I did notice that there were only two Campaign Workbook articles in this issue. I hope that's not a trend. :(
I noticed that, too, and thought the same thing about you regarding trends. I don't think it is a new trend, though - it looks more like an issue of space. There's the usual three full adventures, and there's also a backdrop article describing the Free City. My guess is they were pinched for space.
Well, unless there's somebody else named Ashavan who has Campaign Workbooks being published. ;)I tend to doubt that, it's a rather uncommon name. I haven't received 128 yet, and when I didn't receive a contract, I expected it had just been bumped. I'm looking forward to seeing it though!
- Ashavan
A Dungeon regular! - well done Ashavan, me too.
Rich
So, here it is Friday and 8 of the 18 seats have been filled. Is that the latest count? Does anyone else have news?
The nomad slinks from shadow to shadow behind the great rush brought on by the Las Vegas Assassin and the massive numbers of wereplatypi thralls. He finds the Renton temple's sacrificial wine and starts guzzling it down, bemused in his growing drunkeness.
I'm still waiting on my one. I keep expecting to crash Yahoo's site, I've been checking my mail so often. ;)
I heard word from Jeremy Walker -- the green light for one of my two proposals. Extremely quick turnaround time; I only submitted the proposals at the end of August, after returning from GenCon.
Looking forward to tackling this adventure...
I'm still waiting on my one. I keep expecting to crash Yahoo's site, I've been checking my mail so often. ;)
I'm still waiting on my one proposal in the stack too, so don't feel bad. We can't all be like G-cubed and the were-platapus... they had 22 proposals between them!
- Ashavan
I hope this doesn't apply to certain proposals based on certain GenCon seminars where a certain wererat guildmaster came into being and a certain editor said he'd like to see said certain proposal.I have to admit, ever since that seminar, I've been wondering if anyone would put together a proposal and submit it. There were some good ideas going there (plus a fair number of very strange ideas). Do we get to see a certain wererat ranger, perhaps?
Ok, so, funny story time.
This year at the "Writing for Dungeon" seminar at GenCon, Erik, James and Jeremy led a query-making session. Basically they asked us to shout out villain ideas, then we all voted on the coolest villain. After that we came up with ideas for supporting minions, a plot, a setting, etc.
At the end of the seminar, we had a complete query letter. Erik stated outright: "If someone sent me this query, I would ask to see the whole adventure. This is a good query. Send me this query."
At the time I thought, "Cool! Premade query that I know Erik wants!" Then I thought, "Self, you already have a good 'in' with Dungeon. You know the guys, you have writing creds with Dragon. Let someone else submit this query and get their foot in the door. It'd be a nice thing to do."
So after the session I was chatting with Erik and said as much, and he told me, "You know what? Every time we do this session, I never, ever get the group query queried. I come right out and say 'I want this query' but no one ever sends it. I guess they all assume someone else will do it, or they think I'm joking or something."
After that I thought, "Hell, well if no one else is going to send it in, I will!" And I wrote up the plot we'd worked out as a nice query and sent it in, and lo and behold, today I get an email from Jeremy. I was the only person to submit the query and thus - surprise! - they want to see the adventure.
Yay for apathy!
-Amber
Amber!
I don't know whether to laugh or cry! :)
I will congratulate you though! I'm sure your adventure will do the query justice and then some.
On the update front - I have heard no news from my four proposals (or from the two I co-submitted with others). Not having email access at home is how I survive the waiting game. I go home and think: "Well, can't check anyways...why worry?" ;-)
I'm still waiting on my one. I keep expecting to crash Yahoo's site, I've been checking my mail so often. ;)I'm still waiting on my one proposal in the stack too, so don't feel bad. We can't all be like G-cubed and the were-platapus... they had 22 proposals between them!
- Ashavan
Actually it's 23 counting the "pagoda adventure" - that huge thing that you are going to end up editing in a week or two. And that doesn't even count the two "Cast" articles I have yet to hear about. :)
Congratulations Mark and Amber.
