Originally published at Deadly Fredly. You can comment here or there.

IPR numbers are in!

Here’s the skinny.

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Originally published at Deadly Fredly. You can comment here or there.

On Monday I posted the missing 8 months of sales data I’d been too busy most of this year to post. So, that’s done, bringing us up to the end of the year (save for a big chunk of sales reckoning from IPR — I don’t get confirmed, official reporting on that until the 15th of January, so expect a post on that when the time comes).

What’s to be said about it? Turns out I have a few short thoughts.

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Originally published at Deadly Fredly. You can comment here or there.

So, once upon a time I regularly updated my livejournal with Evil Hat’s sales numbers. I fell off that horse a goodly time back — evidence points to May 1st as the last time I did this — so it’s time to play catch-up. I don’t have the end of year numbers from IPR yet, so you can expect another post like this one once we get past the 15th or so of the month.

On May 1st, these numbers were where we were at, including all of Q1 2009 for IPR, and adding in April for Lulu, OBS, e23, and YGN.

2009Q2 to date (prior to May 1st)
DLYM PDF – 10
DRYH PDF – 20
DRYH SC – 1
SOTC PDF – 25
SOTC HC – 1
SOTS PDF – 3
S7S PDF – 44

Lifetime:
DLYM: 462
DRYH: 2099
SOTC: 3563 (DISCOVERY! I dropped 700 copies from this total back in October 2008. Whups. Make that 4263 instead.)
SOTS: 500
S7S: 100

Let’s see how things went from there, shall we?

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I goofed up and didn't do an IPR summary on April 15th. I plead taxes. So this is a double-feature, hitting both the close out of last quarter, and the beginning of this.

2009Q1: January-March, IPR

What's particularly interesting about our IPR sales is the volume to retailers. Do some quick thumbnailing to figure out the approximate percentages, and you'll see what I mean.

DLYM PDF: 16
DLYM SC: 62 (41 to retailers, 3 at cons)

DRYH PDF: 29
DRYH SC: 85 (52 to retailers, 2 at cons)

SOTC PDF: 14
SOTC SC: 174 (107 to retailers, 2 at cons)

SOTS PDF: 9
SOTS SC: 8

S7S HC: 56

2009Q1:
DLYM PDF - 16 + 16 = 32
DLYM SC - 0 + 62 = 62

DRYH PDF - 39 + 29 = 68
DRYH SC - 1 + 85 = 86

SOTC PDF - 62 + 14 = 76
SOTC SC - 0 + 174 = 174
SOTC HC - 4 + 0 = 4

SOTS PDF - 18 + 9 = 27
SOTS SC - 0 + 8 = 8

S7S HC - 0 + 56 = 56

Lifetime:
DLYM: 374 + 16 + 62 = 452
DRYH: 1964 + 29 + 85 = 2078 (milestone!)
SOTC: 3354 + 14 + 174 = 3542
SOTS: 480 + 9 + 8 = 497
S7S: 56

A solid quarter in a downturned economy. I'm happy.

---

2009Q2: April - OBS, Lulu, e23, YGN

Q2 2009 starts off with S7S getting into the mix. Remember, I don't include IPR numbers until the 15th of the month following the end of the quarter, so this is strictly other sales sites.

OBS:
DLYM PDF - 10
DRYH PDF - 14
SOTC PDF - 20
SOTS PDF - 2
S7S PDF - 44

Lulu:
DRYH PDF - 3
DRYH SC - 1
SOTC PDF - 3
SOTC HC - 1

YGN:
DRYH PDF - 1

e23:
DRYH PDF - 2
SOTC PDF - 2
SOTS PDF - 1

2009Q2:
DLYM PDF - 10
DRYH PDF - 14 + 3 + 1 + 2 = 20
DRYH SC - 1
SOTC PDF - 20 + 3 + 2 = 25
SOTC HC - 1
SOTS PDF - 2 + 1 = 3
S7S PDF - 44

Lifetime:
DLYM: 452 + 10 = 462
DRYH: 2078 + 20 + 1 = 2099
SOTC: 3542 + 25 + 1 = 3563
SOTS: 497 + 3 = 500
S7S: 56 + 44 = 100

I'm liking April.

