This is awesome...my submissions are spot-on. My guess is I can fairly easily sub almost anybody on this board!
Seriously most of you guys don't even grapple...
But seriously, are there submission guidelines yet?
I'm sure that someone at Paizo will correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe guidelines may be released after GenCon. I think one of the GenCon sessions is "Writing for Paizo".
I had asked for information on this, as I can not go to GenCon, and I was told that the information will be released after the event. Sorry, that I don't have the link, but I can't remember where that thread is.
RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16
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I read the "new freelancers" to mean, established freelancers with a history of writing fro Paizo, that simply haven't writen for the Pathfinder adventure paths yet.
As for open submissions, I thought Paizo had mentioned that the Pathfinder society adventures would be where new talent could send submissions (though they haven't released any guidelines yet).
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I'm still not sure why they won't issue a magazine.
I know I read the description of the magazine industry they posted. But there is at least one other model they can use.
No Quarter is a Quarterly magazine released by Privateer Press. It is a small run distributed only through local game stores. It's a house organ as well, meaning they use it for advertising and marketing their own products so they aren't worried about getting additional advertisers.
That magazine has been well received and has been doing quite well.
A quarterly magazine for Pathfinder Society would be an ideal fit. They can release a few adventures, scenarios and information for each season of the Society. It would be a great place to find new writers.
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RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16
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I'm still not sure why they won't issue a magazine.
I know I read the description of the magazine industry they posted. But there is at least one other model they can use.
No Quarter is a Quarterly magazine released by Privateer Press. It is a small run distributed only through local game stores. It's a house organ as well, meaning they use it for advertising and marketing their own products so they aren't worried about getting additional advertisers.
That magazine has been well received and has been doing quite well.
A quarterly magazine for Pathfinder Society would be an ideal fit. They can release a few adventures, scenarios and information for each season of the Society. It would be a great place to find new writers.
At this point, it might make more sense for Paizo to wait and see what Wolfgang is going to do with KQ in terms of what edition(s) it will support. If KQ winds up going 3.5/PRPG, then it might be easier for Paizo to use that as the default magazine for Pathfinder, even if it's not in house, and let Wolfgang run with it, while Paizo devotes its resources to their existing product lines.
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At this point, it might make more sense for Paizo to wait and see what Wolfgang is going to do with KQ in terms of what edition(s) it will support. If KQ winds up going 3.5/PRPG, then it might be easier for Paizo to use that as the default magazine for Pathfinder, even if it's not in house, and let Wolfgang run with it, while Paizo devotes its resources to their existing product lines.
But KQ really isn't a Gollarion, Pathfinder magazine, and I doubt Wolfgang is interested in making it so. The most Paizo could hope for would be one article per issue.
In No Quarter there are articles about political events, personalities, battles, fan games, fiction, scenarios for play.
I would place the magazine under the Pathfinder Society play. It becomes the premier marketing tool for the Society. It provides face time in the gaming stores (not the box chain stores) or by subscription). They would need about three people to run the magazine: editor, art director, and layout. The content is purchased from freelancers. The remaining content would be material necessary to the Society to function anyway, such as official scenarios, history, personalities, which they should already have the staff for.
At the very least they could put that kind of content online. Though they would make more money (enough to barely cover costs or at least minimize marketing costs) with a real zine.
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RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16
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I would place the magazine under the Pathfinder Society play. It becomes the premier marketing tool for the Society. It provides face time in the gaming stores (not the box chain stores) or by subscription). They would need about three people to run the magazine: editor, art director, and layout. The content is purchased from freelancers. The remaining content would be material necessary to the Society to function anyway, such as official scenarios, history, personalities, which they should already have the staff for.
I thought that the P Society did have plans for some sort of content along these lines, but the details haven't come out yet (I'm guessing that it would be online and not a physical product). When you first mentioned magazine, I thought you meant to support the PRPG, and I think that even if KQ only has one Golarion specific article per issue, all of the rest of the content would be pretty compatable and serve the function of a magazine to support the game and support new talent pretty well.
But KQ really isn't a Gollarion, Pathfinder magazine, and I doubt Wolfgang is interested in making it so. The most Paizo could hope for would be one article per issue.
