, things as another job, and we use a 5-star system. My recommendation is that 3 = Average/Usable, 4 = Recommended/Very cool, and 5 = Superlative/Can't do without.


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## ASchmidt

One thing I'd love to see coming out of this is how much content is worth... such as what does the community feel is an appropriate price point for a background? For an archetype? For a full base class with multiple archetypes?  Because right now the pricing seems to be all over the map as people are trying to answer this question.  I'm also hoping to find out just how often people are paying for content that is marked "pay what you want".  Is that like homebrew+ in that people can download it for free but then give you money in support if they like your content? Or are people just putting a zero in the box and the author might as well be giving it away?


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## Morrus

ASchmidt said:


> One thing I'd love to see coming out of this is how much content is worth... such as what does the community feel is an appropriate price point for a background? For an archetype? For a full base class with multiple archetypes?  Because right now the pricing seems to be all over the map as people are trying to answer this question.




Phil Reed (now at SJG) pioneered the "massive number of bite-sized RPG PDFs" back in the year 2000 with his company, Ronin Arts. EN5ider does it now. It's not a new question, and it gets answered fairly regularly. It'll settle down quickly enough. 

What's more interesting the widespread use of PWYW, which many of us small press publishers tried for a while on DTRPG and ... well, let's say we stopped trying it. Though we do it on EN5ider, there's no $0 option.


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## Morrus

While we don't know what the sales figures of these things are, here's a point of data.

Item #66 is Teos Abadia's Admantine Chef. James Introcaso tweeted that it has 15 sales (at $4.99 each).

So we can extrapolate a little for those wondering how much they can make.

Item #66 has therefore made (revenue) $74.85.  Half of that goes to the creator, so you'd make $37.43.  That's at position #66 of roughly 500 products.

Random stupid projection stats which mean nothing, but are fun to play with. #66 puts it #434 from the bottom, or at 86% going up. Assuming #500 makes $0, we can extrapolate that the average product, being #250, makes its creator $20. At least thus far.

That's not too bad - average of $20 profit. Put enough out regularly, you can turn that into a decent sum each month.


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## Jester David

Morrus said:


> While we don't know what the sales figures of these things are, here's a point of data.
> 
> Item #66 is Teos Abadia's Admantine Chef. James Introcaso tweeted that it has 15 sales (at $4.99 each).
> 
> So we can extrapolate a little for those wondering how much they can make.
> 
> Item #66 has therefore made (revenue) $74.85.  Half of that goes to the creator, so you'd make $37.43.  That's at position #66 of roughly 500 products.



There's also the metal sales charts, with each being proportionately harder to reach. Copper is somewhere around the 75-copy mark. Item #14 is a copper seller while item #15 isn't. The top 10 are all at least silver, with a coupe golds at the top and an electrum below that, demonstrating sales aren't high.


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## bedir than

I just bought my first today. I've got a "DnD budget" that until today was only spent on Patreon, official gear and generic office supply stuff. I know I'm not going to leap into open source stuff from authors I don't know, yet. I expect there is some subset of users that are cautious. They want more stuff, but they want things that they know will be quality. I'm also not going to go PWYW or free. If something has value, it has value. By being free, or essentially free, my default assumption is that the creator feels it has no value.


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## timbannock

Xethreau said:


> Yeah, exactly. I only have one product, but it has received only a single star-rating (2); and yet I have also seen some poorly executed products given a 5-star rating. And at least mine was proofread.




Much the same: I have one well-reviewed and one middle-of-the-road. That middle-of-the-road one, though, got several fantastic pieces of feedback, all of which I incorporated into the product and re-released it, along with a major face-lift. No new ratings have come in despite the changes and subsequent purchases, so it's a little frustrating as a creator to see some valid criticism, put the elbow grease in to address it, and...nothing.

But, keeping in mind this is only a few weeks old, that's really not a big deal. There's PLENTY of time for things to get spotted, purchased, and pick up some new ratings, so long as the product has the legs to stand on with regard to getting recommended for whatever role it is hoping to fill.


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## Lhorgrim

I tried to follow the link for the #10 most popular item in the list (spell cards), and the site says it is unavailable.  Any ideas on what happened?  I wonder if they violated the terms.


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## Psikerlord#

Morrus said:


> This post was generated by a news article which your device or browser is not displaying directly. You can view the article directly here.




I thought DM Guild was FR stuff only...? Having a quick skim, there's all manner of setting neutral material on there. Eg: revised ranger, epic level handbook, etc?


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## Morrus

Psikerlord# said:


> I thought DM Guild was FR stuff only...? Having a quick skim, there's all manner of setting neutral material on there. Eg: revised ranger, epic level handbook, etc?




It's not FR only - it's "no non-FR settings". Setting neutral stuff is fine.


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## GMforPowergamers

ok, first of all my heart jumped into my throat and stayed there through the whole time I was reading this...while I silently prayed... I knew my little 5 page try wouldn't hit the top 10, but it would have made me cry if it was 'worst'...

having said that, 6 sales in no one has reviewed it on the DMguild site... I even offered it as "Hay if you want to show what I did wrong" to reviewers and still no takes (I was secretly hoping the answer would be it wasn't that bad). I plan on putting out a second one larger about magic items...


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## Xethreau

So crazy idea. People who want reviews should go and review things?

It's not just good faith, but good practice. You get to see what you're competing against and then elevate your work to that standard.


