Over the past month I've sent about 6 e-mails to Dragon@paizo.com with queries regarding articles for submission and I have yet to receive a single reply.
I wonder if it's because I have a Yahoo!-based e-mail address or maybe it's my foreign name...
Nah,'ve yet to receive a reply from a query posted quite a while back. I'm sure they will get to it in time.
Chief Creative Officer, Publisher
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We tend to make final decisions on queries about once every two months, gathering them into large piles and discussing each in turn while looking at our annual schedule and extrapolating themes and plans. We just finished the latest such meeting for Dragon, which ought to include your proposals, on Friday. Dragon's associate editor, Jason Bulmahn, just started getting back to people this afternoon, a process which should take a couple of days.
--Erik Mona
Editor-in-Chief
Dragon & Dungeon
Sweet, I'm looking forward to hearing from you... Don't worry I should have a pretty short acceptance speech.
Erik (or somebody else from the staff, even ;)) - what about an actual submission? I'm quite willing to sit here, looking patient on the outside but a nervous wreck on the inside. :) But it'd be a ton easier if I knew for sure the submission I sent back in mid-March was actually received. I feel bad continually sending Jason follow-up e-mails (so bad, in fact, that I've only sent one so far); I know follow-ups don't make the process any easier - it just gives you guys more work to do.
Bleh - I'm gonna go finish my coffee now. Maybe I'll be able to form less rambling thoughts that way. ;)
If misery loves company go check out Is there a black hole in the submissions room at Paizo? in the General Dungeon Magazine Threads. If nothing else you can gasp for joy over the torture some Dungeon contributers/would-be contributers go through. A three month wait? Please. Wait til you get to the person whose been on hold 24.... ;)
My best suggestion if you are worried is to keep writing proposals/submissions and send them off with a little note attached asking if they got so-and-so from two months back? Make sure you give them a month or two before asking as they are very busy chaps.
GGG
Yeah, I've been over to that thread. I think after 24 months I'd assume my article was so bad the editors couldn't think of a nice way to tell me. :)
Yeah - the notifications from the Friday meeting are going out. Just got my rejection. *sigh* One of these days I will figure out just what you guys are looking for, but I'm not there yet.
If I can twist this into an adventure idea, you may just see it again as a Dungeon query. It really was a good idea.
- Ashavan
I 4 responses over the last two days for queries I sent in over the last few months... 3 no's and a we want to see this one.
It is my (maybe mistaken) impression that Dragon DOES encourage the readership to contribute articles. It is also my impression that many of the articles written in each Dragon are written by people on the staff. I guess not many people submit, right? Or are the submissions just really, really poor?
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Chief Creative Officer, Publisher
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We'll sometimes print articles by the staff in the magazine, but it's something I've actually tried to cut down on since coming aboard (with the major exception that I wrote the first installment of the Age of Worms Adventure Path in the current Dungeon). Very often articles by the staff are "strategic," in that they cover an upcoming product in some way, or are tied to something like the Age of Worms, where all of the planning is going on in-house.
I do encourage a certain amount of cross-magazine pollinization, however, so for instance you'll often see stuff by James Jacobs (Managing Editor, Dungeon) in Dragon, and an occasional Campaign Workbook article by Wes Schneider (Assistant Editor, Dragon) in Dungeon.
I'm for publishing the best material I possibly can. I encourage readers to propose and submit articles, but my first allegiance is not to the authors, but to the readers in general. If I think James Jacobs is the guy to write a Pazuzu article, James is going to get the assignment.
If someone had thought to pitch a Pazuzu article to me before I thought of it, that person would have gotten to write it.
--Erik Mona
Editor-in-Chief
Dragon & Dungeon
I shudder to admit it but (if you count requested revisions) the first twenty things I wrote for Dragon got rejected (yeah, 20). The reasons they didn't make the cut fall into a number of broad categories. They were either:
(a) Really bad
(b) displayed a poor grasp of the format (italicize those magic items!)
(c) Presented wildly unbalanced rules
(d) All of the above
If someone as thickheaded as me can figure it out anyone can :)
On the topic at hand, out of the thirty-two ideas for feature articles I submitted in the latest round a grand total of five were given the greenlight, and there's no guarantee that any will actually make it into print.
