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Faraer
Great Reader
    
3308 Posts |
Posted - 08 Aug 2006 : 18:53:53
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Each book's page on Amazon.com displays items that 'Customers who bought this item also bought'. Forgotten Realms novels display other Realms novels, with Realms sourcebooks far behind. More surprisingly, Realms sourcebooks bring up non-Realms D&D books well ahead of Realms novels. Have a look if you haven't seen this. What does this tell us?
(It would also be interesting to poll, say, people's top five Realms fiction authors and analyse the results to figure out which authors tend to be liked by the same people.)
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Archwizard
Learned Scribe
 
USA
266 Posts |
Posted - 08 Aug 2006 : 20:00:44
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I think part of the answer is that some of the novel readers are not gamers. The gamers buy more D&D sourcebooks because they need them for their games. |
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Rinonalyrna Fathomlin
Great Reader
    
USA
7106 Posts |
Posted - 09 Aug 2006 : 00:38:10
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I noticed that myself. I guess it proves (in a way) that FR novels are actually novels, not merely "D&D tie-ins". |
"Instead of asking why we sleep, it might make sense to ask why we wake. Perchance we live to dream. From that perspective, the sea of troubles we navigate in the workaday world might be the price we pay for admission to another night in the world of dreams." --Richard Greene (letter to Time) |
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Faraer
Great Reader
    
3308 Posts |
Posted - 09 Aug 2006 : 00:47:33
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The first bit shows that many people read the novels but not the sourcebooks -- which we knew, though it's interesting that it works with any of the novels and not mainly, say, Bob's books.
The second bit seems to mean that more readers of Realms sourcebooks also buy other D&D books than also buy Realms novels. But we can't tell how many of them don't DM/play in the Realms and how many aren't enough into the Realms to buy the novels as well.
Exactly how big these trends are, my statistical ability isn't nearly up to working out. |
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Reefy
Senior Scribe
  
United Kingdom
892 Posts |
Posted - 09 Aug 2006 : 00:57:13
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I'm not sure there's enough data from that to really tell you anything about the scale of the trends. |
Life is either daring adventure or nothing. |
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GothicDan
Master of Realmslore
   
USA
1103 Posts |
Posted - 09 Aug 2006 : 02:50:42
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We might be able to contact Amazon about it.
Or maybe the people at WotC already have? |
Planescape Fanatic
"Fiends and Undead are the peanut butter and jelly of evil." - Me "That attitude should be stomped on, whenever and wherever it's encountered, because it makes people holding such views bad citizens, not just bad roleplayers (considering D&D was structured as a 'forced cooperation' game, and although successive editions are pointing it more and more towards a me-first, min-max game, the drift away from 'we all need each other to succeed' will at some point make it 'no longer' D&D)." - ED GREENWOOD |
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Kiaransalyn
Senior Scribe
  
United Kingdom
762 Posts |
Posted - 10 Aug 2006 : 05:43:11
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I'm not going to trust Amazon's software regarding this. They keep recommending Robbie Williams CD's to me and I detest the man. They also recommended Paris Hilton's CD to me the other day as well. My musical knowledge may not be that great but I don't think The Egg or Roger Eno are anywhere as mainstream as the previously mentioned two.
I think Amazon tends to treat the novels as novels and therefore assume that their customer reads novels. Whereas a customer who buys FR sourcebooks must be a customer who buys D&D sourcebooks. I don't think they put any more thought into it. |
Death is Life Love is Hate Revenge is Forgiveness
Ken: You from the States? Jimmy: Yeah. But don't hold it against me. Ken: I'll try not to... Just try not to say anything too loud or crass. |
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Ergdusch
Master of Realmslore
   
Germany
1720 Posts |
Posted - 10 Aug 2006 : 10:51:35
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I tend to agree with Kia - there might not be a real evaluation behind their recommandations at all. Eho can realy tell if any customer who bought the one book actually really bought a second? I have my doubts in those adds! |
"Das Gras weht im Wind, wenn der Wind weht." |
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