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## Morrus

GMforPowergamers said:


> ok, first of all my heart jumped into my throat and stayed there through the whole time I was reading this...while I silently prayed... I knew my little 5 page try wouldn't hit the top 10, but it would have made me cry if it was 'worst'...
> 
> having said that, 6 sales in no one has reviewed it on the DMguild site... I even offered it as "Hay if you want to show what I did wrong" to reviewers and still no takes (I was secretly hoping the answer would be it wasn't that bad). I plan on putting out a second one larger about magic items...




Don't worry. I have years-old products on DTRPG with hundreds or thousands of sales which nobody's ever commented on, rated, or reviewed. Stuff we spent months crafting. Welcome to the scary world of publishing. The deafening silence is intimidating, but keep writing anyway.


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## dd.stevenson

neuronphaser said:


> Much the same: I have one well-reviewed and one middle-of-the-road. That middle-of-the-road one, though, got several fantastic pieces of feedback, all of which I incorporated into the product and re-released it, along with a major face-lift. No new ratings have come in despite the changes and subsequent purchases, so it's a little frustrating as a creator to see some valid criticism, put the elbow grease in to address it, and...nothing.
> 
> But, keeping in mind this is only a few weeks old, that's really not a big deal. There's PLENTY of time for things to get spotted, purchased, and pick up some new ratings, so long as the product has the legs to stand on with regard to getting recommended for whatever role it is hoping to fill.



DTRPG suffers from much the same problem as Steam, in that users (for valid reasons) don't tend to browse very far off the front page. So if you're not currently featured on one of the big landing pages on the DMGuild, it's a safe bet that your sales will drop to a trickle.

Companies on steam work around this problem by availing themselves of the sale promotions that valve offers, and in this way get their older products back on the radar for a week or so every quarter. DTRPG does similar things on its main store, but will they do it for DMGuild authors & customers? That's an interesting thought.


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## Morrus

dd.stevenson said:


> DTRPG suffers from much the same problem as Steam, in that users (for valid reasons) don't tend to browse very far off the front page. So if you're not currently featured on one of the big landing pages on the DMGuild, it's a safe bet that your sales will drop to a trickle.
> 
> Companies on steam work around this problem by availing themselves of the sale promotions that valve offers, and in this way get their older products back on the radar for a week or so every quarter. DTRPG does similar things on its main store, but will they do it for DMGuild authors & customers? That's an interesting thought.




It'll get harder. It's a volume issue. For individual producers, the fewer items in the store overall, the better for them. For the store, the more items overall, the better for them. The best way to mitigate it is to work out some way of marketing the stuff yourself and linking directly to it. Talking about it at places like EN World is a good start, as it's easy and free. 

Other than that, plugging away for a long time and slowly but surely building a reputation is hard work, but it's tried and tested.


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## Sunsword

Morrus said:


> While we don't know what the sales figures of these things are, here's a point of data.
> 
> Item #66 is Teos Abadia's Admantine Chef. James Introcaso tweeted that it has 15 sales (at $4.99 each).
> 
> So we can extrapolate a little for those wondering how much they can make.
> 
> Item #66 has therefore made (revenue) $74.85.  Half of that goes to the creator, so you'd make $37.43.  That's at position #66 of roughly 500 products.
> 
> Random stupid projection stats which mean nothing, but are fun to play with. #66 puts it #434 from the bottom, or at 86% going up. Assuming #500 makes $0, we can extrapolate that the average product, being #250, makes its creator $20. At least thus far.
> 
> That's not too bad - average of $20 profit. Put enough out regularly, you can turn that into a decent sum each month.




I'll share my sales data.  I've launched 5 products since launch.  I've sold 92 items total for $136.12 (of which I have made $68.06).  One of the products is PWYW, so I don't get data for people who download it for free, only for those who pay for it, OneBookShelf is looking in on how to offer me that data.

I can offer a further breakdown if anyone wants it.

A couple other wrinkles, on the DMsGuild site, I'm an Author, not a Publisher.  I can't respond directly to a review, only in the Discussion part of a product.  Also, I was accused of poor business practices for NOT offering a Preview of my product, when I don't have that tool at my disposal.  Finally, I have several people who want to review my product, but as an Author I can't send them a comp copy via the site.  I can, of course send them a Gift Certificate.  I can also send them a free copy via e-mail, but then they can't post a review.

I am extremely impressed with the tools we have been given and look forward to some improvement that OneBookShelf tells me they are working on.  I mean its ONLY been 13 days?

I am learning how important Reviews are and am becoming more ardent about my responsibility as a consumer.

While I take my 2 low review seriously, its an obstacle to have a single review tear your rating down to the bone.  However, this is just part of learning a new industry and I hope to use it as motivation to grow as a publisher.


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## MwaO

I'd note a few things:
One of the issues with reviews is that with 'pay what you want', I believe someone who decided to pay $0 for it can give a review. Especially when there's no context of what was wrong, that tends to create some issues. Or the 1st one bought is at a low price and then that sets the 'average' price paid.

The chart is based on sales/time on store for popularity. Things will naturally drop - something that's sold 20 over 10 days is lower than something that's sold 5 over 2 days when from what I can tell, the 1st is more impressive than the 2nd.

The system is kind of messed up - sometimes I can get a most popular 100 list, and sometimes not. But I find it kind of scary that no Adventurer's League mod is in the top 30.

It is possible to put material in that violates the SRD - the spell cards could have incorporated non-SRD WotC spells, which are out there. And as I think there's a competing paid product spell card which the producer of likely paid money for the rights to produce cards...


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## I'm A Banana

Sunsword said:
			
		

> As an author with 5 products launched and 3 with reviews, feedback is important. Its hard when you get a single, low review. But I've already revised one product and am having multiple people look at a second product based on feedback. A low review, while a stab in the heart, especially an honest review helps you learn and hopefully grow. Its been an interesting 2 weeks.