GGG
So any chance of getting back to us fretful query submitters now that GenCon is over? Bearing in mind I submitted some ideas to both Dragon and Dungeon oh...about three months prior to GenCon and I've only heard back about some stuff for Dragon. :(
So any chance of getting back to us fretful query submitters now that GenCon is over? Bearing in mind I submitted some ideas to both Dragon and Dungeon oh...about three months prior to GenCon and I've only heard back about some stuff for Dragon. :(
Neeklus -
Jeremy's not through with the stack yet, as at least Zherog, you, and I are still waiting to hear. I'm guessing he's about 2/3-3/4 of the way through the stack, so hopefully we'll hear next week. That said, I once waited two months after a submissions meeting to hear on my queries, so while I hope to hear soon, I am going back to the drawing board in the meantime.
- Ashavan
Neeklus -Jeremy's not through with the stack yet, as at least Zherog, you, and I are still waiting to hear. I'm guessing he's about 2/3-3/4 of the way through the stack, so hopefully we'll hear next week. That said, I once waited two months after a submissions meeting to hear on my queries, so while I hope to hear soon, I am going back to the drawing board in the meantime.
- Ashavan
Heh, thanks for putting my mind at ease, at least a little ;)
I'm patiently waiting as well. At least now I know that my Yahoo account can be accessed every 23 seconds for two weeks without crashing.
Bearing in mind I submitted some ideas to both Dragon and Dungeon oh...about three months prior to GenCon and I've only heard back about some stuff for Dragon. :(
Heh - you're lucky. I'm still waiting to hear back on some Dragon stuff - a submission I sent back in March, and some queries that I have going back as far as May. I'm doing OK (but not great) waiting to hear about the submission, because I know they've at least received it. But waiting on the queries is driving me bonkers!
I'm obssesive and I'm impatient - not a good combination for a writer, I guess. ;)
Amber - congrats! I'm looking forward to having something new from you to proofread now. :)
Also, congrats to Mark and everybody else who has received the green light so far. I'll just keep sitting here, trying to crash yahoo's mail server.... :D
I'm patiently waiting as well. At least now I know that my Yahoo account can be accessed every 23 seconds for two weeks without crashing.
Is this the "Quicksilver Hourglass" Anson? If so, well done on the epic adventure. You wrote a great one. . . the stat blocks alone would have caused me nightmares, let alone all the other mechanical details. I learned alot.
Anyway, well done (if this is you).
Is this the "Quicksilver Hourglass" Anson?
Chris, yes, that's me, and many thanks for the praise. Those stat blocks were quite a slog, but the tedium was relieved every once in a while with some sick tidbit like the gigant's +97 grapple bonus...
My proposal in the current batch is my third since "Hourglass." One rejection and one slip-away-into-Limbo to show for my efforts so far...
Two more are taken. The seating is getting crowded. Only 8 or so left. True congratulations to those that have made it to the next level.
Jeremy's not through with the stack yet, as at least Zherog, you, and I are still waiting to hear. I'm guessing he's about 2/3-3/4 of the way through the stack, so hopefully we'll hear next week.
Count me in that short stack as well. I had seven submissions in this time...usually I only get 3-4 inbetween the cutoff dates. One proposal has a druid and one has a shapechanger and one has a half-elemental, so I can guess that those are probably out (according to 'THE LIST' of no-no's)...but I can still hold on.
To repeat myself from another thread (I apologize for going crazy, I'll put myself down after this), I've sent a few emails over the course of six months proposing some twenty or so ideas. No response. Am I a bad person? Am I on email block?
This actually leads to a question I've been wondering about lately, actually. What sort of process do Campaign Workbooks go through? Do they have the same sort of review process? Do "acceptance" or "rejection" e-mails get sent for them at some vague and nebulous point in the future, or do they sit in a slush pile, waiting to be plucked from month to month?
Was this question ever answered? I'm pretty curious about this myself...
Creative Director
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To repeat myself from another thread (I apologize for going crazy, I'll put myself down after this), I've sent a few emails over the course of six months proposing some twenty or so ideas. No response. Am I a bad person? Am I on email block?
We don't have anyone on email block, nor do we think any of our contributors or would-be contributors are bad people.
What DOES happen is the simple fact that we get a LOT of submissions for articles. Dungeon gets about 4 a day, while Dragon gets much more. Putting a magazine together takes (in a good month) about 3 weeks, leaving about a week to take care of everything else. Reading proposals and deciding on which ones we want and then getting back to the authors is just one of those things that happens in that 4th week (also in this week are art orders, contracts, planning future issues, approval meetings at Wizards of the Coast, etc.).