How is that a problem? Back in the day, Dragon had to support Greyhawk (sort of), FR, and Ebberon, with occasional references to older settings. Most of it was just setting agnostic.
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I suppose you guys would have to see No Quarter to see the difference.
It's not like Dragon, or Dungeon or even anything remotely like Kobold Quarterly.
And sorry, I did not really clarify that I meant for the magazine to support Pathfinder and Golarion, not the PFRPG.
No Quarter was so well written and designed that I bought a few copies and decided to buy the Iron Kingdoms setting book, then spent over $300 (don't tell my wife) on miniatures to play Warmachine. Even now No Quarter just kills me. Privateer Press came out with some new minis, mercenaries. Ok, they looked interesting but I had already spent $300 so I was not interested. Then they ran a few articles on the personalities and the way they fight. That did it for me. NOW they were awesome because they had been fleshed out. So I spent about another $150.
A Pathfinder Journal Quarterly magazine could do the same thing. It would spur participation in the Pathfinder Society, encourage purchase of Adventure Paths, Modules, Accessories, and Gazateers. It would give players a feeling of community. Promote new ideas, and in general draw in more loyal Paizo fans.
With the tide of negativity toward 4E any company that rides against the tide will rise to the head of the industry, and perhaps avoid an idustry wide backlash.
Paizo has pretty much stated that they want to stay the heck out of the magazine business due to establishment costs, the cashflow issues of subscriptions, and the razor-thin profit margin. I think that either letting KQ do it or just letting the AP fill the role are the best options.
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Paizo has pretty much stated that they want to stay the heck out of the magazine business due to establishment costs, the cashflow issues of subscriptions, and the razor-thin profit margin. I think that either letting KQ do it or just letting the AP fill the role are the best options.
Very true, but they were also looking at an entirely different model for magazines distribution. They often lamented about the difficulties of dealing with large box store chains. About the necessity to show quantity distribution in order to generate advertising sales. About the necessity of overprinting (and therefore wasting money).
Remove those three issues. Distribute through the normal game store distributors. It becomes a house organ so you are not looking for advertisers at all. You don't overprint. It becomes, in truth, just like printing a module. Except this one actually causes additional revenue to come in.
So, you have your module that brings in $13.00
You have amagazine that brings in $6, then encourages an additional $13 purchase, and another $5 for an accessory. And a friend saw the issue and now wants to buy some more stuff.
That $6 investment in marketing brought in $18 and a new player and customer.
A house magazine is not a product, it is a marketing tool. There is a HUGE difference. A product brings in a single purchase, a marketing tool brings in repeating puchases.
And someine said that there may have been a noncompete clause. I had not considered that.
Okay, so here's the deal. Yes, there's going to be a Writing for Paizo seminar at Gen Con. If you're hardcore and REALLY want to write for us, you'll either be there or bribe someone to take notes for ya (actually, with all the maniacs on these boards, I'm sure the gist will get posted up here within moments of the seminar's close). There's going to be some cool news coming out of that and more details on how we're going to handle submissions in the future there. So Stay Tuned!
For now, though, let me just say that the best place to get noticed is on these boards. As we don't have an open submissions policy at the moment the only way for us to drag in new talent is by noticing ya, and that means either through posts on here, special events like RPG Superstar (we have plans with a lot of folks from that now), or by doing other work in the industry (aka, Kobold Quarterly, Goodman Games, Nick's Sinister Adventures stuff, joining the Werecabbages, etc!). And if you've done all that and we still haven't noticed ya, shooting me or James an e-mail with a short list of what you've worked on never hurts either. We do have limited spots for freelancers, so often there's just not room for new blood, with all we're gearing up for, that's changing even now.
So, I've know you've all heard this before, but patience friends, the mythical submissions guidelines are coming and we're excited to see what all of you have coming up with!
As we don't have an open submissions policy at the moment the only way for us to drag in new talent is by noticing ya, and that means either through posts on here, special events like RPG Superstar (we have plans with a lot of folks from that now), or by doing other work in the industry (aka, Kobold Quarterly, Goodman Games, Nick's Sinister Adventures stuff, joining the Werecabbages, etc!).