One of the little annoyances is that this seems to be an amplifier for folks who are already well-regarded, with popular blogs/twitch feeds/etc. They're probably worth the attention, and will hopefully encourage more people to check out more products, but it can feel a little like screaming at the void when you don't already have an audience you're selling to.

That's disheartening, but it's kind of inevitable. Folks buy from people they trust, and most of the DMG's Guild is unknown and untested. It's something that can be tweaked by folks getting out there and buying and reviewing products NOT on the top seller lists - I imagine high ratings on other things will provoke folks to check it out. 

Which is a longwinded way for me to say I'm considering giving out free reviewer copies.


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## Sunsword

I'm A Banana said:


> Which is a longwinded way for me to say I'm considering giving out free reviewer copies.




This is tricky because, as far I can tell, you have to send them a Gift Certificate, I don't believe you can send them a free copy over DMsGuild and a free e-mail copy won't allow them to rate or review it.  But I've already started making this offer.


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## Acr0ssTh3P0nd

Sacrosanct said:


> 24.
> Booklet of Infinite Horrors
> Pay What You Want




Hey, my little side product got into the top 25! Holy crud! Thanks for the heads up!


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## MwaO

Sunsword said:


> I'll share my sales data.  I've launched 5 products since launch.  I've sold 92 items total for $136.12 (of which I have made $68.06).  One of the products is PWYW, so I don't get data for people who download it for free, only for those who pay for it, OneBookShelf is looking in on how to offer me that data.




Here is mine:
I've sold 49 items for a total of $39.70 (of which I have made $19.85). I'm relatively a new person in terms of being a publisher - mainly I've co-written a couple of Living Campaign mods(LG IUZ8-1 and LFR NETH4-1) which got well-received by their respective campaign bases. And I have a design background, so my formatting is relatively consistent.

It seems interesting - if you can hit the magic button which gets you a sale a day every day of the year, it could easily be worth the time and effort. But I don't know how anyone makes an actual mod work unless they're frighteningly fast or really want to work for a couple of dollars an hour - can you imagine writing a mod which immediately drops off the top 100 list after a day?


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## zoroaster100

Is it possible to leave a review and then go back to change it? If not I think that should be an option. I want to give positive reviews for the stuff I bought as it looks great at first glance but I won't know if it truly merits the good review until I use it in game. I'd be more willing to give a preliminary review if I knew I could go back and revise it later.


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## timbannock

MwaO said:


> Here is mine:
> I've sold 49 items for a total of $39.70 (of which I have made $19.85). I'm relatively a new person in terms of being a publisher - mainly I've co-written a couple of Living Campaign mods(LG IUZ8-1 and LFR NETH4-1) which got well-received by their respective campaign bases. And I have a design background, so my formatting is relatively consistent.
> 
> It seems interesting - if you can hit the magic button which gets you a sale a day every day of the year, it could easily be worth the time and effort. But I don't know how anyone makes an actual mod work unless they're frighteningly fast or really want to work for a couple of dollars an hour - can you imagine writing a mod which immediately drops off the top 100 list after a day?




Since we're sharing...

Two products, one a calendar/campaign tracker, one a rules expansion with tons of working examples for hexcrawling. Both are Pay What You Want.

Calendar sold 20 @ $21.25 (take home $10.63)
Hexcrawling sold 28 @ $54.40 (take home $27.20)

I've got a mildly successful blog where I write about more than just D&D, but both of these things had test-beds there; the final versions are SIGNIFICANTLY revised and rebuilt from the ground-up to be better, and thus why I feel like I can maybe get a buck or two thrown at me for them ;-) But ultimately, that *does* mean there are people out there who don't see much value in these, which is completely fine (thus the PWYW).

One's FR specific, the other is not, and in fact, features a custom hex map (relatively small area) and 5 expansive but custom-built encounter tables. That might work against it for not being FR specific, maybe. I dunno. I'd be curious about that (the original test-bed version on the blog *did* feature some FR specific examples, somewhat ironically).

I plan to publish an adventure soon, with FR specific setting material. It'll be interesting to see how that fares against non-adventure material.


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## Rabbitbait

As a consumer only, I will be reviewing the one product I bought. But as it is an adventure I'm waiting till I finish it first. My players are about halfway through. I'd hope more consumers will review once they have had a chance to actually use what they got - it hasn't been open long.


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## LostandDamned

bedir than said:


> By being free, or essentially free, my default assumption is that the creator feels it has no value.




I strongly disagree with this assumption, I find quite often if a creator gives away a product for free, even if it's only a few pages long, it's a good incentive for people to take a look at his/her work.

If the layouts good, the art's ok but most of all, if the writing is great, that author is far more likely to then get me to pay good hard earned money of mine on a bigger work of theirs.

Thats the true value of Free Downloads by any author.


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## InkwellIdeas

zoroaster100 said:


> Is it possible to leave a review and then go back to change it? If not I think that should be an option. I want to give positive reviews for the stuff I bought as it looks great at first glance but I won't know if it truly merits the good review until I use it in game. I'd be more willing to give a preliminary review if I knew I could go back and revise it later.




You can delete your prior review and re-review it, assuming it works the same as DriveThru/RPGnow.


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## Yaarel

Sunsword said:


> As an author with 5 products launched and 3 with reviews, feedback is important.  Its hard when you get a single, low review.  But I've already revised one product and am having multiple people look at a second product based on feedback.  A low review, while a stab in the heart, especially an honest review helps you learn and hopefully grow.  Its been an interesting 2 weeks.