As a result, it can and often does take a few months for us to get to a proposal and get back to the writer. Somtimes it takes a few more. We're publishing an adventure in issue #131 of Dungeon that's been floating around on my desk for almost 3 years.
If you haven't recieved a response from either magazine about a proposal, the best thing to do is to drop a line to either dragon@paizo.com or dungeon@paizo.com and ask (politely) about the status of your submission.
In the meantime, if you have other ideas for other adventures or articles, send them in as well! There's nothing that says you can only have one proposal in at a time... some of our authors send in several proposals a week.
... some of our authors send in several proposals a week.
Good Lord!!! The "shotgun" approach to getting published...maybe that's actually the "Gatling Gun" approach.
... some of our authors send in several proposals a week.Good Lord!!! The "shotgun" approach to getting published...maybe that's actually the "Gatling Gun" approach.
Consider the 2:1 submission advice on proposals: For every rejection, send it two new proposals. This may get a little insane, considering how many rejections some of us may/did get this time around.
Personally, I've already had to double my staff of typing monkeys to keep up. . . the banana expenses alone are staggering.
This actually leads to a question I've been wondering about lately, actually. What sort of process do Campaign Workbooks go through? Do they have the same sort of review process? Do "acceptance" or "rejection" e-mails get sent for them at some vague and nebulous point in the future, or do they sit in a slush pile, waiting to be plucked from month to month?Was this question ever answered? I'm pretty curious about this myself...
Nope, it's still unanswered. ;) I was hoping somebody else would bump the question, so I didn't seem like the only pest. ;D
... some of our authors send in several proposals a week.Good Lord!!! The "shotgun" approach to getting published...maybe that's actually the "Gatling Gun" approach.
Yes, well Chris and I are both guilty of that. ;)
But it does pay off.
My rule is that anytime I wanted to write and ask about proposal, I would write a new one to send along. I don't think I've sent one in since late July so I guess I best get cracking I wouldn't want Chris to beat me a second time.
pass the ammo,
GGG
Personally, I've already had to double my staff of typing monkeys to keep up. . . the banana expenses alone are staggering.
Typing monkeys AND were-platypus thralls? What level are you to have such amazing cohorts? I guess the monkeys are more like retainers...or maybe henchmen...henchmonkeys?
I had a liger for a mount, but I lost it in a bad night of blackjack.
Typing monkeys AND were-platypus thralls? What level are you to have such amazing cohorts?
Considering the amount of monkey poo that finds it way onto my propsals and into various posted comments on this forum, I wouldn't exactly call them amazing. :/
I still hope that someday those little dung-slingers will type out some Shakespeare for me. . . we'll see.
I had a liger for a mount, but I lost it in a bad night of blackjack.
That's too bad. You had a whole He-Man mounted combat thing going for ya, too.
Anyway, good luck this round.
Well I got a green light on one of my submissions, and its one with a vengeful druid in it! Unfortunately, 4 of my submissions were lost in the all consuming vortex of paizo, and now I have to resend them.
Looks like my next adventure won't be published until late next year (at the earliest), but that's not too bad, "The Hive" wasn't scheduled until next year until somebody bailed on the editors. I feel for those people who haven't been published after 3 years. One of my first submissions was rewritten three times, and was greenlit by one managing editor before being turfed by another (that entire process lasted 3 years)!
Well I got a green light on one of my submissions, and its one with a vengeful druid in it! Unfortunately, 4 of my submissions were lost in the all consuming vortex of paizo, and now I have to resend them.
Phil -
Congrats! I've still got my fingers crossed on my one submission (outside of the already green-lighted collaboration) and have high hopes. Hopefully this means that Jeremy is still busily working on responding to everyone.
Anyway, I'm working on another adventure in the meantime. Now if I could only come up with some good ideas for Spellcraft or Bizarre of the Bazaar articles...
- Ashavan
For no apparent reason, this discussion thread fell off the list of discussion threads, so I'm bumping it with a new message.
- Ashavan
Yeah, I've still got my fingers crossed too. Not only have I chewed off my fingers nails, I'm getting cramps in my fingers from having them crossed so long. And do you have any idea how difficult it is to type this way? :D
As for the thread "vanishing" - Here's why. It's just about fixed now, it seems.
