WotC Open Call for Novel Proposals

[takyris]

Never subscribed to Writer's Digest. I've picked up a few copies, but after seeing how much space was taken up by companies telling you not to use their brand name as a generic terms ("My mom gave me some fruit-flavored gelatin and some color carbonated soft drink after I behaved while she put on that plastic adhesive bandage strip from where I'd gotten the paper cut after using the non-brand-name copy machine to non-brand-name copy a paper where I had used transparent correction fluid to correct an error."), and how many articles involved wannabe-writers telling the reader in an erudite fashion about the ephemeral nature of plot and such, I figured that it wasn't aimed at where I was as a writer.

I'll certainly give it a look if I exhaust the field of agents I'm currently working through, though.

 

[Kiln Publications]

Could you please find out the specific issue with those agents?
Thanks

 

[Scribe Ineti]

A real lit agent will charge you a percentage of your take on a project. They will require you to go thru a few hoops to get on with them. Having four works completed should get you in the door, but agents will only take on clients they expect to make them money. Your agent is not your friend, and they are not in business to help you per se, only inasmuch as it benefits the agent.

This has not been my experience. Most pro lit agents do take 10-15 percent of whatever you make, but that percentage is limited legally by the associations agents are members of.

As for hoops to go through, it's been my experience that pro agents usually want a query before seeing a manuscript or part of one. If they're interested in the query, they'll ask for the ms. If they like that, then you move on from there and possibly get representation.

Agents may never become your friend, but the good ones become close professional allies, since they're in it to make money along with you. The more of your work they can sell, the more they make and the more you make. Agents are usually less interested in representing a one hit wonder, so multiple novels, stories, scripts, etc. suggests to the agent that you might be serious about the craft.

In addition, many agents can help you with arranging taxes and finances, and can help cultivate your contacts in the publishing field. A good agent is worth their weight in gold, so you should definitely do your research when looking for one.

Especially since there are a lot of crooks out there looking to take money from unaware writers.

Check out the latest copy of the annual Writer's Market or any of the Literary Agent guides. They'll list agents you can submit to, along with their fees and guidelines.

Also check out Writer Beware, http://www.sfwa.org/beware/

It's a great site devoted to exposing the crooks for what they are.

 

[kroh]

Thank for the website...

This will come in handy for the future...

Walt

 

[Michael Morris]

On the Wotc Web page advertising this, there's an ad floating right in the middle of the text, blocking some of it, with no way to get rid of the ad! AARGH!!! Way to make themselves look like a bunch of unprofessional nincompoops.

WotC's site has no pop-up or hover ads. If you're seeing one, you've got a virus or browser highjacker (yes, they can do that).

 

[takyris]

I ran into the same thing -- and if it's a browser hijacker, it's a browser hijacker that happens to be showing an ad for "The Lone Drow".

I suspect that it's neither a pop-up ad nor a hijack, but a browser compatability issue that's causing tables to get messed up somewhere, or an image to go over text when it shouldn't -- I didn't have the problem when I tried a different browser.

 

[Michael Morris]

I ran into the same thing -- and if it's a browser hijacker, it's a browser hijacker that happens to be showing an ad for "The Lone Drow".

I suspect that it's neither a pop-up ad nor a hijack, but a browser compatability issue that's causing tables to get messed up somewhere, or an image to go over text when it shouldn't -- I didn't have the problem when I tried a different browser.

Odd.

Oh well, I have no access to or input on the main site. I only do work on their messageboards.

 

[takyris]

Heh. I only came to that conclusion after looking at it and going, "This seems familiar... wait. This looks like the time I botched a page design and forgot to test it in Netscape!"

I've never had any problems while looking at it in IE.

Just looked at it now, and it seems to be working fine on Netscape at the moment -- I see the ad for the RA Salvatore book tour (that's what I was thinking of) on the open call page:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=books/main/opencall2004

When I looked at that awhile ago, the book tour blurb was on the right, over some of the text.

A low-tech workaround (aside from switching browsers) is to manually select all the text in that area, and then cut and paste it into Word. The image won't come over, and you'll see what was under the image.

 

[barsoomcore]

[original post deleted]

Never mind. Teach me to post after reading one page of a four-page thread.

 

[lkj]

Question

Ok, I have a question about the legal agreement. It has four lines:
Submittee:
By:
Print Name:
Address:

So 'print name' and 'address' are obvious. I thought from reading the agreement that the submittee was me, therefore that line would require my signature. What about by:?
Thanks for your help. I realize this is rank ignorance of legal documents, but hey, it is what it is.

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