When you improve a product, is it easy to remove the old product and swap the new one in?


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## InkwellIdeas

Yaarel said:


> When you improve a product, is it easy to remove the old product and swap the new one in?




If it works like DriveThru/RPGNow, you can easily replace the file from the file uploads page.  Delete the old file upload the new one and you are done.  By default, it should even email everyone who already has it.


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## Sacrosanct

Morrus said:


> What's more interesting the widespread use of PWYW, which many of us small press publishers tried for a while on DTRPG and ... well, let's say we stopped trying it. Though we do it on EN5ider, there's no $0 option.





I still use it, but I don't look at it as a way to make profit.  Think of it in terms of advertising.  For things I have a hard time justifying actually putting a cost to (like my one page adventures), I do PWYW.  I don't expect any profit, but if someone gives $, it's a big bonus.  For example, One of my free products has over 12,000 downloads (I'm talking DTRPG, not DMs Guild).  When I released Felk Mor, I sent out an email to everyone who downloaded the free product and let them know that I had released a new superdungeon, and my sales spiked by over 100 in just over a day.  I'm guessing that's because of the emails.  So in the long run, I probably earned more from the PWYW indirectly than if I had charged for it.

For DM's Guild, I'm #21 on the list with 61 sales currently, if you want more data.


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## ZzarkLinux

I just visited the guild for the first time. Kudos to WotC and all you freelancers for offering such good content !

I just saw the 4e core book PDFs available. So I'm really glad I already sold my 4e hardcopies back in September ! This may subvert the Amazon market for D&D print products, maybe some local stores too since those don't offer PDFs either.

If you're worried about getting a "Single 1-Star Rating" from a grumpy buyer, then there have to be some tools for publisher recompense against "troll ratings". I'm sure there is a report button somewhere.  Does re-releasing it flush all old ratings? Is it possible to ask a friend to buy it and rate it?


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## Polyhedral_Columbia

Thanks for sifting through this Morrus.


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## warfteiner

I believe that there are a number of ways to look at "pay what you want":


this is a product from a new designer
the designer is not seeking monetary compensation
the designer is not seeking any compensation
the product is known by the designer to be low-quality

Sometimes a designer will post a product just to get *something* posted.  In my case, I posted two small articles - one about Kyuss, and the other about the Order of the Cerulean Sign - not because I was looking to make an influx of cash, but rather because I wanted to support the concept of the DM's Guild and creator-owned content by sharing products that were inherently important to me.  I'd love to get feedback (after years as an actor, I've kinda grown to need it!) but I knew going into it that using "pay what you want" would equate to about a 5-10% paid-to-free ratio, which has held true. I can't promise that they will remain free forever, but for a bit I was pleasantly surprised to see Kyuss in the top 20 items.

To be frank, I love seeing PWYW items in the shop.  Creator-owned content is ALWAYS a crapshoot, and it's not always because someone isn't a good designer - often, it's because their design methodology just does not mesh with how I want to play or interpret my game.  I don't expect to see those entries, but I am more likely to consider them - seeing products from designers in the shop that are exclusively behind the paywall will lessen my chances of reviewing their work.  In a book store or local game shop, I can crack open a sourcebook and thumb through it to get a taste of what I'm in for; with a digital purchase, regardless of the cash value, I have no way of knowing if I'm even interested in the work.

In the interest of fairness, my stuff can be found here - download it (even for free) if you like.


Please post a review if you have a few moments!


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## Curmudjinn

I plan on eventually putting out some products, after I watch how the Guild plays out for a time. It looks like there are plenty of kinks to work out.


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## Sunsword

Yaarel said:


> When you improve a product, is it easy to remove the old product and swap the new one in?




Yes, you can delete the old one and then upload the new one.  Its very user friendly.


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## MwaO

warfteiner said:


> I believe that there are a number of ways to look at "pay what you want":
> 
> 
> this is a product from a new designer
> the designer is not seeking monetary compensation
> the designer is not seeking any compensation
> the product is known by the designer to be low-quality




While those are possibilities, I don't think that's a good way to look at it given the outcomes. Namely, roughly half of the most popular items are PWYW. i.e. if you want compensation, one of the better routes to go is PWYW.

What I find really interesting though is that a lot of the popular PWYW items have high quality artwork. That's kind of suspicious.


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## Over the Hill Gamer

I don't think the average person would be interested in wading through hundreds of mediocre to poor products looking for the handful of gems.  I hope the rating system begins to work better as time passes.  I routinely pay nothing for pay what you want products.  If the publisher can't put a value on it, I won't.


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## jamesjhaeck

I'm releasing a big adventure (50+ pages) on DMs Guild within the next two weeks, and the cost of it is a little daunting. I'm resigned to not making money off of it... and that's okay for right now. It's the biggest single project I've ever been involved in—EN5ider notwithstanding—and I want my first foot forward to be my best foot forward.


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## Sir Brennen

warfteiner said:


> To be frank, I love seeing PWYW items in the shop.  Creator-owned content is ALWAYS a crapshoot[...]




Yeah, due to the nature of this being a mix of inexperienced fan material to products from professional game designers and everywhere between, it's hard to shell out money for something that might be total crap and unusable. So far the PWYW products I've gotten I've been fairly confident would be worth while due to their reviews/discussion, well-done product description in the store, or from an author I've already purchased from and liked. Fortunately, the only item so far I gave a one star review to was free.

But if I wanted to be more adventurous in checking out PWYW products, is there a way to go back and throw money at the author _later_ if I really like his stuff? (PWYWL?)