Congratulations to everyone who got a greenlight. I'm still waiting to hear on my four submissions. Statistics may not be on my side, but I need closure!!! :)
Here it is Friday (the day that most of the replies seem to go out). I think that the last check showed that 10 of the 18 spots were accounted for. Has anyone else got a 'greenlight'?
The odds are still pretty good with 8 spaces left...though I am sure a couple go to people who do not frequent these boards. Why someone would not post here is beyond me, but they may only have dial-up or something. It does seem strange that the editors would hold a 'go' answer this long though...hmmmmm.
Here it is Friday (the day that most of the replies seem to go out). I think that the last check showed that 10 of the 18 spots were accounted for. Has anyone else got a 'greenlight'?
The odds are still pretty good with 8 spaces left...though I am sure a couple go to people who do not frequent these boards. Why someone would not post here is beyond me, but they may only have dial-up or something. It does seem strange that the editors would hold a 'go' answer this long though...hmmmmm.
I've never noticed that more replies go out on Fridays - but hey, who am I to knock down a theory, maybe it means I'll hear something today!
Still, there seem to be some slots unaccounted for. I, like Zherog, am doing my best to type with my fingers crossed.
- Ashavan
Here it is Friday (the day that most of the replies seem to go out). I think that the last check showed that 10 of the 18 spots were accounted for. Has anyone else got a 'greenlight'?
The odds are still pretty good with 8 spaces left...though I am sure a couple go to people who do not frequent these boards. Why someone would not post here is beyond me, but they may only have dial-up or something. It does seem strange that the editors would hold a 'go' answer this long though...hmmmmm.
I've never noticed that more replies go out on Fridays - but hey, who am I to knock down a theory, maybe it means I'll hear something today!
Still, there seem to be some slots unaccounted for. I, like Zherog, am doing my best to type with my fingers crossed.
- Ashavan
Maybe if we ask real nice...Jeremy will give us a clue as to whether there are any greenlights left for us finger-crossed dreamers. ;-)
I'm convinced mine is at the very bottom of the pile. :D
I'm convinced mine is at the very bottom of the pile. :D
You gotta wonder how the pile is organized... since both G-cubed and the Wereplatypus have heard, it can't be alphabetical. It's also possible they are responded to in backward order (most recent submitted).... mine would have been submitted at the very beginning of this group, while the collaborative project (one of the first to hear) was submitted within days of the cut-off date.
- Ashavan
Maybe if we ask real nice...Jeremy will give us a clue as to whether there are any greenlights left for us finger-crossed dreamers. ;-)
Jeremy- I have a bootleg Playstation 3 that fell out of the back of a truck....
You gotta wonder how the pile is organized... since both G-cubed and the Wereplatypus have heard, it can't be alphabetical. It's also possible they are responded to in backward order (most recent submitted)....
I don't think they are responded to in backward order either. I have 3 in the pile, the earliest was back in June and one just barely made the cutoff date. I haven't heard back about any of them yet. It would be interesting to know how the submissions response process works, but I'm sure Paizo has to keep SOME trade secrets...
Hunter
Here's my guess how it works.
First, they locate any submissions by me. Then, they take the remainder of the pile and toss it in the air. They pick up the now shuffled stack of queries, place mine at the bottom, and start sending out e-mails.
:D
Here's my guess how it works.
First, they locate any submissions by me. Then, they take the remainder of the pile and toss it in the air. They pick up the now shuffled stack of queries, place mine at the bottom, and start sending out e-mails.
:D
:rotfl:
If I hadn't developed such an awesome support network for my game related writing, I think that would make me cry, 'cause I sometimes feel the exact same way. On the other hand, my last rejection for an adventure query came packaged with an acceptance for a Campaign Workbook - and I still have two in the pile, plus three Critical Threats.- Ashavan
For about 200 posts now I've not read this because it hadn't related to me, though now I'm back on the pile I was wondering how the response times were now days?
ok. As I understand it, it goes a little something like this. The proposals pile up on average 3-4 a day and they are gathered for a span of three months, give or take. At the end of those three months, Jeremy announces here that this 'batch' is closed, and the ed's go thru them and make a 'greenlight' pile and a 'reject' pile. There might be a 'maybe' pile too...anyway, the rejected ones get sent back fairly quickly--within a week or so after the designated cutoff date (unless you have sent in several and then you get put in a different pile*). Then comes something like the progression of high level druids back in 1E AD&D. Barbed-wire/flaming ladder/spiked cage matches between various contenders fight it out for the champeen belt! FRIDAY! FRIDAY! FRIDAY!
