Pwyw modules 5e

[HoboKnight]

Hey guys,
Not really sure if this is proper board for this question, I hope it is.

I feel modern dnd 5e modules lack certain conceptual niches I enjoy and I have a plan of creating a few one-shot modules with this in mind. I intend to publish them under Pay-what-you-want policy and I wonder if you guys can reccomend me best way to do this? What I must learn beforehand? What is the best way to do it? Creating modules themselves is not a problem, but publication under these terms may be a challenge.

Thanks

[animorte]

For 5e modules specifically, head right this way to Member Produced-Commercial Content! (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?581519-Member-Produced-Commercial-Content)

Give that a thorough read and it will tell you everything you need to know. :smallsmile:

[J-H]

The DM's Guild (https://www.dmsguild.com/) includes the option to publish under PWYW status. You can also use WOTC IP (Illithids, Beholders, etc.) when publishing there.

I have a number of modules up, although I usually put them at 1.99 or 2.99.
I have a couple of Warlock Patrons and a set of Osteomancy (bone magic) spells posted as PWYW. All 3 have around 225 sales and have netted $10.52, $14.86, and $4.96 in total revenue, of which I get 50%. I also have a party XP tracking sheet with 165 downloads and $2.71 total revenue. If you're using CR and XP instead of milestone, it's handy, but someone has to really know it's there to find it.

Unless your name is Keith Baker, don't count on the DM's Guild as a notable 2nd income stream. Over three years I have technically made more money on D&D than I've spent on the books, but that doesn't count the 40+ hours of formatting and editing it takes to get 100 pages ready and posted after it was written for Castle Dracula alone. I've gotten better about writing everything in the publishing style/format now to reduce the later burden of editing.

There are tens of thousands of products on the DM's Guild. Exposure is the big challenge. My best-seller (Castle Dracula/Castlevania) is a Silver best seller with 133 sales currently, over a 3 year time period. It has exactly 1 review and two ratings, and the one written review is from one of the players I ran it for before publishing. It is a campaign (3-12) instead of a module, and I think one of the reasons it's done better is the highly unsubtle linkage to the Castlevania IP.

I have developed a habit of test-running a module here on the forums to find the bugs / things I've left out and get some feedback. I also ask everyone who's done the test play to write a review on the DM's Guild, but even with good consistent players it's hard to get people to follow up and write a paragraph.

I also post the blurb and link to each module on Matt Colville's Adventure Lookup tool when I put them up for sale.

Here are a couple of articles on the topic, although they are pretty old (2016-17)
http://worldbuilderblog.me/2016/02/23/pay-what-you-want-products-and-blog-announcement/
https://worldbuilderblog.me/2017/03/30/an-update-on-dms-guild-sales/

[HoboKnight]

@J-H
Man, this is AWESOME! I also have a question - what one-shot module could I take as an example, a gold standard for module creation?Something that has all boxes ticked off? I'm talking one-shot, ofc., I have no bigger plans.

[J-H]

I am not broadly read on other people's work, sorry. You might try looking at the Mithril best sellers (although a lot of those are Adventurer's League modules). Wild Sheep Chase is really good, and so is Trap! Trap! (the kobold arena one). I have run both of those and enjoyed them.

[HoboKnight]

Hey guys, one more question. :) I have basics set up for my one-shot, but I wonder if there is somewhere in the universe of internet a nicely formatted template for text and pictures to place in a module? You know, standard dnd formatting for text font, 2 columns, etc. Maybe you can point me in a right direction. :)

Thanks