Many people have written to us requesting writer's guidelines: what we are looking for, what type of format is acceptable, etc. Before you write anything, however, you have to make sure that we are interested. The best way to do this is by making a project submission. This document tells you how to make a viable submission to our editors. Once we have accepted your submission, you can proceed to the fun part -- writing the book.

There are many rules to be respected here. Professional game writing may be just a hobby for many of you, but it is a full-time occupation for us. If you play the game like a pro, it greatly increases your chances of being published. A sleek, typed manuscript on numbered pages will be carefully read. On the other hand, a handwritten stack of notes will go straight to the recycling bin.

These guidelines are updated on a semi-regular basis. We strongly recommend that you consult the web site on a regular basis, as we cannot afford the time to resend a hundred updated guidelines every time we change them. Before asking us to send you the new version of the guidelines, please see if they are on the Web site. This said, on to the important stuff.

1.0 Generalities

Each of our game lines has its specific requirements and styles. You should be familiar with the existing body of work if proposing a supplement. Unless you are an established and reputable writer or we've worked with you several times in the past, we will not send you books to complement your knowledge. It is always assumed that you have done your homework before contacting us.

As writers get involved in a project, we will provide them with some of the information they need to know about the upcoming books so that their books mesh with the others currently in the works. We also reserve the right to add or edit some material ourselves without consulting the writer if we feel that certain discreet adjustments need to be made.

Do not include follow-up references in your submission (see "My Book II: The Sequel"). Your manuscript will have to stand on its own. It is all right, however, to leave openings for further stories you (or some other writer) might want to exploit in the future.

There are certain things that we like and others that do not interest us at all. The guidelines below give the general rules about the type of material that we want (or do not want) to see.

• 1.1 What We Want

  Books that are well-written, sure, but mostly useful books. Things that will make the players' lives easier, things that will give ideas to the Gamemaster, in short, manuals that make gaming an even more exciting hobby.

  In general, this means game tools -- whether these are adventure ideas, cool locations, interesting characters, powerful weapons, etc. The more generic, the better: for example, a detective adventure generator will serve more people than a one-shot detective adventure.

  Most of all, the material included in the book should serve two purposes, which both end at the same result: 1) they should inspire the gamers with new adventure ideas, and 2) it should hint at a larger world behind it ("we're only showing you this cool little sector; imagine what else lies further!"). The result, of course, is to encourage long term game play.

  • 1.1.1 Sourcebooks

    Sourcebooks are information books on a broad topic. They are extensively detailed and contain background material, but generally little in the way of rules. The usual word count averages at about 50,000 to 100,000 words.

  • 1.1.2 Compendiums

    Compendiums are identification and information books about tools, creatures, locales, people, etc. We mostly produce those books in-house, however, so submissions for complete compendiums are likely to be discarded. We usually commission piecemeal material, however, so let us know if you're interested (but do NOT send us piles of vehicles and equipment unannounced).

  • 1.1.3 Web Articles

    Dream Pod 9's web page (http://www.dp9.com/) hosts a game aid section where we publish online resources for our game lines. You'll find character sheets, art galleries and articles written by freelancers. We're very open to receiving articles, even from complete newcomers to game writing. This is a great way for us to get to know you as a writer.

    To send a web-submission, either send a query letter or the article itself (in Text Only/ASCII format please). We don't need you to send a sample of your writing in this case -- the article itself will do just fine -- but do send a letter of introduction.

    Web articles should be between 1,000 and 4,500 words and can be any useful resource, including scenarios (either fully detailed or in a shortened format), organizations, locations, background, etc.

    Send all web article submissions to the line editor. We pay in product for web articles.

• 1.2 What We Really Don't Want

  These are things for which we have absolutely no interest, and any submissions regarding these will be summarily sent to the junk pile. Regardless of your arguments, we will not change our position on the following subjects, so please don't try to argue your way around it.

  • 1.2.1 An Unsolicited Manuscript (IMPORTANT)

    That's probably the biggest no-no. Send us an unsolicited manuscript and you run the risk of being blacklisted for good. Unsolicited manuscripts will be destroyed unopened.

  • 1.2.2 A New (and Revolutionary) Gaming System

    Every self-respecting GM has at least once in his career created his very own gaming system. You may feel that your rule system has never been seen before and would totally revolutionize the industry. However, we already have our own, and we dual-stat all our books for the d20 system as well. We see no reason to publish yet another set of rules in a crowded market, no matter how good they are. The same goes for miniature wargaming rules.

  • 1.2.3 An Original Collectible Card Game

    Card games are out. A good collectible card game requires almost a million dollars in budget to compete in today's market, and is not something we want to get into. A more classic, non-collectible card game is cheaper, but still expensive and risky to do -- you can always make a submission, but unless you are prepared to sell us all the rights, we are not interested. The same goes for traditional board games, which are very expensive to develop and market.