But to answer the question, the 'maybes' and 'yes' replies can take a while...which leads to 'fretmode'TM. And, yes, some of the 'maybes' still end up as rejections. Much gnashing of teeth and chewing of nails occurs as people check check and recheck their email accounts every 3.62 minutes to see what is going on. A couple of people, including me for example, have waited till a few weeks before the following cutoff date to hear about the last batch.
*I think that is one reason it takes a while to get back to me, I send in some that STINK and some that get in the 'maybe' pile and they just lump everything together and just send one email...mostly telling me to get lost, but I did get in waaaaaaay back in 2003.
oh yeah, and Zherog's proposals are ALWAYS put on the bottom of whichever pile he goes in...house rules. LOL.
ok. As I understand it, it goes a little something like this. The proposals pile up on average 3-4 a day and they are gathered for a span of three months, give or take. At the end of those three months, Jeremy announces here that this 'batch' is closed, and the ed's go thru them and make a 'greenlight' pile and a 'reject' pile. There might be a 'maybe' pile too...anyway, the rejected ones get sent back fairly quickly--within a week or so after the designated cutoff date .... [The] 'maybes' and 'yes' replies can take a while.... And, yes, some of the 'maybes' still end up as rejections. ... A couple of people, including me for example, have waited till a few weeks before the following cutoff date to hear about the last batch.
Nomad, thanks for posting this. I haven't heard back yet on a proposal that was submitted in June (I just missed the June meeting cutoff, mainly because I didn't know there was one! :-P) and so it's somewhat reassuring to know that the delay means, at the very least, that it wasn't so bad it was rejected out of hand (a thought that, technically, still holds true even if the proposal got lost in cyberspace between my computer and Paizo-land!)
It's especially helpful since the comments from "Official Types", in both this and the "Tips for Writers" thread, have only made my anxiety levels worse as I've been bounced me back and forth:
CON: My proposal extended about half a dozen lines beyond two pages.
PRO: The adventure doesn't involve a Druid
CON: The adventure introduces what is essentially a new creature, which always takes up more space.
PRO: The adventure actually re-introduces an interesting creature from the Mystara Campaign Setting.
CON: I think the propsal may have had too much "background details" and not enough "what happens in the adventure"
CON: The draft adventure, and its summary in the proposal, is set in a country from an the "out of print" campaign setting (Mystara)
PRO: The adventure is actually quite generic, and all Mystara-specific details could be easily removed if necessary.
When I look at those my brain goes "that's good, but that's bad, but that's good, but that's bad ..." and I end up with a headache. ;-) So, I guess I just have to keep typing with my fingers crossed too.
Jenni A.M. Merrifield
PS: As an aside, this is technically my second submission to Dungeon although it feels like my first. My real first submission was either in 1999 or early 2000 (before 3E was released) and was based on the same concepts as my current proposal. Chris Perkins was the editor at the time and, in his reply, he said he liked the proposal but there were unfortunately some elements in it which were, coincidentally, too similar to elements in an adventure that had been published about a year earlier (which, in those days, would have been only five or six issues back) and so he "couldn't ask for a complete manuscript at this time".
In May this year I suddenly had the yen to upgrade and tweak the original adventure, upgrading cast and crew for 3e5 and revising the storyline and set design to address flaws uncovered when my PC's ran through the original version oh those many years ago. And after I had started on that it wasn't too great a leap to decide, "What the heck. It's been five years and one and a half editions since my first attempt at publication, so why not give it another go?" And so I did. And now I'm here, bitting my nails down to the nub while I wait for some kind of reply. :-)
--jamm
When I look at those my brain goes "that's good, but that's bad, but that's good, but that's bad ..." and I end up with a headache. ;-)
Yeah, me too Jenni. Glad I'm not the only one that manages to give themselves a headache. :)
And thanks for confirming my belief that my stuff goes to the bottom of the pile, Nomad. :P
So any updates? Are others still waiting?
So any updates? Are others still waiting?
Zherog -
Here's at least one more person still waiting with you.
- Ashavan
At least I'm in good company. ;)
... still waiting...