The competition is Darwinian. If you don't enjoy writing these articles for themselves you're likely going to be disappointed.
I shudder to admit it but (if you count requested revisions) the first twenty things I wrote for Dragon got rejected (yeah, 20). The reasons they didn't make the cut fall into a number of broad categories. They were either:
(a) Really bad
(b) displayed a poor grasp of the format (italicize those magic items!)
(c) Presented wildly unbalanced rules
(d) All of the above
If someone as thickheaded as me can figure it out anyone can :)
On the topic at hand, out of the thirty-two ideas for feature articles I submitted in the latest round a grand total of five were given the greenlight, and there's no guarantee that any will actually make it into print.
The competition is Darwinian. If you don't enjoy writing these articles for themselves you're likely going to be disappointed.
Absolutely on all points, Hal. I also agree with Erik that the readers are the top priority, and if that means staff writing instead of freelance submissions, then so be it. I DO have one question though. . .
Can you elaborate on any greenlit proposals that were rejected due to formatting? Did the staff give you a chance at a revision (to italicise magic items, or whatever the reason, etc.) prior to the final rejection?
Just curious. Thanks!
Contributor
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I shudder to admit it but (if you count requested revisions) the first twenty things I wrote for Dragon got rejected (yeah, 20).
Just remember that Theodore Geisel was rejected something like 37 times before someone bought his first book.
I think we can mostly all agree that he ended up being a rather important author...
Theodore Geisel?
I prefer the story of Billy-Bob Flufferschmeit.
He's the guy who got 37 rejections and was then tarred and feathered by his creditors... :)
As to the question above from Calidore Chase (I have -barely- the technical competence to cut/paste an excerpt from the posting, but the secret of highlighting it afterwords, like the quadratic equation from my high school days, continues to elude me :) )
The feedback I've received from Dragon editorial staff varied considerably depending upon the temperament of the given editor and the amount of time the magazine's production schedule allowed.
The first two things I wrote, a long time ago, were during the tenure of Dave Gross. His rejections were personalized and remarkably detailed, including the mention about the improper formatting for things like magic items. They were about as encouraging as you could possibly make a rejection letter and still pass on the article. I believe he also made mention of "Elements of Style" and quite kindly suggested that I give it a look. Frankly, I'm amazed he took the time he did. After those two articles however, real life interevened and I went off in other directions for a few years.
By the time I made another stab at Dragon the era of the form rejection had begun. This was I believe during the time of Jesse Decker, with Matt Sernett as the associate editor. Something like:
"Dear Author:
Thank you for your recent submission. We appreciate the time and energy you put into it. Unfortunately it does not suit our needs at this time."
However, each of these letters also included a check list where the editor quickly noted the broad reasons for passing on the article. These included things like "shows an inadequete grasp of the rules" and "displays poor sentence structure".
(not sure why those two particular clauses come to mind so easily ... :) )
During this time however, I started to get the occassional request for a revision, mostly from Matt. He might say something like "We like the idea of non-magical books as treasure, but instead of a bunch of charts that allow the DM to create a library on the fly why not detail some books and present them for the DM to slip into an adventure?"
However, even after I rewrote that one to his notes it still came up short and got spiked again (this time with a form rejection... D'oh ). But the story has, from my perspective anyway, a happy ending, with the benefit of hindsight I took a look at that article last fall, and realized that the only thing worth saving from it was the title. So I rewrote it completely and tried it over at Dungeon as as Campaign Workbook, which led to "Essential Works" my first appearance in that magazine. So nothing is ever a complete loss if you learn from it.
Eventually Matt moved into the editor's chair, and, since I had achieved a kind of critical mass in rejections, things started to click. I pitched this idea called "Seven Deadly Domains" and it piqued Matt's interest (enough to stick with it despite the first draft :) ). He passed it over to Mike McArtor and we bounced three or four drafts back and forth while it took shape. Mike was great, full of useful and interesting suggestions, and I found his feedback quite helpful not just for that particular article but also for the insight it gave me into the editorial mind (a strange and fearsome place indeed).
