Sales Numbers: Majestic Wilderlands and Blackmarsh

To help understand the financial side of "old school" D&D publishing, here is some sales info, both concrete and speculative, for Majestic Wilderlands and Blackmarsh, by Rob Conley.

     

From Rob Conley's post at The RPG Site:

"On Lulu I sold 319 units of Majestic Wilderlands across all formats since 2009
On RPGNow I sold another 319 units of Majestic Wilderlands across all formats since 2009.
On RPGnow I sold over 96 books of Blackmarsh."

Majestic Wilderlands

• Released 2009 Dec 6
• 638 copies (mix of print & pdf) have sold as of 2012 Sep 21, for in just short of three years time. (Unclear how this number accounts for the bundled print + pdf option, which comes at the same price as the print version.)
• $4.55: Approximate net intake per copy. ($7 pdf price x 65% royalty rate from rpgnow.) Print copy net earnings could be a bit higher, but ignoring that fact.
• $2900: Possible total net intake, modulo the bundled print + pdf accounting. NOTE that this is not a true net earnings, as it does not subtract production costs for art, editing, layout, etc.
• $2548: Amount he earned as of 2011 Nov 27. (Source)
• $6 to $12: Price paid per copy sold, depending on how the bundled print + pdf factors into the count of copies sold.
• $3800 to $7600: Total spent by customers should be roughly somewhere within this range, modulo any purchased at a discount.

Sales Numbers Over Time:

• 2009 Dec (end): 74 print & 76 pdf = 150 total (Source)
• 2010 Jan 18th: 87 (+13) print & 86 (+10) pdf = 173 total (Source)
• 2010 Jan (end): 92 (+5) print & 95 (+9) pdf = 187 total (Source)
• 2010 Feb (end): 101 (+9) print & 105 (+10) pdf = 206 total (Source)
• 2010 Mar (end): 112 (+11) print & 130 (+25) pdf = 242 total (Source)
• 2010 Apr - Jun (end): 149 (+37) print & 158 (+28) pdf = 307 total (Source)
• 2011 Mar 31: +26 copies sold during Jan - Mar, inclusive (Source)
• 2011 Jun 2: +26 copies sold during previous six weeks (Source)
• 2012 Sep 21: 638 copies total (Source)

Blackmarsh

• Released 2011 Apr 14
• 45 sales as of 2011 Jun 2, which recoups his art cost. (Source)
• 96 print copies have sold as of 2012 Sep 21, or nearly 1.5 years.
• Note that the pdf version is free, and thus might hamper the sales of print copies.
• $2.77: Net intake per copy. (Source)
• $265: Possible total net intake. NOTE: As above, this does not subtract production costs for art, editing, layout, etc.
• $200: Amount he earned as of 2011 Nov 27. (Source)
• $7: Price paid per copy sold, modulo discounts.
• $670: Total of payments made by customers, modulo discounts.