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7 months ago ::
Jul 17, 2009 - 9:03AM
#1
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My writing partner and I have taken a lot of the great advice from this thread. Thank you to the OP for the thread, and Chris P for the responses.
I have two questions!
1) About how many submissions are you seeing every day? I just ask because I'm curious.
2) Is it a good idea to write an article specifically for existing columns (like Vicious Venues, Class Acts, Expeditionary Dispatches, e.t.c)? It seems to me if those articles are commonly written by the same person each month (give or take) new submissions wouldn't be as useful to you.
Thanks!
1) We receive about 50 article pitches a week, on average. Some days we receive a handful, and other days we get dozens.
2) We have a handful of columns that have been assigned to specific individuals (such as Stephen Radney-Macfarland's "Save My Game" column). Other columns that fall into this category include "Ruling Skill Challenges," "Dungeoncraft," and "Confessions of a Full-time Wizard." Anyone can write for the other regular columns. We'd love to see more "Class Acts" and "Expeditionary Dispatches" articles, for example.
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7 months ago ::
Jul 17, 2009 - 9:58AM
#2
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Outstanding information, thanks. Will the submission guidelines and templates be updated to 4e style at some point, or should we continue to use the existing ones for our submissions?
Jim Johnson
http://www.popcornfalls.com
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7 months ago ::
Jul 17, 2009 - 11:01AM
#3
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2) We have a handful of columns that have been assigned to specific individuals (such as Stephen Radney-Macfarland's "Save My Game" column). Other columns that fall into this category include "Ruling Skill Challenges," "Dungeoncraft," and "Confessions of a Full-time Wizard." Anyone can write for the other regular columns. We'd love to see more "Class Acts" and "Expeditionary Dispatches" articles, for example.
Are you sure? We have a great idea for an Ampersand article.  Haha
You answered my question perfectly. Thanks!
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7 months ago ::
Jul 17, 2009 - 9:40PM
#4
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1) Are you any better about sending out responses to pitches? It seems to be the consensus on ENWorld that no one has received responses to pitches besides the automated "We've received your submission" reply. I for instance made a pitch over 60 days ago and got nothing.
2) What if we have the article/adventure written? Would that help our pitch at all, if we can show the finished product ahead of time?
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7 months ago ::
Jul 18, 2009 - 12:41PM
#5
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We'd love to see more "Class Acts" and "Expeditionary Dispatches" articles, for example.
Given the "hard math" and "formulas" used to calculate powers are being kept in-house and have not been released to the public, how would someone go about writing a Class Acts article?
For example, say someone wanted to do a Class Acts: Paladin to add more Strength-based attacks to the game (as there is often no choice in attack for strength-based paladins).
Would the magazine/DDI team send the writer the formulas or would the writer work blind and have the DDI team edit and revise the powers? Or would the writer just propose rough concepts for the powers that would be fleshed-out by the DDI team?
How would playtesting be handled?
Read my WizCommunity Blog. Updated daily! Every weekday I muse about my ongoing 4e campaign, world building, adventure designing, and my thoughts on 4e & gaming in general.
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7 months ago ::
Jul 19, 2009 - 12:11AM
#6
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Its actually not that hard to work out the rough power level you should be aiming for with powers - just look around at the other class powers of that level for all the classes of that Role.
The trick is making a submission that has enough depth that they are willing to take it up, or that is unique enough that someone else hasn't already done it (a possible reason my last pitch failed on both fronts).
Chris you mention "Expeditionary Dispatches" is there any chance that a column could be started for providing similar content that isn't tied to Eberron or the Realms?
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7 months ago ::
Jul 20, 2009 - 7:46AM
#7
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How important is the estimation of word count? I have a lot of article ideas, but I have trouble guessing how long an article or section may be before it's written. What are the average word counts based on article type?
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7 months ago ::
Jul 22, 2009 - 10:46AM
#8
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How important is the estimation of word count? I have a lot of article ideas, but I have trouble guessing how long an article or section may be before it's written. What are the average word counts based on article type?
Reread the submission guidelines. They discuss target word counts for articles and adventures.
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/submissions
Jim Johnson
http://www.popcornfalls.com
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7 months ago ::
Jul 26, 2009 - 12:02AM
#9
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How about taking your own advice? The submissions page just tells you to estimate your word count and gives some guestimates on what typical "Modules" run to in terms of word count.
Chris said you are looking at about 500 words a page.
My experience suggests most basic encounters will run to 2 pages, more complicated ones will be 3. A skill challenge is about a page unless its got some strange things going on in it. The hardest part is working out word count for the background (assume 2 pages for a typical 10 encounter mod would be my bet).
For Dragon articles its a lot harder.
A Paragon Path is about a page.
You get about 6 powers to a page.
Assume 1-2 pages per "topic" would be my suggestion for other article types.
Note I'm making educated guesses, but they are still guesses. But they should be good enough to get you through the submission process.
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7 months ago ::
Jul 27, 2009 - 12:00PM
#10
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Something else you could try would be to take a Dragon or Dungeon article and cut and paste the text into any Word document or the like and run a word count check on it. Not perfect, but it'll give you a fair approximation of how many words any given article might contain.
Jim Johnson
http://www.popcornfalls.com
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