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## JeffB

Over the Hill Gamer said:


> I don't think the average person would be interested in wading through hundreds of mediocre to poor products looking for the handful of gems.  I hope the rating system begins to work better as time passes.  I routinely pay nothing for pay what you want products.  If the publisher can't put a value on it, I won't.




I'm one who is not willing to wade through. It helps that so far almost all  the Guild content is player crunch I have less than zero interest in.  I hope there will be more DM type content. 

I tend to be the kind of customer on Drive thru who will download a pwyw product for free first, and see if it something is worth a buck or two for, and if so, I  purchased again.  I imagine that would be commonplace.

Fwiw, the one Guild product I downloaded I didn't feel was worth a buck or two.  So far this has been deja vu of  3.0. Lots of meh (to put it nicely). I also hope the rating system will "kick in" and help sifting through things.


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## dave2008

MwaO said:


> What I find really interesting though is that a lot of the popular PWYW items have high quality artwork. That's kind of suspicious.




I could be wrong, but I would guess (or hope) they are using the free art provided by WotC through the DM's Guild.  I know this was the route the Epic Handbook used.

Unless your an artist, art is expensive (as it should be imho).  I am making a little 7 creature monster collection and the quotes I got for the art (7 pieces) ranged from $500 - $3,500.  I'm going with the $500 artist, but it is unlikely as a first time publisher I will ever make that back.


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## warfteiner

Sir Brennen said:


> But if I wanted to be more adventurous in checking out PWYW products, is there a way to go back and throw money at the author _later_ if I really like his stuff? (PWYWL?)




Yes, you can go back to the item listing and submit your desired payment later on.


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## timbannock

MwaO said:


> What I find really interesting though is that a lot of the popular PWYW items have high quality artwork. That's kind of suspicious.




I found an artist willing to do some work especially cheap -- I mean CHEAP!!! -- and I fully expect to *still* make no money off the product. But here's the thing: I too am new to publishing, so I'm happy to offer the first few things PWYW and an upcoming adventure for a couple bucks even though it'll cost a lot of bucks to make, because it's all practice to me, and it gets my name out there.

At some point, if I want to make money off of this, I will...immediately stop doing this and get a real job ;-P #kiddingnotkidding. Gaming is a hobby, not a money farm, so PWYW and putting decent artwork into a product are really just a way of getting this stuff that I hope is cool out front of some people's faces. If they think it's cool, too, they can vote with their wallet, but honestly, I don't care about the money.


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## timbannock

warfteiner said:


> Yes, you can go back to the item listing and submit your desired payment later on.




And as someone who's done exactly that, let me tell you that the content creators really appreciate it.


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## The Grassy Gnoll

Can't see the spell cards there- maybe taken down due to conflict with printed ones?


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## Reynard

dave2008 said:


> I could be wrong, but I would guess (or hope) they are using the free art provided by WotC through the DM's Guild.  I know this was the route the Epic Handbook used.
> 
> Unless your an artist, art is expensive (as it should be imho).  I am making a little 7 creature monster collection and the quotes I got for the art (7 pieces) ranged from $500 - $3,500.  I'm going with the $500 artist, but it is unlikely as a first time publisher I will ever make that back.




Commissioned art is very expensive. There is tons of high quality, inexpensive royalty-free artwork on DTRPG.


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## Awesome Adam

If you shop around long enough on www.fiverr.com you'll find someone willing to draw what you want for $5.

Often royalty free, but you should make sure first. Sometimes they'll want an additional fee. I've seen as low as $10-$40.


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## Sacrosanct

Reynard said:


> Commissioned art is very expensive. .




It can be.  But I know a bunch of artists.  They are good people just trying to make a living.  So I try to commission as much as I can.


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## dave2008

Reynard said:


> Commissioned art is very expensive. There is tons of high quality, inexpensive royalty-free artwork on DTRPG.




Thanks for the info - I didn't know that. Where do I find it?  That being said I am looking for monster illustrations and I have specific needs.  But you never know until you try!


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## dave2008

Awesome Adam said:


> If you shop around long enough on www.fiverr.com you'll find someone willing to draw what you want for $5.
> 
> Often royalty free, but you should make sure first. Sometimes they'll want an additional fee. I've seen as low as $10-$40.




Thank you for the info.  I was unfamiliar with that site.  I will give it a try.


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## Reynard

dave2008 said:


> Thanks for the info - I didn't know that. Where do I find it?  That being said I am looking for monster illustrations and I have specific needs.  But you never know until you try!




Start here.


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## dave2008

Reynard said:


> Start here.




Thanks!


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## Serpine

neuronphaser said:


> Since we're sharing...




I have one item up (a tradition / spells / feat / monster combo) currently as PWYW that has sold 21 units for gross sales $17.45. When I updated it on the weekend it flashed a message about sending the update to around 130 customers so around 108 (-1 for me when I tested the buy process) have picked it up for free. It has two ratings, a 4 star with very useful comments (which I acted on) and a silent 3 star.


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## Olaf the Stout

The Highest Rated item, The Food Fight - An Acquisitions Incorporated Sidetrek, looks like it has been pulled as well.


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## Kite474

Funny enough Kobold Press's Savage Heroes was pulled as well. Does anyone know why?


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## Oznogon

Kobold on Facebook: "Yep, we pulled it. Need to make a change and repost." No further details. I thought you could update a product without pulling it.