Check and check.
Creative Director
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Starting up a new magazine isn't really an option at this point for several reasons. The primary one is that we're pretty much at capacity right now, and adding a magazine to that workload would bring the Editorial Pit crumbling down into madness and chaos.
I'm not sure how No Quarter is handled exactly, but I do know the amount of work it took to get the magazines that Paizo published out the door, and it was an ORDER OF MAGNITUDE more harrowing than doing books. The business models for how magazines are created and how books are created are shockingly different, but basically, magazines take more work and make less money. It's a LOT easier to go bankrupt with a magazine, in other words.
Eventually, once we've got enough staff and cash flow and all that at Paizo, we MIGHT look into doing some sort of magazine type thing as a side thing to the main print line... anything's possible. But we can't just say "it's marketing," and leave it at that. No matter WHAT you call it... magazines cost a lot of money to produce, and you often won't see all the money come back from that investment for a year, which means you spend a year waiting and hoping that what you're doing is successful, hoping that by the time you see the final results it's actually making money, because if it's not, then you've got a year full of suck pulling you down from all the hard work you've put into it.
In short... we spent years doing magazines and we're kinda having more fun with books.
So, the assault on the Renton Compound begins anew, does it?
OK. This time, no messing around. Bring in the oliphaunts and the liquid fire and the ghosts of ancestors!
Where's that render? Here, render, render, render.
In short... we spent years doing magazines and we're kinda having more fun with books.
Seconded! Truer words are rarely spoken.
I'm happy with the books. Leave the magazines be.
@Krome - I read No Quarter, and I like it, but its not really original. White Dwarf has been a vehicle for Games Workshop to pimp their stuff for years... and I read and like that too.
You think buying multiple D20/3.e products is cumbersome, try adding on two different miniatures games on top of that.
No wonder my wife left me...
But it all good - I can fit more games where she used to keep her stuff. :D
ANYhow... I'm eagerly awaiting Paizo's writing guidlines - I had considered doing something for WotC's version of Dragon (try to hold down your lunch), but when I found out all the articles were to be based around 4e it seemd rather pointless.
In fact, I didn't even understand their 'open call', because it went out before anyone had any idea about the rules, meaning only people in-house could actually answer that call. They are still requesting people submit ideas for FR articles... and yet the setting isn't even out yet. So anyone can write articles for them, but you have to have an insider's knowlege of NDA material to do so.
Talk about ass-backwards business models. Then again, it means the designers get to give themselves all the Freelance assignments, which I suppose was the whole idea in the first place. Must be nice to pull down two paychecks from the same job.
Hopefully Paizo's 'open call' will be a real one - it would be nice to actually get paid (with money!) for some of the things I now do for free, like writing articles for several netbooks and netzines, or doing maps for game products. I even worked for a game company once, but they paid me in minis.
I kid you not... but I was only a playtester.
And yes, that was an absolutely shameless self-plug. ;)
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Hopefully Paizo's 'open call' will be a real one - it would be nice to actually get paid (with money!) for some of the things I now do for free, like writing articles for several netbooks and netzines, or doing maps for game products. I even worked for a game company once, but they paid me in minis.
I kid you not... but I was only a playtester.
When I worked for Privateer Press I pre-spent so much of my paycheck on minis they might as well have been paying me in minis. Those Privateers are clever bastards, handing out employee order forms right before they do payroll...itsokay...my armies...THEY ARE HUGE!!!!
And now for something completely different.
I need to put together some writing samples to show off my talents to our Insect Overlords. Like some stuff that proves that I am the one they want to fill out that article on whatever-it-is.
But...I don't really work well without some direction. I just kind of flit all over the place, and if I just start writing for myself, I will write something very weird, like the the role-playing game I wrote but haven't quite finished (A Murder of Crows, about serial killers recruited by the Illuminati to hunt the forces of the Elder Gods). I need someone to say "Give me 15 magic items on the theme of fey gnomes."
Let's say I want to put together a little web portfolio. What kind of stuff should I put in it? Someone pretend you're Erik and give me some writing assignments to complete.