This was during the relaunch era, and the staff was quite eager to find people willing to write stuff for the specific monthly features they wanted to include. Using my tremendous mental acuity I mostly choose the features that were to disappear most quickly in the ensuing months, including "Adventuring Tricks", "Player's Tips" and "Heroic Feats". However, since the staff needed to fill these holes they were more then happy to ask for revisions from me, which led to even more feedback and useful suggestions.
Mike and Wes were simply amazing during this time, devoting lots and lots of time to whipping my articles into shape, and dealing with my particular quirks as a writer. For instance, I've got a problem with passive voice, so Wes decided to try "boot camp" (as he called it :) ) and insisted that I write articles without any passive voice in them at all. That's not as easy as it sounds, but, the need to snake my way though sentences, contorting the words to eliminate every speck of passive voice proved very interesting (you've actually got to be someone who enjoys revisions to understand why that's fun :) ). I got a lot better at chopping this stuff out.
(although it may be that I've sometimes been known to be the kind of person who backslides from time to time...)
So, to answer the question way back on top, generally, with the exception of one or two aggravating moments that inevitably occur in a monthly magazine, I've found the Dragon staff extraordinarily helpful. To put things in perspective, I've dealt with a some other, non-industry, magazines and the Paizo guys are head and shoulders above most of them. I won't tell tales out of school by naming names, but some of the editors out there in the big bad world are pretty savage with their rejections.
(you haven't lived till you've gotten a rejection haiku... :) )
And I really should learn how to cut and paste excerpts from other postings so that I'd know who actually asked the question. Sorry about that Chris (don't bite me, I like keeping my human shape during the full moon :) )
My experiences with the Dragon staff are nowhere near as extensive as Hal's. Since I submit mainly for Class Acts, most of my communications are with Mike McArtor. I have found Mike's advice to be very helpful.
All I can say to anyone who is frustrated by the process: Keep at it. It took nearly a year of submissions to various publication and pdf companies before I got my first nibble. Eventually, your persistance will pay off.
By the way, Hal, "7 Deadly Domains" is still my absolute favorite article since the relaunch. They're getting some use in a set of desert adventures I'm currently running. There's some evil NPC priests running around with lust and envy domains in their repertoire.
Thanks for sharing your experiences, Hal. I've only been submitting things to Dungeon and Dragon magazines for a few months, and I have to say that it's been alot of fun. Considering how prolific you are in your queries (30+ seems like alot), it must be quite fun for you too.
I've already received quite a bit of reward for the experiences I've gained, even if nothing actually makes it to print. My confidence has grown so much, I have sent a few things away to other magazines and E-zines. Who knows where this will lead?
I am a happy lycanthrope.
By the way, Hal, "7 Deadly Domains" is still my absolute favorite article since the relaunch. They're getting some use in a set of desert adventures I'm currently running. There's some evil NPC priests running around with lust and envy domains in their repertoire.
Ah, so that's how to include a quote, hit reply :)
Thank you for the kind words, it's nice to know that somebody found a use for something I wrote. In the original draft I included a largish chunk of adventure seeds based around the notion of "vice cults" secret factions within good and neutral churches working to promote one of the sins. The notion of ostensibly good aligned clerics actually undermining society really intrigued me. For instance, I think envy clerics were political revolutionaries ("think you're better then me just because you're king...")
If you ever need a quick and dirty reason for betrayal by someone "back in town" keep that in mind :)
As I mentioned above, a lot of the credit for the final shape of the article should go to Mike.
He passed it over to Mike McArtor and we bounced three or four drafts back and forth while it took shape. Mike was great, full of useful and interesting suggestions, and I found his feedback quite helpful not just for that particular article but also for the insight it gave me into the editorial mind (a strange and fearsome place indeed).
Most of my experience with the Dragon staff is with Mike as well. I'll echo your sentiments - I find Mike to be incredibly helpful as an editor. I know he's thoroughly busy, but he always seems to have time to answer my questions and calm my concerns. I look at stuff I write today and compare it to stuff I wrote even 6 months ago, and I can see an incredible difference. A large part of that credit has to go to the guidance I've received from Mike.