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## Oznogon

And the Acquisitions Incorporated one is back under a different title with all the Acquisitions Incorporated branding removed: http://www.dmsguild.com/product/172160/The-Food-Fight--An-Adventures-Unlimited-Story


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## Sacrosanct

Oznogon said:


> Kobold on Facebook: "Yep, we pulled it. Need to make a change and repost." No further details. I thought you could update a product without pulling it.




You can.  Presumably, they didn't want to keep selling the old version if they were making updates, so they pulled it until it's done.


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## Reynard

Sacrosanct said:


> You can.  Presumably, they didn't want to keep selling the old version if they were making updates, so they pulled it until it's done.




Especially if there was something that broke the license since no one is required to update their files. The fewer ones out there that do not conform, the better.


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## Miladoon

Anyone wonder if a writer's syndicate could come into the DMsG and corner the market? You know, puff up each others ratings and murderlize their competition with low ratings.


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## Morrus

Miladoon said:


> Anyone wonder if a writer's syndicate could come into the DMsG and corner the market? You know, puff up each others ratings and murderlize their competition with low ratings.




They don't on DTRPG. If it happened, the site would simply change the ratings rules.  Lots of effort for something that could be nullified by the site admins with a couple of clicks. DMsG is just the same DTRPG site that's been around for 16 years now.  Same site, different skin.


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## Miladoon

Morrus said:


> They don't on DTRPG. If it happened, the site would simply change the ratings rules.  Lots of effort for something that could be nullified by the site admins with a couple of clicks. DMsG is just the same DTRPG site that's been around for 16 years now.  Same site, different skin.




I wonder if it would be so simple. I predict that there will be claims to turf, and not a simple way to root that out.

Just a thought.


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## Morrus

Miladoon said:


> I wonder if it would be so simple. I predict that there will be claims to turf, and not a simple way to root that out.




Then why has it not happened in the last 16 years the same sites have been around?


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## Miladoon

Focused content, maybe?


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## Morrus

Miladoon said:


> Focused content, maybe?




That's just two words, not an explanation. What about it, and why?


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## Miladoon

Well setting the Community Content Agreement aside for a sec, one of the differences would be that the content is limited to the Forgotten Realms. There is less Lebensraum. Groups could get together to protect their borders if they felt threatened.


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## Morrus

Miladoon said:


> Well setting the Community Content Agreement aside for a sec, one of the differences would be that the content is limited to the Forgotten Realms. There is less Lebensraum. Groups could get together to protect their borders if they felt threatened. You ask, Groups?
> Well, they are forming.




That paragraph is kinda hard to parse. Are you saying you know of such syndicates? Who are deliberately downrating other products?


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## Acr0ssTh3P0nd

Reynard said:


> Commissioned art is very expensive. There is tons of high quality, inexpensive royalty-free artwork on DTRPG.




It's at times like this that I thank my lucky stars that I can do my own art. Yeah, it's even more work, but at least I don't have pay myself. 

As for sharing, I've got one PWYW product that's made 74 sales so far and pulled in $86.50 USD over the last week and a half (so $43.25 for me - almost enough to replace my Xbox's power supply!), and is actually floating around the mid-to-high twenties on Hottest DM's Guild content, which is both surprising (since it's my first-ever semi-professional release and contains almost no mechanical crunch) and rewarding (coz I put in a tonne of effort with making it look purty and read good-like).

I have no illusions about being able to make any truly significant amount of money from the DM's Guild right now, what with university coursework, but it's nice to have a platform where I feel challenged to improve my writing and artwork in order to stand out.


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## Miladoon

Morrus said:


> That paragraph is kinda hard to parse. Are you saying you know of such syndicates? Who are deliberately downrating other products?




I edited my post.

No, I do not have that kind of evidence. I am predicting that there will be some people staking claims to portions of FR and there is a possibility of rating hits happening to keep people from getting too close to their honey hole.


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## Morrus

Miladoon said:


> I edited my post.
> 
> No, I do not have that kind of evidence. I am predicting that there will be some people staking claims to portions of FR and there is a possibility of rating hits happening to keep people from getting too close to their honey hole.




Yes, I know you were predicting that. I was asking why you were predicting it, not asking you to repeat your prediction. I'm interested in your reasoning. I already know your conclusion.


----------



## Sacrosanct

One thing I'm still trying to figure out is all the complaints about lack of adventures on DMs Guild.  Folks know that DTRPG/RPGNow exists, right?  There are tons of adventures there, many 5e SRD compatible.


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## Morrus

Sacrosanct said:


> One thing I'm still trying to figure out is all the complaints about lack of adventures on DMs Guild.  Folks know that DTRPG/RPGNow exists, right?  There are tons of adventures there, many 5e SRD compatible.




I think the marketing has the potential to make 5E stuff on  DTRPG a little-known secret.  I've already noticed a drop in sales.  I hope not, especially if OBS is one of the architects of that marketing.

OBS is poised at the position where they hoover up all homebrew stuff on the Internet and then works with larger corporations on rules for that material. I'm a little concerned about the overall centralisation aspects. I hope it works out OK. I might put a piece up there to see what it's like.


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## Miladoon

Reason 1 - Less Lebensraum - a historical proven aggressive model.

Reason 2 - Community Content Agreement - Two authors, A and B, share work but A makes claim that B has come too close to A's work. OBS finds for B and A writes a poor rating on B's work establishing A's own justice. 

Enter A's 30 friends.

Has it happened in 16 years, maybe not. But now is the 17th year.


