Pathfinder 1E Questions about submitting material to Paizo

[Felon]

Some of the folks on this board have done it. I'm curious: just how polished does a submission have to be to be deemed acceptable? Does it have to be presented in a certain format, like Adobe Indesign? Does it need to make use of backgrounds and borders and essentially resemble the finished product the reader sees? I've read that most submissions are edited to some to degree--and a few are heavily edited (David Noonan's Dark Sun writeup being the most memorable instance). Is it generally a rubber-stamp "REJECTED" or "ACCEPTED", or is there some back-and-forth as to revisions that need to be made?

I've often thought about submitting some material myself, particularly in regards to what now falls under Dragon's "Winning Races" column, but I've always felt like so much time would be spent presenting the material in a finished format that it wouldn't ultimately be a rewarding experience. I'm not talking about financial rewards, mind you; the experience itself would be worthwhile, but it just can't consume vast quantities of free time to be viable.

I'm also wondering about the acceptability of accompanying artwork. Does every submitted piece have to be a glossy, airbrushed, Photoshop-intensive piece of work, or can a black-and-white drawing be sent along to an in-house graphics team?

 

[MerricB]

They prefer Microsoft Word for submissions.

The new submission guidelines are up on their webpage.

Cheers!

 

[d20Dwarf]

The first thing you need to do is query your article idea, and it doesn't hurt to throw a few ideas in every query.

If they ask for an article, all you have to do is type it up in Word and send it off.

 

[Dark Psion]

Here's the link the Pazio's message boards.
http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards

Writer's Guidelines are available as a pdf. on the Dragon: Article Requests board.

 

[Felon]

Thanks for the info. I've read Paizo's guidelines in the past, but they didn't seem to be kept current with their actual policies. For instance, they'd say that articles should try to adhere to one of their "staple" features, but they'd refer to features that had been eliminated from whatever the current format was. Also, the guidelines would impose numerous restrictions like saying it's verboden to refer to material in non-core books without presenting that material in the article itself, but in many instances a Dragon or Dungeon article would do exactly that. There were enough inconsistencies that I wanted to check with folks who've had actual experience with successful submissions.

At any rate, I'll give these new guidelines a shot. It really seems like Paizo is getting its act together, which pleases me to no ends.

 

[BOZ]

hey, i have a question. does erik mona being the new EIC affect whether or not Dragon is interested in conversions of old material?

 

[BOZ]

hey, i have a question. does erik mona being the new EIC affect whether or not Dragon is interested in conversions of old material?

 

[BOZ]

hey, i have a question. does erik mona being the new EIC affect whether or not Dragon is interested in conversions of old material?

 

[BOZ]

ack!

 

[RSKennan]

Seems like you have a question, Boz.