I have some experiences with others on the current staff, too - so I'll share those, though they're not as in depth as my experience with Mike.
Last summer, when I first starting this whole submission thing, one of the first things I sent in was a series of spells I had written. Wes had the pleasure (or is that misfortune?) of reading them and the misfortune (or is that pleasure? ;) ) of having to send me a rejection letter. Getting rejected sucks - let me say that right up front. However, Wes was kind enough to take the time to explain why it was being rejected, and to offer suggestions for future Spellcraft articles. The advice was pretty simple - though it didn't seem like it at the time. Keep the spells "simple" - spells with multiple effects are confusing. Keep the spells "useful" - a really cool spell that will only ever get cast once during a campaign isn't the best use of the space in the magazine. There was a bit more advice, but it was geared towards the specific spells, and I'm too lazy to go dig it out ;) .
I also have some experience with Jason. Earlier this year, I was working on a submission for him, and I ran into problems during the writing process. I sent Jason an e-mail seeking some guidance, and after a few quick exchanges back and forth I was on the path to writing what I think is a really cool article. It hasn't been accepted or rejected yet, so I don't know if Jason agrees that it's really cool. ;)
Overall, my experience says the current staff is quite willing to work with you - as long as you're willing to work with them.
For instance, I've got a problem with passive voice, so Wes decided to try "boot camp" (as he called it :) ) and insisted that I write articles without any passive voice in them at all. That's not as easy as it sounds, but, the need to snake my way though sentences, contorting the words to eliminate every speck of passive voice proved very interesting (you've actually got to be someone who enjoys revisions to understand why that's fun :) ). I got a lot better at chopping this stuff out.
Passive voice is a killer for me, too. Sometimes it takes me longer to revise an article to remove passive voice than to originally write the article. I'm very lucky, though, that Amber Scott is one of my very best friends. She's awesome at not just fixing passive voice, but being able to explain it. I've gotten better at it - but it's still something that gives me grief when I sit down to write an article.
Sigh, still no reply to my query. Still patiently waiting. Okay, maybe not that patiently. :)
Myself also. Not calm at all. It'll be a no, of course. Hmmm, kinda reminds me of my undergrad days (A for you, A for you but a big fat B for you. Keep trying though with all your heart and keep believing in yourself and maybe, gosh darnit, just maybe little snowflake, you, too, could be good).
Sigh, still no reply to my query. Still patiently waiting. Okay, maybe not that patiently. :)
Yep, me too. I have a submission hanging out there that has a few queries attached to it as "follow up" articles, as well as a separate query that I'm still waiting on.
In the meantime, though, I owe Mike enough Class Acts articles to keep me busy when my "day" job doesn't. ;)
Amber Scott is one of my very best friends
Awww. *blushes*
I was just wondering... Does it ever happen that Dragon does not reply AT ALL? I sent a batch of ideas, a follow up letter and then waited a few weeks, sent more ideas in and waitied a few more weeks.
I'm concluding that they did not receive my query, thinking of resubmitting.
generally if I think that my querry didn't arrive I will send an email asking if it did... those emails generaly get responded to rather quickly (usually with in 1-2 days) in my experience.
They had a "Features" meeting a few weeks back. However, if the outstanding articles in question are "Familiars" articles (Ecology, Bazaar o' the Bizzare, etc.), then it's possible they haven't had their decision meetings on it yet.
I don't know if we've ever heard how the decision making process works for "Familiars" articles, but I'd guess that decisions on those occur seperately, maybe based on the issue themes established in the "Features" meetings. That meeting may be yet to come.
Just a ballpark guess.
I'd also mention that this week is the deadline for the Shackled City Hardcover, and I'm sure the Classics book is in the fast n' furious as well. Plus, summer is prime vacation time. Busy busy time for everyone.
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Director of Games
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Hey there all,
We are currently current through Mid April.. roughly. If you submitted before then and did not get an answer by now, it probably fell through the cracks. If your querry was submitted after that, it is still going through the process. We are currently working through mid april through mid june (roughly) and hope to have answers on those soon (although with Origins coming up real quick and other commitments, it may be a little while yet).