Second month of the quarter. SOTC got a bit of an "Indy Bump" over on OneBookShelf thanks to a promotional 30% off sale. Seeing as we sold double what we did last month, I'd say the discount was more than made up for. The other salesfronts were, as usual, dwarfed by the OBS gorilla.

Lulu DRYH Soft - 2
Lulu SOTC HC - 3
Lulu SOTC PDF - 2

YGN SOTC - 1 (on sale discount -- seems to be the only way I can move product at YGN)

e23 DRYH - 1
e23 SOTC - 1
e23 SOTS - 3

OBS DRYH - 20 (12 via bundle)
OBS SOTC - 51 (Many on sale; 12 via bundle)
OBS SOTS - 11

Our totals for this month:

DRYH PDF: 2+1+20 = 23
DRYH Print: 2
SOTC Hardcover: 3
SOTC PDF: 2+1+51 = 54
SOTS PDF: 3+11 = 14

Our totals, for the quarter to date:

DRYH PDF: 14 + 23 = 37
DRYH Print: 2
SOTC Hardcover: 5 + 3 = 8
SOTC PDF: 25 + 54 = 79
SOTS PDF: 31 + 14 = 45

Spirit of the Season tapered a bit, not shocking now that we're past the initial release, but SOTC really packed a whallop. This was our second biggest month on OBS ever. Our lifetime update:

DRYH: 1391 + 23 + 2 = 1416
SOTC: 3040 + 3 + 54 = 3097
SOTS: 131 + 14 = 145

First month of the quarter. Time to check in on the various non-IPR vendors!

Lulu: SOTC Hardcover: 5
Lulu: SOTC PDF: 2
Lulu: SOTS PDF: 1

YGN: SOTS PDF: 3

e23: DRYH PDF: 2
e23: SOTC PDF: 2
e23: SOTS PDF: 2

OBS: DRYH PDF: 12
OBS: SOTC PDF: 21
OBS: SOTS PDF: 25

Our totals, then, the first of this quarter:

DRYH PDF: 2+12 = 14
SOTC Hardcover: 5
SOTC PDF: 2+2+21 = 25
SOTS PDF: 1+3+2+25 = 31

A pretty solid start. I'm glad to see Spirit of the Season continue to perform. Our lifetime update:

DRYH: 1377 + 14 = 1391
SOTC: 3010 + 30 = 3040
SOTS: 100 + 31 = 131

These numbers conclude the books for Evil Hat's first quarter of 2008. They're for Indie Press Revolution's sales alone, covering all three months of the quarter (January through March 2008); all other sales venues (PDF and Lulu POD) are accounted for in earlier posts.

The newcomer this time was Spirit of the Season, which was in preorder for 99% of March, its only month of sales in Q1:

SOTS Direct Sales: 52
SOTS PDF Sales: 5
SOTS Retailer Sales: 42
Total SOTS: 99

Spirit of the Century continued to do well. As the product matures (and awareness of it continues to grow), it seems to tip more in favor of retail sales, I think (though PDFs take up the "slack" here between direct print sales and retail sales, putting them nearly dead even). A modest showing at Dreamation, Gamestorm, and OrcCon rounds it out. Since Retail and Convention tracks net us a significantly lower payout per sale, the move to do an offset print run of SOTC looks to have been well-advised, as it lets us maximize the margin there. It COULD be said that SOTC print sales have slowed a bit past its first year, but by "slowed" that means it's gone from something like 100 units/month to 85 units/month: still way stronger than we ever imagined.

SOTC Direct Sales: 117
SOTC PDF Sales: 30
SOTC Retail: 131
SOTC Convention: 8
Total SOTC: 286

Don't Rest Your Head is no slouch here either. Its form factor and esoteric elements motivate a higher percentage of volume as PDF sales, but much like SOTC, the direct and retail sales are pretty close to each other.