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I, for one, can't wait to see the submission guidelines. I'll admit I'm relatively new, when it comes to the world of game design, but I'm working on a few things of my own that will, hopefully, get me noticed once I can get it out there. I do hope to write for Paizo, eventually, as I love their products and the very fact that they're continuing with and improving on 3.5
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Let's say I want to put together a little web portfolio. What kind of stuff should I put in it? Someone pretend you're Erik and give me some writing assignments to complete.
Bear in mind the types of things they're looking for -- creativity, working to a brief, etc. So if you show them one (or two, five, or twenty) great idea then as far as they're concerned all that is is one (2, 5, 20...) great idea -- they can't assume that you can produce, and develop, great ideas on whatever topics they may give you.
If you show them 15 magic items on the theme of gnomes, then you might just have a massive gnome fetish -- sure, you could become the industry's go-to-guy for all things gnomical, but they're probably looking for more than that.
The RPG Superstar rounds started simple (and short) and got complex (and long) for probably 2 main reasons -- (i) to weed out people who can't (won't) follow a brief early on, and (ii) because it's a lot quicker and easier to reject 90% of submissions when you only have to read one paragraph than when you have to read 4 pages of prose & stat blocks, and when you've got hundreds of submissions coming in at once speed's a big factor. Sure, you may not be able to show off all your talents in 300 words, but if you can't write a good 300 words then you probably can't write a good 32 pages.
Take a look at briefs for each RPG Superstar round and write up, say, 3 entries for each round -- within each round keep the 3 entries distinct from one another, this is a key element in showing creativity, remember that a +1 flaming longsword is essentially exactly the same as a +3 icy burst mace.
After that? Not to sure, I just did it as an exercise for my own benefit; Once you're happy with the results put them up on your website and invite feedback from the general gaming public. Various Paizo staffers seem to radiate massive amounts of drowning-in-a-rushing-torrent-of-deadlines related stress so contacting them directly to get feedback on your portfolio is likely to be at best ineffective. Building a reputation through the quality of adventures they've given away for free on the web has worked for several people.
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Take a look at briefs for each RPG Superstar round and write up, say, 3 entries for each round -- within each round keep the 3 entries distinct from one another, this is a key element in showing creativity, remember that a +1 flaming longsword is essentially exactly the same as a +3 icy burst mace.
That's a good idea. I closed up the ROG Superstar forums so long ago I don't even think about them
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Chief Technical Officer
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Remove those three issues. Distribute through the normal game store distributors. It becomes a house organ so you are not looking for advertisers at all. You don't overprint. It becomes, in truth, just like printing a module. Except this one actually causes additional revenue to come in.
We attempted an industry-only model with Undefeated magazine (although we did accept advertising, which did well enough to about cover the editorial costs).
So, you have your module that brings in $13.00
You have a magazine that brings in $6...
And that is why it doesn't work. It takes the same time and effort for us to sell a $6 product to our distributor that it takes us to sell a $13 product, and it takes that distributor the same time and effort to sell it to a retailer, and it takes that retailer the same time and effort it takes to sell to a new customer.
It's really that middle section that's important, though. If a distributor manages to get 15 minutes of a retailer's time each week, do you think he'd rather spend it educating him about a $6 magazine (which will sell three copies, thus garnering that distributor a profit of $3.60), or an $85 trading card game display (which will sell two units, thus garnering that distributor a profit of $34.00)?
We were told by distribution that magazines weren't worth their effort.
Regarding No Quarter, we are familiar with it from an insider's perspective—we actually handled prepress and print brokering on it for the first several issues. As a result, it would be extremely inappropriate for me to explain in any kind of detail why their model isn't for Paizo, but I can assure you that it isn't. I am glad that it works for Privateer, though—it's a quality mag.
Pathfinder Companion is as close as Paizo is going to get to a magazine anytime soon.
Building a reputation through the quality of adventures they've given away for free on the web has worked for several people.
This is an interesting point. Say I did pen an adventure that I was particularly proud of, and would like to share it. Is there a place around here that people post their ideas, adventures, etc?