All Together Now - Call for Submissions?

[Matt James]

In 2008, I decided to just keep my ideas flowing. At worse, my ideas were ignore. At best, they would let me write. If my ideas were ignore, who cares? I didn't need a response and I never thought of WotC as a writer's service--burdened to tell me why my pitch wasn't up to snuff. After over 50 submissions, I got picked up to co-author an adventure. The rest is history. I never once thought WotC owed me anything in response.

 

[Shemeska]

There is no way WotC is going to be able to reply to each and every submission. That is just not realistic.

While they don't owe it to anyone to respond to pitches, it would very much serve them to keep people interested and submitting ideas if they got even just a form rejection letter and an occasional bit of 'here's why it won't work'. Otherwise people get tired of submitting to a black box, and it gets a reputation that does WotC a disservice. As it is, people are left waiting a month or two and just assuming it was read over and not deemed interesting enough. That happens enough times and some people might assume the pitches are just being ignored.

It's really in their best interest to staff the e-zines such that they can provide some bare minimum level of response to pitches. It was possible to do so before when the magazines were still actually in print. It's presumably a lack of staff resources; I really can't see them having more volume of pitches now versus past years. But it's worth the investment.

 

[Matt James]

When the magazines were in print, there was an entire staff at Paizo running it. Apples and oranges. It's the the way that it was in the past.

 

[kaomera]

There is no way WotC is going to be able to reply to each and every submission. That is just not realistic.

I would think that a form-letter "We have received your submission and will be looking it over in the future, here's approximately how long you should expect to be waiting for a response if we like it." wouldn't be unrealistic.

 

[Aegeri]

I don't honestly believe Wizards will ever give individual responses, because I'm 100% sure DDI is staffed by a couple of skeletons and a confused milk man chained to a computer. There simply isn't enough resources to ever do this.

 

[Quickleaf]

I would think that a form-letter "We have received your submission and will be looking it over in the future, here's approximately how long you should expect to be waiting for a response if we like it." wouldn't be unrealistic.

Doesn't this qualify?

[sblock=Dear Contributor]Dear Contributor,

Thank you for your interest in Dragon and Dungeon Magazine. We've received your submission, and will review it as soon as we're able. If we're interested in seeing a full-length article or adventure, we'll contact you in 60 days.

We appreciate your interest in contributing to Dragon or Dungeon, and hope that regardless of the result of this submission, you'll consider sending us other ideas in the near future. Stay tuned to the Writer's Guidelines, posted at Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game Official Home Page, for more information on the types of specific articles or adventures in which we're interested.

Thanks again!

Dragon and Dungeon Magazine Staff[/sblock]

 

[Shemeska]

When the magazines were in print, there was an entire staff at Paizo running it. Apples and oranges. It's the the way that it was in the past.

So why won't or can't they provide the e-zines with the resources to even do the bare minimum that I suggested above?

Say it's apples and oranges as you like, say it's not an issue, but IMO it's a sad, unfortunate day when Dragon and Dungeon look like an afterthought, after having been the training ground and entry floor for successive generations of D&D authors for decades now.

If they're understaffed, they could help their situation by either explaining that it is and why that's so, and even then there are some things they can do (that I and others suggested) to improve their appearance without taking all that much time and effort to do it. A form rejection letter even, just something more than the current nothing.

 

[kaomera]

Doesn't this qualify?

Yes, exactly that! =]

From previous discussion on the topic I was under the impression that there was basically zero follow-through and no way to tell if they had even received the submission. Glad to know that was mistaken (or if not that they at least dealt with the problem).

 

[Shemeska]

Yes, exactly that! =]

From previous discussion on the topic I was under the impression that there was basically zero follow-through and no way to tell if they had even received the submission. Glad to know that was mistaken (or if not that they at least dealt with the problem).

Yeah, there's an autogenerated email response when you email in a pitch.

 

[Matt James]

If they're understaffed, they could help their situation by either explaining that it is and why that's so, and even then there are some things they can do (that I and others suggested) to improve their appearance without taking all that much time and effort to do it. A form rejection letter even, just something more than the current nothing.

How would this help their situation at all? I'm willing to bet $20 that someone would start to complain that they spend too much time responding to every query, instead of working on D&D products.

I can't, off the top of my head, think of any major publishers that provide the type of feedback you are asking for. So what we have now is instead of celebrating an editorial asking for submissions (while engaging the community) is a commentary saying it isn't good enough. They don't need to respond to everyone because the designers that are submitting queries know to keep the ideas flowing. If you get depressed that a publisher like WotC doesn't respond to each and every query, you're in for a very shocking surprise.