DRYH Direct Sales: 41
DRYH PDF Sales: 30
DRYH Retail: 43
DRYH Convention: 6
Total DRYH: 120

So what's that look like for all of Q1?

Q1 2008's running tallies, combining this with January+February's data:

DRYH: 43 to date, +120 = 163 in Q1 2008.
SOTC: 97 to date, +286 = 383 in Q1 2008.
SOTS: 1 to date, +99 = 100 in Q1 2008.

And lifetime ...

DRYH: 1257 + 120 = 1377
SOTC: 2724 + 286 = 3010
SOTS: 1 + 99 = 100

Spirit of the Century has broken 3000 copies! (Yes, that's with the PDF included, but still, holy crap!) Our sales on SOTC started at the tail end of Q3 of 2006, IIRC, which means we've hit 3000 sales in about 18-20 months. I'll take that. :)

But with all of that, still, reality exerts a little pressure: I'm fairly confident most if not all of the check coming from IPR for the sales represented above is going to go into paying Evil Hat's taxes for 2007. Ah, success -- such a harsh mistress!

My long State of the Hat posting actually made it into Pyramid Magazine's news update for this week. I'm a little startled and a lot pleased! IPR's news items have also been getting picked up there.

I think this is due to the wonders of RSS-ability in part (there's clearly a human agency doing some filtering, though) and I'm tickled about that too because getting IPR RSS-able (and Evil Hat too) and at least semi-regular with the news updates has been an important thing for me this past year.

In other news, I've been hacking away at the IPR database to get it to generate some reports for the members, in an effort to improve overall visibility into product performance, when to reorder products that are low in inventory, all that. Some snippets of Evil Hat's follow

The reports are somewhat limited for older products by dint of there having been a different software setup starting in 2007, so the "lifetime sales" figures for some products... aren't. A lot of these stats are very very approximated -- lifetime sales doesn't include anything off of the website either, and the view-count may be marginally suspect in some cases (i tend to look at my own product pages with some frequency, and each time that counts as a 'view')...

Anyway:

Don't Rest Your Head
261 items in website inventory count
27 items sold via the website last month
129 items sold via the website in the last six months

Don't Rest Your Head [PDF]
8 items sold via the website last month
40 items sold via the website in the last six months

Don't Rest Your Head [Print+PDF]
261 items in website inventory count
5 items sold via the website last month
32 items sold via the website in the last six months

Spirit of the Century
44 items in website inventory count
67 items sold via the website last month
301 items sold via the website in the last six months

Spirit of the Century + Don't Rest Your Head [PDF]
2 items sold via the website last month
15 items sold via the website in the last six months

Spirit of the Century [PDF]
10 items sold via the website last month
36 items sold via the website in the last six months

Spirit of the Century [Print+PDF]
44 items in website inventory count
39 items sold via the website last month
187 items sold via the website in the last six months

Spirit of the Season
136 items in website inventory count
43 items sold via the website last month
43 items sold via the website in the last six months

Spirit of the Season [PDF]
5 items sold via the website last month
5 items sold via the website in the last six months

Spirit of the Season [Print+PDF]
136 items in website inventory count
51 items sold via the website last month
51 items sold via the website in the last six months

LIFETIME SALES RANKINGS
-----------------------

1. Spirit of the Century
566 lifetime sales
3. Spirit of the Century [Print+PDF]
373 lifetime sales
5. Don't Rest Your Head
242 lifetime sales
20. Spirit of the Century [PDF]
112 lifetime sales
25. Don't Rest Your Head [PDF]
90 lifetime sales
40. Don't Rest Your Head [Print+PDF]
67 lifetime sales
45. Spirit of the Season
61 lifetime sales
52. Spirit of the Season [Print+PDF]
53 lifetime sales
92. Spirit of the Century + Don't Rest Your Head [PDF]
26 lifetime sales
184. Spirit of the Season [PDF]
8 lifetime sales

