Where's the don't care option?

Just reading the guidelines made me ill. 5000 words. That ain't much when you consider 4500 of its a single statblock.

I had a wee glance at a few of the threads on their message boards (pages and pages of stuff there   ), and it looks like at Gencon there will be an announcement with some information on WOTCs big Digital Initiative, with further information to come at some point after gencon...

I figured that was just WoTC's insurance policy against that sort of thing. But the way that is stated, a very unscupulous editor could really make use of that...just my humble opinion.

Center_Stage_Hobbies wrote:I figured that was just WoTC's insurance policy against that sort of thing. But the way that is stated, a very unscupulous editor could really make use of that...just my humble opinion.

They get so many submissions mailed to them that they have no need to steal ideas.  When an idea is good enough or new enough they generally buy it.

It got to the point in TSR's history when they generally refused to accept unsolicited work from anyone.  They took proposals and gave work only to established freelancers.

stumbling tiger wrote:What you say about the process of submitting and publishing with TSR is very interesting, seeing that you speak from experience.  I'd love to hear more about how you did it.

I submitted a goofy, unprofessional query letter outlining my idea.

I also sent them a copy of my unsolicited manuscript...which wasn't overwhelmingly large and which I did not expect to be returned.

Given my current knowledge of collecting, I most certainly would have sent a stamped, self-addressed envelope in order to get my manuscript back...but I did not consider it important at the time.  

It was shortly after that time that TSR began refusing unsolicited work.  They were more flexible about the magazines, but they would not accept unsolicited module proposals because of the inevitable suspicions and accusations of intellectual theft.

There were other ideas that got rejected and one I should have acted on and didn't.  (A Warhammer 40,000 points system.)

After I had been printed in Dungeon, I asked for and got some other freelance editing work...which was fun and challenging and exasperating.  Most of the exasperation was due to technological difficulties.  

It seems hard to imagine now, but most of the bugs in shared files and electronic information have been worked out in the last 15 or so years.  Before that time there were a multitude of operating systems and word processing programs...and some could not talk to each other.  Some programs would not run on some computers and there were sharp differences between the operating systems of different generations of computers made only a year or so apart.

For instance...many British computer users had Amstrad computers, which had their own word processing program called Professional Writer.  TSR used Word Perfect 5.1.  Professional Writer files could be translated by Word Perfect using brute force.  Word Perfect files could be translated for Professional Writer if a translation mode on Word Perfect were first used to garble the file into ASCI and then Professional writer could garble it again and read it.  The result was a mess that had to be painstakingly edited and re-formatted.  (As I recall, Carl Sargent and Doug Niles used Amstrad...but don't quote me on that.)

In another instance, TSR kept sending me disks with files supposedly on them...but the files were not actually there.  They kept copying and mailing the same disk to me as deadlines loomed until I finally got them to understand the problem.  Snail mail was the only delivery system, so each reincarnation of the bad disk took a minimum of a week to sort out...and usually two weeks.  I was also a tech neophyte, so all the exasperations weren't TSR's fault.

While I am babbling, one other technical problem that TSR had was that their original files for Dragon magazine were saved on huge floppy disks (larger than the 5" floppies that many computers used).  When the computer that could read those disks failed it greatly complicated efforts to do things like reprint back issues of Dragon.  (The concept of a "hard drive" that stored files was unknown for the first decade of the computer era.)  That might seem incredible today, but back then it was possible for an entire style of computer to disappear and strand all files related to that brand name or operating system.  That is what happened to Compaq computer users as well as early Apple users and many other failed contenders.

There were also problems with copyright issues on old magazine articles, as well as questions about who owned the text of a module.  That is why TSR adopted the policy of purchasing all rights to published material as "work for hire," which gave future rights to TSR.  Another reason for this policy was to protect TSR's overall ownership and control of Dungeons and Dragons material.  (So, if you have questions about who owns what from back in the day, the answer on almost all TSR material will be that TSR and WOTC still own the rights.)

One exception to this work for hire rule policy was artwork.  TSR purchased first printing rights to things like the paintings that graced Dragon's cover, so the artists retained ownership of their work.  (TSR wouldn't have been able to get professional paintings if they had demanded ownership)  I don't know about interior art but I suspect that most of the drawings that illustrated magazines and modules were produced in-house by employee artists...and thus belong to TSR.  

I don't recall the policy about published fiction.  The terms might have been more standard publishing terms in which the writer retained rights subject to contract provisions.

That was probably more information than you wanted.

I should have done more work.  Hindsight...20/20 and all that.

Mark  

FormCritic wrote:One exception to this work for hire rule policy was artwork.  TSR purchased first printing rights to things like the paintings that graced Dragon's cover, so the artists retained ownership of their work.  (TSR wouldn't have been able to get professional paintings if they had demanded ownership)

Which would explain why I have seen Dragon cover art used for the covers of GURPS books.

FoulFoot wrote:Good write-up, Mark -- I'd wondered about the behind-the-scenes stuff from that time period.  I think I sent something off to them in my early teen years, and wondered why I didn't get a better response than the two-line form letter that eventually arrived.

The following bit gave me a chuckle, though:

FormCritic wrote:I also sent them a copy of my unsolicited manuscript...which wasn't overwhelmingly large and which I did not expect to be returned.

It was shortly after that time that TSR began refusing unsolicited work.  

Unintended humor, I'm sure.  

Foul

Or perhaps Mark just never got the hint.....