Jason Bulmahn
Associate Editor of Dragon
I'd also mention that this week is the deadline for the Shackled City Hardcover, and I'm sure the Classics book is in the fast n' furious as well. Plus, summer is prime vacation time. Busy busy time for everyone.
Forget that... for our hard working editors, it is also convention season, which I'm sure slows things down to a crawl.
- Ashavan
I'd also mention that this week is the deadline for the Shackled City Hardcover, and I'm sure the Classics book is in the fast n' furious as well. Plus, summer is prime vacation time. Busy busy time for everyone.
Ya got that right... while we've got a couple of freelancers working on Shackled City and the Compendium (myself and the distinguished Mr. Mearls), it's still been sucking up a significant amount of time for Erik, James, Sean and the rest.... It seems to me that the staff here is small enough that if you dump extra work into the mix, EVERYBODY's affected.
As far as submissions go, a couple of notes.... We're currently trying to institute some new tracking systems for Dungeon to make things a little bit speedier. The hope is that once it's up and running you'll get a "submission received!" email from somebody (probably me) within days of it showing up in our in-box. Actually EVALUATING the submissions may continue to take quite a while (as it should, if it's a difficult choice between a bunch of great ideas, right?) but even if it's three months, you're still ahead of the game... the AVERAGE wait time on a fiction journal's slush pile is at least 3 months, and I've heard that novel manuscripts can linger there for years. And longer wait times frequently mean that you've made it through the first few rounds of cuts!
That said, if it's been three months and you haven't heard that your manuscript has at least been received, go ahead and 'ping' us again about it. When you do, you might as well attach the document again - it's a sad fact that with all the craziness around here, pieces (particularly email ones) occasionally do slip through the cracks.
A couple other quick tips:
*Don't bother writing a query for a campaign workbook submission - save yourself some time and just write it and send it. It's hard to evaluate an email that just says "I want to write an article about weird dungeon traps or funky treasures". Not only is that pretty vague, but the editors have no way of evaluating your writing ability/style.
*As above - use the full two-page proposal format for adventure ideas, not just a few sentences in an email.
*In fact, attach any of your ideas as a word document - printing out emails sucks.
*Include that Standard Disclosure Form!
*Proofread!
That's about all I've got, except for one last thing... I know a bunch of rejections can make it seem like you're just being chewed up and spit out by the Dungeon and Dragon machine, but rest assured that you're not just faceless manuscripts to the folks here... we read your stuff, we know your name, and we remember the next time you write something. And we genuinely WANT you to succeed - you should see the dance that gets done when I run across a totally amazing submission in the slush pile. Ask anybody. :)
So get out there and submit already!
-James Sutter,
Editorial Intern, Dungeon
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Contributor
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They had a "Features" meeting a few weeks back. However, if the outstanding articles in question are "Familiars" articles (Ecology, Bazaar o' the Bizzare, etc.), then it's possible they haven't had their decision meetings on it yet.
I don't know if we've ever heard how the decision making process works for "Familiars" articles, but I'd guess that decisions on those occur seperately, maybe based on the issue themes established in the "Features" meetings. That meeting may be yet to come.
Just a ballpark guess.
Here's a glimpse into the worlds of Wes and Mike, we who take care of the Familiars section (Wes covers Ecology, Spellcraft, Novel Approach, and First Watch, while I take care of Bazaar and Class Acts).
Wes and I actually have quite a bit of autonomy in our decisions, although we frequently talk with each other, Jason, and Erik to make everything in the magazine fit together as best it can. If Erik doesn't like a particular Class Act or Ecology or whatever, he lets us know and we make the appropriate changes for future issues.
So if you sent in a Familiars article and haven't received word on it yet, contact either Wes or myself (as appropriate) and make a gentle inquiry. :)
*Proofread!
This is a real Beast.
. . .
A Dark Beast.
. . .
My Beast.
*Proofread!
Why? Isn't Word's in-built grammar checker good enough?
/end sarcasm