Just a quick question about submitting work for your magazine, albeit a bit mercenary. Are you able to disclose how much you pay for work you publish? What's the going rate for adventures or any additional features you do? It would be nice to know before trying to break into this competative market.
Also, are you able to clarify current timescales from submission to decision to publication?
Thank you.
Orcwart
It's in the Writer's Guidelines; it's .05 per word, and payment is sent roughly 30 days after publication.
Creative Director
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Yup; starting pay rate is 5 cents a word. For an average-sized, 10,000 word adventure, that works out to about $500.00 for an adventure. Payments go out 30 days after the adventure's been published.
As for the time it takes between submission to decision to publication... that's a lot less precise. If you happen to be lucky and submit an adventure that fills a need we need RIGHT NOW, and if that adventure is well-written and doesn't require extensive revisions, the absolute quickest an adventure can get into print after we see the completed manuscript is probably 5-6 months. Now mind you, I've NEVER seen this happen. We schedule adventures out in the magazine for about a year and a half in advance. It's easilly possible to wait a year between us accepting a manuscript and seeing it in print. I think the current record for the time between manuscript and print is something like 3 years.
Thanks, James. That's some really useful information to consider. Personally I'm split on spending so much of the little time I have (family man) for a small gain or do I spend that time on the small chance that everybody will think I'm fantastic, which helps me "break into" the game industry and start writing some serious stuff.
But that might just be fantasy...
Take extra vitamins and stay up later than the rest of the family, Orcwart!
I found Dragon to be slightly easier for breaking into the industry. Now, that was when there were 11 class act articles every month, rather than four.
My advice is to go ahead and send in some queries - to both Dragon and Dungeon. Also, if you have ideas for Campaign Workbooks, go ahead and write those up and send 'em in.
I do some of my writing while at my regular job (I have periods of downtime that allow me to write a paragraph or two at a time), and then polish things up either at night after the kids go to bed or over the weekend.
Thanks for the positive advice, guys. I guess I need to use my time more wisely and I suppose the more I try the better I will get. :)