Dragon/Dungeon Submissions?

[Scott_Rouse]

I am not completely familiar with how the submissions process works with Dragon & Dungeon Magazines. I don't know what the volume of submissions are like, what the average quality is, or what the criteria is for review and acceptance/rejection.

My basic understanding is that the volume is significant enough to require auto-confirmation of receipt but not personalized rejection notices. I am also not sure how assignments are handed out.

I seem to recall that much of the old Paizo slush pile was not used because it was 3.5 material that didn't translate to 4e (eg prestige classes). I think a small amount of it was used as converted 4e material but I don't know for sure.

Since you've asked, I am curious now so I'll ask Chris about some of this and let you know what I find out.

 

[Keefe the Thief]

Thanks! There really is the perception that Dragon & Dungeon pretty much walled themselves off from contributors, so if you could shine some light on the current situation it would be much appreciated.

 

[Klaus]

I am not completely familiar with how the submissions process works with Dragon & Dungeon Magazines. I don't know what the volume of submissions are like, what the average quality is, or what the criteria is for review and acceptance/rejection.

My basic understanding is that the volume is significant enough to require auto-confirmation of receipt but not personalized rejection notices. I am also not sure how assignments are handed out.

I seem to recall that much of the old Paizo slush pile was not used because it was 3.5 material that didn't translate to 4e (eg prestige classes). I think a small amount of it was used as converted 4e material but I don't know for sure.

Since you've asked, I am curious now so I'll ask Chris about some of this and let you know what I find out.

And The Rouse comes through yet again.

Did you manage to rescue your box, Scott?

 

[Scott_Rouse]

So I talked with Chris for a little while about this.

Here is what I learned:

We get a lot of submissions, hundreds a month in fact. This makes reviewing the submissions a large task and providing feedback and personalized responses very difficult hence the current system of auto reply.

Most of those submissions are not very useful for us. This is not meant to be a knock on anyone in this thread but the the simple fact is most of what we get is:

A) submission are not useful because it is not stuff we want. We don't really want a re-spec'd monk class since we are doing that ourselves. We also don't really want an entire campaign world as we have a dozen proven and popular worlds of our own we need to publish first.

B) we are already doing it. This is often a problem as well. Articles and books tend to drive new ideas and sometimes those new ideas happen independently at WOTC and elsewhere.

C) of a poor quality. Most people are not as good as they think they are. I know this sounds harsh but it is true. It has nothing to do with D&D and has everything to do with human nature ( as witnessed by shows like American Idol, America's Got Talent, Star Search etc). FWIW we also see this same issue when we do open portfolio reviews at GenCon etc. 1 out of 100 artists has the stuff we are looking for.

​

That being said it sounds like we could probably do a better job of trying to give general direction of what we want in order to increase the odds that we get the stuff we do want. We have a lot of that information up here.

Also, we are using submission and a number of articles have come straight from the inbox. In some cases those submissions are leading to bigger projects for the authors.

 

[Shemeska]

So I talked with Chris for a little while about this.

Here is what I learned:

We get a lot of submissions, hundreds a month in fact. This makes reviewing the submissions difficult and providing feedback and personalized responses very difficult hence the current system of auto reply.

Most of those submissions are not very useful for us. This is not meant to be a knock on anyone in this thread but the the simple fact is most of what we get is:

A) submission are not useful because it is not stuff we want. We don't really want a re-spec'd monk class since we are doing that ourselves. We also don't really want an entire campaign world as we have a dozen proven and popular worlds of our own we need to publish first.

B) we are already doing it. This is often a problem as well. Articles and books tend to drive new ideas and sometimes those new ideas happen idenpendantly at WOTC and elsewhere.

C) of a poor quality. Most people are not as good as they think they are. I know this sounds harsh but it is true. It has nothing to do with D&D and has everything to do with human nature ( as witnessed by shows like American Idol, America's Got Talent, Star Search etc). FWIW we also see this same issue when we do open portfolio reviews at GenCon etc. 1 out of 100 artists has the stuff we are looking for.

​

That being said it sounds like we could probably do a better job of trying to give general direction of what we want in order to increase the odds that we get the stuff we do want. We have a lot of that information up here.

Also, we are using submission and a number of articles have come straight from the inbox. In some cases those submissions are leading to bigger projects fro the authors.

Thanks for looking into things Scott, it's very much appreciated.

Fairly or not, the fact that there has been a rather limited pool of contributors to e-Dragon and e-Dungeon, and not even a form rejection letter is sent if a given query isn't of interest, it leads to the perception that the entire thing is the equivalent of a closed shop, and that if you're not in-house or one of the freelancers who started working early on 4e material, your submissions won't be given a second glance.

Given that in the past, the print versions of Dragon and Dungeon gave responses to queries, and currently KQ manages to respond to queries, even if it happens to be a rejection, doesn't help that perception.

In my case, I had one thing that's a bit different from the situations mentioned above, because I was asked to forward something already written and was told that I would get a response once they read it over, and then I never did, nor did my followup emails receive any response as well. That's not encouraging to say the very least.