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## Morrus

Miladoon said:


> Reason 1 - Less Lebensraum - a historical proven aggressive model.
> 
> Reason 2 - Community Content Agreement - Two authors, A and B, share work but A makes claim that B has come too close to A's work. OBS finds for B and A writes a poor rating on B's work establishing A's own justice.
> 
> Enter A's 30 friends.
> 
> Has it happened in 16 years, maybe not. But now is the 17th year.




No, you're just repeating the prediction again. I know what your prediction is. I understand what your prediction is.  You don't need to repeat it.  

It's the working I'm curious about, not the answer.  You've told me the answer three times now.


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## Miladoon

Good, you now have less chance of forgetting the prediction when it starts to happen.

or, 

I obviously don't know what you are asking me to say to you.


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## Morrus

Miladoon said:


> Good, you now have less chance of forgetting the prediction when it starts to happen.
> 
> or,
> 
> I obviously don't know what you are asking me to say to you.




I'm asking you to stop describing _what_ you think is going to happen suddenly after 16 years,  and explain _why_ you think it's going to happen suddenly after 16 years.  What, in your mind, has changed to create this new behaviour in our little industry?  The best explanation you've given so far is "focused content", which explains nothing at all, any more than "blue logo" or "new font" does.

I'm not disagreeing with you (or agreeing with you). I'm just curious what the reasoning behind this fairly strong assertion are, given that we've not seen this behaviour in the same storefronts up until now.


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## Reynard

It reads to me that Miladoon is suggesting that it is the presence of the Realms as a workspace that might be the cause of this new behavior. In other words, in order to protect their interest in one particular corner of the Realms from interloping fellow pro-am designers, some might be motivated to down vote any other who create products that touch their "turf."

 [MENTION=6801438]Miladoon[/MENTION] can correct me if I am wrong.

Also, for the record, I don't see it happening. I don't think we will see the kind of community cooperation necessary for such a conspiracy.


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## Miladoon

Oh, you mean like if I stumble onto a website of organized authors reserving specific products for release to DMsGuild?

Okay, I will let you know.


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## Morrus

Miladoon said:


> Oh, you mean like if I stumble onto a website of organized authors reserving specific products for release to DMsGuild?
> 
> Okay, I will let you know.




No, not that.  Don't worry about it. It's not important.


----------



## Miladoon

Well it sounds more interesting as a NaNoWriMo project.
 [MENTION=467]Reynard[/MENTION] Essentially it is a prediction for rain in the desert met with no way cuz it has not rained in the desert for 16 years.


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## dave2008

Miladoon said:


> Well it sounds more interesting as a NaNoWriMo project.
> [MENTION=467]Reynard[/MENTION] Essentially it is a prediction for rain in the desert met with no way cuz it has not rained in the desert for 16 years.




That is not it at all.  Morrus is asking you why you think it will rain in the desert.  So far your answer is essentially:  because it could happen.  If you don't have a reason for why now, fine, but continuing to say "because it could" is not helpful or insightful, it would be better to say you don't have a reason - just a hunch or whatever.


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## BookBarbarian

Miladoon said:


> Well it sounds more interesting as a NaNoWriMo project.
> [MENTION=467]Reynard[/MENTION] Essentially it is a prediction for rain in the desert met with no way cuz it has not rained in the desert for 16 years.




It is not "no way cuz it has not rained in the desert for 16 years" at all  It is "Please give me a reason it would it start raining in the desert now when it hasn't for the past 16 years?"

To use your metaphor, an answer like "Because there are storm clouds on the horizon" or "There is different atmospheric pressure in the region" is more what Morrus is looking for.


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## EthanSental

Can this thread topic be a monthly or quarterly thing going forward so we can keep up with the good stuff?  Sorry if this was already answered earlier.


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## MerricB

The number one thing that irritates me about products on the DMs Guild? People who miscategorize their products. Monsters are not Adventures. ARGH!!!!!

Cheers!


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## Jraynack

MerricB said:


> The number one thing that irritates me about products on the DMs Guild? People who miscategorize their products. Monsters are not Adventures. ARGH!!!!!
> 
> Cheers!




Yeah, I agree - it's a bit frustrating.


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## Giant2005

MwaO said:


> One of the issues with reviews is that with 'pay what you want', I believe someone who decided to pay $0 for it can give a review.




In theory that sounds like a significant issue, but in practice it most assuredly isn't.
My most popular product on there was listed as "pay what you want" and had over 1,300 downloads at the last update. It had 7 reviews.
Just because people can easily leave a review doesn't mean that they will, and as long as people keep choosing to not review things, then this is will continue to be a non-issue.


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## MwaO

Giant2005 said:


> In theory that sounds like a significant issue, but in practice it most assuredly isn't.
> My most popular product on there was listed as "pay what you want" and had over 1,300 downloads at the last update. It had 7 reviews.
> Just because people can easily leave a review doesn't mean that they will, and as long as people keep choosing to not review things, then this is will continue to be a non-issue.




I was referring to something which actually happened to me. My worst selling product PWYW in terms of overall average selling price was given a 2* review before it had even made a paid sale. No explanation and within an hour or so of it going up.

I'm not 100% certain that they didn't pay for it. But I'm reasonably certain that the review influenced things. Since then, it has averaged a 4, but there's an initial window where if a product is going to get popular compared to your average sales, it has to generally happen right near release when the maximum number of people can see it.


----------



## Morrus

Giant2005 said:


> Fair call. One of mine received a 3 star review for its first review that I don't think it deserved, so I do understand where you are coming from.
> There is a simple solution though (although the solution is probably more of a significant issue than the problem it is solving), you can purchase your own material, so if you purchase your own book for $0.00 immediately after publishing it, then you can give it a 5 star rating and give it an initial fighting chance.