LIFETIME CONVERSIONS
--------------------

Spirit of the Season
61 sales vs 332 views
18.37% over 28 days
Spirit of the Season [PDF]
8 sales vs 78 views
10.26% over 4 days
Spirit of the Century
566 sales vs 8444 views
6.70% over 498 days
Don't Rest Your Head
242 sales vs 3774 views
6.41% over 498 days
Spirit of the Century [Print+PDF]
373 sales vs 6375 views
5.85% over 384 days
Don't Rest Your Head [PDF]
90 sales vs 1685 views
5.34% over 369 days
Don't Rest Your Head [Print+PDF]
67 sales vs 1839 views
3.64% over 369 days
Spirit of the Century [PDF]
112 sales vs 3219 views
3.48% over 385 days
Spirit of the Season [Print+PDF]
53 sales vs 1590 views
3.33% over 28 days
Spirit of the Century + Don't Rest Your Head [PDF]
26 sales vs 1366 views
1.90% over 293 days

March felt pretty strong from what I saw of it. This was definitely helped in the PDF market by the GM's Day promotion (and some "echoed" promotions on other sites -- I ran one from February 29th through the end of the GM's Day promotion over on YourGamesNow, too).

Again, remember that Q1's numbers still don't include the numbers for the quarter from IPR -- I won't see those until I get the end of quarter report from IPR around April 15th.

e23: 1 copy of SOTC

YGN: Best month at YGN ever -- and almost entirely due to the sale. YGN seems to get sales only when I discount my products, with a small number of exceptions, which sort of undercuts the whole "smaller cut than OBS" angle. 3 SOTC, 5 DRYH, and 1 Spirit of the Season

OBS: GM's Day promotion was a huge success. This was the best month I've had with OBS ever in terms of volume AND revenue (even with the promotional discounts), with the only exception being the first full month I had on OBS (July 2007) when all the products were new to that audience. 38 SOTC, 16 DRYH.

Lulu had a surge in hardcover sales: 9 SOTC Hardcover, 1 DRYH Softcover.

March's DRYH sales are the equal of January and February combined: 21 DRYH PDFs, with a bonus of 1 softcover sale (total of 22 sales).

On the SOTC front, 42 SOTC PDFs were sold and 9 SOTC hardcovers were sold, for a total of 51 -- which also beats January plus February's totals combined.

March also marks the first sales of Spirit of the Season (1 copy), of which we'll see more at mid-month when the IPR preorder and PDF sales report comes in.

Q1 2008's running tallies, combining this with January+February's data:

DRYH: 21 + 22 = 43 (42 PDF, 1 softcover)

SOTC:
6 HC + 9 HC = 15 HC's
40 PDF + 42 PDF = 82 PDF's.
Total SOTC so far: 97

Spirit of the Season: 1 PDF!

Lifetime tally (which already included January and February):

DRYH: 1235 + 22 = 1257
SOTC: 2673 + 51 = 2724
SOTS: 1

February felt spotty as I was going through it, but that may have been more on the print sales side -- and those we won't see until I get the end of quarter report from IPR in April. Let's see if that actually stands up to the numbers.

All of these are electronic sales figures.

e23: 1 copy of SOTC
YGN: starting to show some movement -- due in part to the "Leap Week" sale I mentioned earlier -- with 3 DRYH (2 from the sale) and 1 SOTC (from the sale)
OBS: back with a vengeance -- 23 SOTC (up ten over January), 9 DRYH (up five over January).

Lulu has a smattering as always: 4 SOTC Hardcover, 1 SOTC PDF, 2 DRYH PDF.

February doubles January with 14 DRYH PDFs vs. the 7 we had last month.
It almost doubles SOTC's figures as well: 4 SOTC HC's (vs 2) and 26 SOTC PDF's (vs 14) for a total of 30 (vs 16).

Q1 2008's running tallies, combining this with January data:

DRYH: 7 + 14 = 21 (all PDF)
SOTC:
2 HC + 4 HC = 6 HC's
14 PDF + 26 PDF = 40 PDF's.
Total so far: 46

Lifetime tally (which already included January):

DRYH: 1221 + 14 = 1235
SOTC: 2643 + 30 = 2673