WotC Seeking Your Setting Proposals (was "Big Wizard announcement")

[kingpaul]

Re: Number of entries greater than expected

I think a lot of people would write 10-pagers just for the practice of getting their thoughts together .

I know that I would. I'm hoping that WotC will generally publish thei 2nd and 3rd round guidelines so that those of us who don't make it can still see what a publisher is looking for. But that's just me.

 

[Mercule]

re: order of pages

Wow, that sucks.

I honestly cannot remember what order mine was in. I assumed that it wasn't of huge importance simply because the admin gets it first, and seperates it all.

No doubt. I hadn't read anything about order, so I stuck my cover letter on top because it's, well, a _cover_ letter.

 

[Mercule]

In fact, the odds are so against "winning" that I think they may have just blown some contest laws in a few states (Florida comes to mind). I'm an attorney, and I have a bit of experience in contest laws (though not a lot). I seem to recall that if your odds get into this range, and the "contest" is public (and not just a solicitation sent to individuals that the company has a pre-existing business relationship with), that even if the contest is purported to be based on skill rather than chance, you must register with some State gaming commissions in order for participants to be eligible to "play" in certain states. I wonder if Wizards' corp. counsel has looked into this aspect yet.

If this is true, gambling laws have gotten way out of hand and there are a few legislators who need to be slapped around a bit.

 

[Vaxalon]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: aaaarrrrrgggghhhh

... If I were them I'd be sending out a form Thank-you letter. If they're really smart they would promise to later send a coupon for the first product released for the new campaign setting.

That would be incredibly stupid on the part of WOTC.

First of all, the cost of sending out those rejection letters alone would be tens of thousands of dollars. Add in the cost of the coupon, say, $5 off, and you're going to double the cost of the search.

 

[Tom Cashel]

Re: aaaarrrrrgggghhhh

First of all, the cost of sending out those rejection letters alone would be tens of thousands of dollars. Add in the cost of the coupon, say, $5 off, and you're going to double the cost of the search.

20,000 x $.34 = $6,800

I agree with you on the coupon.

 

[Storm Raven]

Re: Re: aaaarrrrrgggghhhh

20,000 x $.34 = $6,800

You forgot to add in the cost of the paper for the letters, and the envelopes, and the cost of having someone on staff type the thing and create a database to merge the thousands of names and addresses in order to post them, and the cost of paying someone to stuff the envelopes, and so on.

I'm thinking those costs will easily be more than the cost of the stamps.

 

[Skarp Hedin]

20,000 x $.34 = $6,800

Dude, postage goes up in the U.S. on 30 June. $0.37 now!
That's $7,400 to send those rejection letters now. They'd only need 27,028 rejected settings to bring that cost up to $10,000. That doesn't count cost of paper, envelopes, and administrative staff pay to prepare, produce, and send the letters, neither.

Now you know, and knowing is half the battle!

(And I sent in mine on the morning of the 21st, I don't remember word count too well, but it was in the 600 range. Times New Roman, 11 point.)

Edit: Dang you, Storm Raven, and your faster posting finger!

 

[Tom Cashel]

Ooooh! Check out the big brain on Storm Raven!

True, true. But if they send out a form letter with only the winners listed, there's no merging to speak of. Paper and envelopes? Yes. Certainly not more than 10K for the whole mass mailing.

In any case, they say (on the WotC website) they're going to do it, and I think it's only right to respond to each person who took the time to create and submit a proposal.

 

[Rasyr]

notifying folks

Add to this the fact that WOTC (via Anthony) has already said that if the person making the submission has an email address, they will be notified that way...

I think you can forget about actual letters going out.

More likely, Christing put all the information into a database (or is doing so now)

Once the winners are selected, it is a simple matter to run a sql query and do a mail merge to email a form rejection letter to all the non-selected people. If a person does not have an email address, then they go with doing a mail merge and printing labels.

Such letters would then no longer be prohibitive, but merely slightly time consuming, and more likely to number in the dozens at most, considering that this search was announced via the web, so it is a good chance that almost every single person has an email address.

I know that on my cover letter I included not only my snail mail address, but my email, home, work, and cell phones (I wanted to be thorough).

 

[Xeriar]

Re: Re: aaaarrrrrgggghhhh

20,000 x $.34 = $6,800

I agree with you on the coupon.

Well, the cost of a stamp has just been raised to 37 cents, and where do you find slave labor, free envolopes and paper/printing in the U.S.?