All right, it’s not quite that bad. But it’s sad to see that Dragon is not only paying a pittance for fiction, but requires authors to give up all rights to their work.
Those of you with a low threshold for old-geek nattering should wander off and get a fresh cup of coffee at this point.
Back when I was a slip of a girl and Dragon was just about It for gaming publications (White Dwarf would soon be the hip, new enfant terrible, but it wasn’t yet), I sent an article in to Dragon. It was probably awful; I don’t remember it well, but I was fourteen at the time, so you can pretty well guess. Roger E. Moore was the editor. He didn’t buy the piece, but he sent me a nice letter offering helpful suggestions. I incorporated them, and sent it back.
I think I sent it in four times before I gave up. But every time, he sent suggestions, encouragement, and thanked me for my interest in the magazine. At one point, he even photocopied some notes he and Kim Mohan had sent to each other, so I could see what they, as editors, were interested in. I don’t know how or why he found the time to do this, but for an aspiring writer, having an editor put in the effort to help improve writing he wasn’t even going to buy was an incredible boost.
(Years later, at GenCon, I ran into Mr. Moore and thanked him. He looked slightly afraid. In retrospect, I realize that being surprised by a fangirl wearing thigh-high leather high-heeled boots can be startling for the average middle-aged gamer.)
And now, sadly, the lawyers have taken over. Not the gamer ones, either.
mythago
9 Responses to ““Just sign your name here in blood””
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
[...] http://www.mythago.com/blog/2007/11/28/just-sign-your-name-here-in-blood/ [...]
That’s so nice about Moore… it sort of reminds me of when I was 13 and sent a “book” to TSR and got the nicest rejection letter I ever have (or ever will get) back from them. It’s really a shame that the market for writers is what it is these days — but the fanbase isn’t what it used to be, so I guess we have to make do with what we can get.
(totally off-topic) Any chance that you or Mr. Myth would be interested in joining us for a game of Civ IV sometime soon? I’d like to get a big game together in the next few days. Check in at the Civ Page on FG if you’re interested!
Chaosium made the fiction in its Arkham Tales anthology work-for-hire and paid a pittance as well. Though in their case, they might have been trying to build up Call of Cthulhu IP as distinct from Lovecraft/Derleth/Lumley etc. IP.
I’m not surprised at al that they’ll own the rights. Remember when they republished the first 150 issues of Dragon on CD? Not owning rights to some of those articles turned out to be a legal disaster. If you’ve ever wondered why Kenzer & Co was allowed to publish “official” D&D books, that’s why; it was part of the legal settlement for illegally including Knights of the Dinner Table in the compilation.
So I don’t expect them to make that mistake again. It’s nice to hear about Roger, though. I worked fairly closely with Kim Mohan when playtesting 3e, and he was a nice guy.
But it’s possible to negotiate reprint rights without also requiring that they sell ALL rights. Besides, if you’re going to sell all rights, that’s worth a lot more than 3 to 5 cents a word.
Five cents a word and all rights is weak but reasonable for gaming material. For a work of original fiction, not so much. The market pays better and does not require that the author give away all rights. What this does is guarantee that the only people that will want to sell them fiction works are the writers that want to write in worlds that Hasbro already owns… or no one else will publish them.
Dragon used to pay better for fiction, and did not require the author give up all rights. I’m pretty sure that the old contract granted all reprint rights but that’s not the same thing.
Honestly, what I suspect this was is not so much a calculated action as a boilerplate contract
It’s not a competitive rate
Doh… that last line wasn’t supposed to still be there…
Let me speak as an unpaid unacknowledged representative all of your fellow geeks from your old high school. Had you gotten an article in Dragon, you would have been worshipped by us as a Goddess!
I would have bought you finely crafted 20 sided dice and stuff. Gold Plated Graph Paper (available from Kays Jewelers, for the gamer who deserves the very best).
We could have dedicated one of our home-made modules to you. Hey now that would have been cool. I’ll ouiji to Len and see about some time travel to set that up. See you back then!
I remember a letter which got published in Dragon though, because you were the only other person I’d met who had Fantasy Wargaming.
Gay sex toys….
Gay sex stories. His first gay sex. First gay sex….