Reviewing or rating your own products is grounds for removal from OBS' sites. I do not recommend that at all. Trust me, they can tell.


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## Giant2005

MwaO said:


> I was referring to something which actually happened to me. My worst selling product PWYW in terms of overall average selling price was given a 2* review before it had even made a paid sale. No explanation and within an hour or so of it going up.
> 
> I'm not 100% certain that they didn't pay for it. But I'm reasonably certain that the review influenced things. Since then, it has averaged a 4, but there's an initial window where if a product is going to get popular compared to your average sales, it has to generally happen right near release when the maximum number of people can see it.




Fair call. One of mine received a 3 star review for its first review that I don't think it deserved, so I do understand where you are coming from.
There is a simple solution though (although the solution is probably more of a significant issue than the problem it is solving), you can purchase your own material, so if you purchase your own book for $0.00 immediately after publishing it, then you can give it a 5 star rating and give it an initial fighting chance.


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## Morrus

Here's a question for those worried that they're not getting many reviews. Before publishing yourself on DMsG, how often would you say you left reviews for things you bought?


----------



## Giant2005

Morrus said:


> Here's a question for those worried that they're not getting many reviews. Before publishing yourself on DMsG, how often would you say you left reviews for things you bought?




I'm not one to complain about a lack of reviews, but I am the worst kind of reviewer so I probably instinctively wrongly assume other people have those same tendencies and am actually a little grateful that they don't review.
I only really leave reviews for things that I think suck. If something is good, I have very little to say but if something is terrible I can explain what exactly I think is wrong with it.


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## MwaO

Giant2005 said:


> Fair call. One of mine received a 3 star review for its first review that I don't think it deserved, so I do understand where you are coming from.
> There is a simple solution though (although the solution is probably more of a significant issue than the problem it is solving), you can purchase your own material, so if you purchase your own book for $0.00 immediately after publishing it, then you can give it a 5 star rating and give it an initial fighting chance.




As Morrus noted, that's not a good idea.

My best selling product has really enthusiastic talkative reviews and I've definitely appreciated them. I just think the issue with PWYW is that people have an option of leaving a negative review without commentary early on.

Btw, anyone know how to respond to a review? It doesn't seem to want to let me do it and I feel like I must be missing something obvious - I've seen other publishers do it, so I don't know what I'm doing wrong...


----------



## Sacrosanct

MwaO said:


> I was referring to something which actually happened to me. My worst selling product PWYW in terms of overall average selling price was given a 2* review before it had even made a paid sale. No explanation and within an hour or so of it going up.
> 
> I'm not 100% certain that they didn't pay for it. But I'm reasonably certain that the review influenced things. Since then, it has averaged a 4, but there's an initial window where if a product is going to get popular compared to your average sales, it has to generally happen right near release when the maximum number of people can see it.




That's the reality you have to accept when you put out a product for free.  I think what you described has happened to us all, at some point.  For example, one of my PWYW products got a bad review because the reviewer "didn't like the genre.".  Nothing to do with the actual product itself, but because they didn't like the genre, they gave it a bad review, and they could because they didn't have to pay anything in order to leave such a review.  And hope that you never pissed anyone off in online communities, because people have been known to give bad reviews to people the personally don't like.

I guess we just have to learn to live with such things as cost of doing business.


----------



## bedir than

[MENTION=1]Morrus[/MENTION], I saw the update with the three removed items. Was there any statement as to why they were removed?


----------



## dave2008

One issue with ratings is that everyone has a different idea of what 3 or 5 stars means.  Personally,  3 stars to me is good, 4 stars would be something exceptional, and 5 stars would be a "must have."  

For example:  The Epic Level Handbook was a good product so I gave it 3 stars and I wrote a review as well.  However, it could never be 5 stars as epic level anything is just not a "must have" IMO, even though that is the area of the game that I focus on.  So the best it could have gotten is 4 stars, which, IMO it didn't quite obtain.  Now, I understand there have been some updates, that might have changed my rating, but I never got them and now it has been removed.

On hindsight I should have probably explained my rating in the review, that didn't occur to me at the time.


----------



## dave2008

MwaO said:


> Btw, anyone know how to respond to a review? It doesn't seem to want to let me do it and I feel like I must be missing something obvious - I've seen other publishers do it, so I don't know what I'm doing wrong...




I think you can only respond to a "discussion" and not a review.


----------



## MwaO

dave2008 said:


> I think you can only respond to a "discussion" and not a review.




Yup, I was confused. You can't do it according to tech support.


----------



## MNblockhead

Sacrosanct said:


> That's the reality you have to accept when you put out a product for free.... And hope that you never pissed anyone off in online communities, because people have been known to give bad reviews to people the personally don't like.




Hmmm, you've given me an idea. I'll publish something for a low cost, say a buck, then go upset a bunch of folks on various on-line communities. Wonder what cost would be low enough that someone would pay just to leave a low review because they don't like me. ;-)


----------



## George Krashos

I'm rather chuffed to have made the Top 10. I've since uploaded a further 3 pieces to the DMs Guild, one free, one "pay what you want" and another with a fixed price. I did so to 'test the market' as it were.

The sales/download data is interesting:

High History of Impiltur (free) - downloaded 365 times.
Saints of Impiltur (free) - downloaded 172 times.
Talona's Touch ($2) - downloaded 33 times [Revenue $66, my cut $33]
Soargar's Legacy (Pay what you want) - downloaded 169 times [Revenue $15.89, my cut $7.95]

Hard to say exactly what the stats say, other than people love free stuff!

-- George Krashos


----------

