Author Topic: Dragon Magazine, newbies beware?  (Read 2245 times)

Skar

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Dragon Magazine, newbies beware?
« on: November 28, 2007, 04:55:23 PM »
Scalzi has on his blog today a screed against Dragon Magazine's new short fiction contract.

http://scalzi.com/whatever/?p=159

Apparently they pay on the low end per word and buy ALL rights to a given work, not just First North American Serial.  Since I know there are many aspiring writers who frequent this forum, I figured it was worth pointing out, both that Dragon is accepting fiction submissions again and that there might be some things to beware of if you submit there.

Also, of course, I was hoping that Stacer would comment since she works over there and may have some insight on the matter.
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stacer

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Re: Dragon Magazine, newbies beware?
« Reply #1 on: November 28, 2007, 05:56:13 PM »
Well, the only comment I can give is that I don't work on Dragon. That's the domain of another department. Perhaps it's because they're soliciting shared-world stories? (worlds that WotC owns) (that is NOT an official comment, yada yada) You'll have to investigate Dragon's side of things.
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Spriggan

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Re: Dragon Magazine, newbies beware?
« Reply #2 on: November 28, 2007, 07:49:59 PM »
"Wizards of the Coast is the publisher of novel lines set within the Forgotten Realms, Eberron, Dragonlance and Magic: the Gathering settings. However, submitted works of fiction need not be written within these settings; we are also looking for original works of speculative fiction, including but not limited to fantasy (of all types), science-fiction, magical realism, horror—essentially, send us your best speculative fiction, and we’ll see if there’s a place for it in Dragon."

So it can be in their settings, but doesn't have to be, if it was only for Wizard's worlds I'd say that would be an acceptable deal since you wouldn't be able to publish your stuff anywhere else.  It's also worth noting that this is the exact same thing they do with adventures and D&D articles, which is also something that's not a big deal--so I wonder if it's Wizard's being lazy (only wanting one contract for everything) or they just assume that since they're big enough they'll get 1 person who does submit for every 10 that doesn't.
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