At the moment the entire process seems like a black box with zero feedback to interested potential authors. I have to wonder if it's only enforcing and exacerbating the situation where you guys say you aren't getting queries that you're interested in, because folks are taking their ideas elsewhere that doesn't seem closed off and non-responsive. People used to talk all over the Paizo boards about queries they had submitted and had rejected, or discussion between folks waiting for feedback on queries or on submitted manuscripts. I haven't seen a single thread doing the same over on the WotC forums within the e-zines subforums - not a single one. I have seen multiple threads asking if you're even taking submissions/looking at queries, and most of those fade after a few people wander by and post that they don't know, or haven't heard anything but silence on their own, etc.

So please, please improve communication in that area, because I think you're doing yourself a disservice and probably alienating folks who want to submit material. The 'assume after 60 days of dead silence that we're not interested' approach is probably the wrong one to take.

 

[Scribe Ineti]

A) submission are not useful because it is not stuff we want.

B) we are already doing it.

C) of a poor quality

Good information, thanks, Scott. This isn't really all that different from what I've seen at a lot of sf/f magazines and digests that accept slush manuscripts and/or pitches. General reasons for rejections are the same.

It's encouraging to hear that it sounds like submissions are being received and looked at, and it's just a matter for the prospective writer to pitch an idea that somehow fits around the parameters mentioned above.

Though, it would be nice to see an updated submissions page. The existing one has templates that look like they're still intended for 3.5, even though the guidelines state you're accepting only 4e material.

 

[fissionessence]

Though, it would be nice to see an updated submissions page. The existing one has templates that look like they're still intended for 3.5, even though the guidelines state you're accepting only 4e material.

Plus, as I mentioned earlier, the interview in the podcast a few months ago really confused me as to what the editor prefers.

~

 

[Rechan]

A) submission are not useful because it is not stuff we want. We don't really want a re-spec'd monk class since we are doing that ourselves. We also don't really want an entire campaign world as we have a dozen proven and popular worlds of our own we need to publish first.

I would assume that specification as to what you do want would increase getting material you do want.

 

[Maldin]

Many thanks for following up on this, Scott. We may not always agree, but we certainly do appreciate your efforts to help and provide some transparency. I must say that you've been a PR boon for the company. I've seen many a thread on the boards that could have turned south quite quickly if you hadn't been around to provide information, ease fears, offer glimpses of the future, etc. Of course, there is no saving some threads.

On this topic, I would like to second all the points that Shemeska made. I think things could be handled a lot better, as it really does make the situation look bad. As you said yourself, the guidelines clearly need to be updated, but out of all those hundreds of submissions (thousands in total, if Chris' numbers are accurate, since Dragon and Dungeon left Paizo and went digital) I would have expected to have heard something from someone on some board somewhere about some sort of positive or negative submission response, as Shemy pointed out. I find it difficult to believe that there isn't something beyond the 3 listed reasons going on. With so many already published amateurs (i.e. proven capable, knowledgeable, creative, and eloquent fans) saying that they've sent in multiple submissions, you'd expect at least some of the scatter-shot would have fallen within the target zone. The silence from that division (and its real or imagined track record of authors) really is alienating folks, and sending their creative juices elsewhere (or just stifling them).

Denis, aka "Maldin"
Maldin's Greyhawk http://melkot.com
Drop by if you have the time!

 

[Aberzanzorax]

It seems there is not the infrastructure to even give a thorough reading to all of the pitches, let alone reply.


Possible solutions:

1. Assuming they ARE being read, I assume they are placed into one of three piles: accept, deny, and delay (i.e. hold on to in case it might become useful in the future). Why not simply shoot off an email as soon as this determination is made? Heck, I'd imagine things could be set up to be as simple as hitting "reply" (or a "reply" macro), copy/pasting one of three letters, and then hitting send.

Really, not that hard.


2. Assuming they ARE NOT being read (or are not being read thoroughly), then a solution is needed to address the lack of manpower. My suggestion here is to give them over to the forums. Create a forum for submissions, and divide it by month. Once a month of submissions goes by, lock that forum and open up a new one. Have the forumgoers comment, tweak, offer up advice, critique, and, most importantly, VOTE. There is already a mechanism for voting on threads. I see no reason why this couldn't be used. Then the pitches that are fan selected are given special consideration. NO GUARANTEES about the top selection being accepted, but this would cut down the wading through submissions considerably, as probably only the top 20 or so would need to be looked at by the editors (rather than thousands). A simple announcment of which ones were accepted into the magazine as the top post of the locked forum would let everyone else know that their submissions were not accepted.

ONE CAVEAT: A potential problem with this would be people trying to "stack the deck" for their own submission. This might or might not be an issue. Since the "winner" on the forums wouldn't necessarily be picked, that might decrease people trying to stack the deck (by voting from multiple aliases for example). That would also give WotC a bit of an "out" to explain to fans why they can't just pick the submission with the best rating (in addition to duplication of other materials that are already being developed). If this is deemed an issue, this could be a "D&DI subscribers only" forum linked to the account of people paying. You want another vote? Pay for another D&Di account. Since the product is only for people using D&Di anyway, this exclusivenes shouldn't be a problem.

Use your fanbase. They want to help!

Note that, even if they are being read, the second option could be a fun and useful way of restructuring workload and involving the fans.