The Gameatory

Raging Swan Press Top Twelve Sellers

Creighton Broadhurst -

As 2023 stampedes to a close, I’ve started to ponder Raging Swan Press’s 2024 release schedule. As part of that, it seemed wise to review my sales at DriveThruRPG over the last 12 months. One of DriveThru’s tremendously decent—and perhaps a touch heroic—customer support supremos leapt into action to create some seriously impressive pivot tables for me to fondle. (Thanks, Adam!)

Raging Swan Press has over 1,000 products on DriveThruRPG. Some books sell well; others sell—literally—one copy a year. Our catalogue is a living, breathing long tail. 

I’m obviously interested in what sells particularly well. Here are the results:

Top 12 By Units Sold

  1. The Dread Thingonomicon (System Neutral Edition)
  2. GM’s Miscellany: Wilderness Dressing (System Neutral Edition)
  3. GM’s Miscellany: Dungeon Dressing (System Neutral Edition)
  4. GM’s Miscellany: Urban Dressing (System Neutral Edition)
  5. GM’s Miscellany: Urban Dressing II (System Neutral Edition)
  6. Shadowed Keep on the Borderlands (5e)
  7. GM’s Miscellany: Monstrous Lair I (System Neutral Edition)
  8. GM’s Miscellany: Monstrous Lairs II (System Neutral Edition)
  9. GM’s Miscellany: Dungeon Dressing (5e)
  10. GM’s Miscellany: The Thingonomicon (System Neutral)
  11. GM’s Miscellany: The Thingonomicon II (System Neutral)
  12. Shunned Valley of the Three Tombs (5e)

Top 12 by Earnings Generated

  1. The Dread Thingonomicon (System Neutral Edition)
  2. GM’s Miscellany: Wilderness Dressing (System Neutral Edition)
  3. GM’s Miscellany: Dungeon Dressing (System Neutral Edition)
  4. GM’s Miscellany: Urban Dressing (System Neutral Edition)
  5. Shadowed Keep on the Borderlands (5e)
  6. GM’s Miscellany: Dungeon Dressing (5e)
  7. GM’s Miscellany: Urban Dressing II (System Neutral Edition)
  8. GM’s Miscellany: Dungeon Dressing (P1)
  9. GM’s Miscellany: The Thingonomicon (System Neutral)
  10. GM’s Miscellany: The Thingonomicon II (System Neutral)
  11. GM’s Miscellany: Monstrous Lairs II (System Neutral Edition)
  12. GM’s Miscellany: Monstrous Lair I (System Neutral Edition)

Thoughts

This provided me with some eye-opening stats and trends. 

  1. The Dread Thingonomicon rules supreme.
  2. GM’s like Wilderness Dressing more than Dungeon Dressing.
  3. My top 12 sellers, both by units sold and Earnings Generated, are exclusively either 5e compatible or System Neutral except for a lone Pathfinder 1st edition book—GM’s Miscellany: Dungeon Dressing (P1). No Pathfinder 2nd edition or OSR books got a look in.

The popularity of System Neutral books surprised me a bit. Obviously, System Neutral books are universally applicable. Hence, the potential market is bigger, but I think for a long time, we as gamers have been bombarded with the message that the more options and mechanics you have, the better. (It’s a clever way to sell more books.) I don’t subscribe to this viewpoint, which is why Raging Swan Press doesn’t produce books filled with player options, new monsters and new magic items. We are all about verisimilitude and bringing the game alive in the players’ imaginations.

Our Top 12 lists inevitably bring up the question of where to best spend my time and resources in 2024. (That was the whole point of this exercise.) It’s something I need to think very carefully about as, at first glance, I should focus exclusively on 5e and System Neutral books, and I’m not sure that is a path I particularly want to go down.