  • 1.3.4 Novels

    Not right now. We're not going to publish novels ourselves and currently don't have a publishing house that's interested in our material. When we do, we'll see. Publishers usually prefer to deal with their own stables of writers, so there's no guarantees that we'll have any say in who gets to write for what. That's just a fact of the publishing business. He who takes the financial risk often dictates what goes and what doesn't.

  • 1.3.5 Computer/Video Games

    We currently have no interest in developing, publishing or marketing video games or other software products. We can, however, license the computer game rights to our various intellectual properties to any interested software developer.

2.0 How We Want It

To streamline the whole editing and publishing process, we have established a certain set of rules and procedures that we ask be respected. Authors that flout these conventions will find that we are not interested in working with them.

• 2.1 General Guidelines

  The submission process has three steps. To avoid wasting everybody's time, we do not want you to write a complete manuscript and send it to us. Before anything else, contact us with a query letter concerning your project (Step 1). Try to keep it short and sweet -- the shorter the better. Next, we may want to see a project submission (Step 2, see below). Once we have decided whether we like it or not, we can get back to you. If we give it our approval, then you can move on to the project manuscript (Step 3).

  Please do not forget any of the items we ask for in each step. They are all useful for us in evaluating your project, and we need all of them. Do not force us to discard your submission because it was not complete.

  • 2.1.1 Query Letter

    This letter may be mailed or emailed (but NOT faxed or phoned). Our addresses are listed at the end of these guidelines. What we expect to see in this letter is:

    • A letter of introduction. In a page (but no more), tell us about yourself, previous writing credits (of any kind - not necessarily professional) and so forth. Please include your full return coordinates so we can get in touch with you (address, phone number, fax, electronic mail, etc.). If this is not your first submission, you can omit the letter but NOT the coordinates;

    • A sales pitch (50 to 250 words) describing the manuscript and why it should be published/bought. We frown heavily on hype, and are very good at detecting it. Stick to the basics -- if the material is THAT good, it will practically sell itself.

  • 2.1.2 Project Submission

    If we like the idea, we will contact you for a more detailed submission -- the actual pitch. It should contain the following elements:

    • A title for your product, with two (2) alternate selections;

    • A "Behind the Scenes" text of 250 words explaining the philosophy or concepts behind the writing of the book;

    • A rough adventisement/back cover blurb (around 50-150 words). Very important, and one of the most often forgotten components of the submission;

    • A DETAILED table of contents (down to <<D>>-type headers -- see section 2.2 Header Labels below) outlining the material and the number of words for each section.

    Do NOT send us a manuscript without having received approval for your project submission first. Should we decide not to go with your proposal, you may find that you have done all this work for nothing. Also, be sure to include "CONTAINS SOLICITED MANUSCRIPT" on the envelope or in the Subject line so we know what's in it and to confirm that we're expecting it. It's a very bad idea to send a manuscript without warning and is a sure way to earn a bad reputation as a writer. Don't say we haven't warned you.

• 2.2 Header Labels

  We do not want to receive submissions with funky layout and fonts. It has to be readable in simple ASCII text format. Layout is our job, so do not bother doing something that we will just delete and redo anyway. Instead, we want you to use our header system for all of your section titles. A header is indicated as follows:

  <<X>>Title

  where "X" is a letter between "A" and "D" indicating what level of section this is, and "Title" is... well, the title of the section.

  For instance, a chapter title will be labeled <<A>>World of Heavy Gear, with the sections within the chapter called <<B>>People and <<B>>Technology (for example), and so on. Within the <<B>> sections, you will find subsections divided in <<C>> labels, themselves subdivided in <<D>> labels.

  Note that we do not go further than <<D>> labels. DO NOT INCLUDE <<E>> LABELS IN YOUR TEXT. You cannot go further than <<D>> labels.

  Here's a sample outline using these submission guidelines as an example:

  <<open table>>
  <<A>>1.0 Generalities
  	<<B>>1.1 What We Want
  		<<C>>1.1.1 Sourcebooks
  		<<C>>1.1.2 Compendiums
  		<<C>>1.1.3 Web Articles
  	<<B>>1.2 What We Really Don't Want
  		<<C>>1.2.1 An Unsolicited Manuscript
  		<<C>>1.2.2 A New (And Revolutionary) Gaming System
  		<<C>>1.2.3 An Original Collectible Card Game
  		<<C>>1.2.4 Novels
  		<<C>>1.2.5 Computer/Video Games
  <<A>>2.0 How We Want It
  	<<B>>2.1 General Guidelines
  		<<C>>2.1.1 Project Submission
  	<<B>>2.2 Header Labels
  	<<B>>2.3 Tentative Book Plan
  		<<C>>2.3.1 Chapter Pages
  		<<C>>2.3.2 Numbering Your Sections
  <<A>>3.0 When We Want It
  <<A>>4.0 What You Get For It
  <<A>>5.0 Where We Want It
  <<close table>>
  

• 2.3 Tentative Book Plan

  Dream Pod 9 has based its reputation on outstanding layouts, quality artwork and overall excellent graphic presentation. Because of this, we require the writers to keep in mind a certain number of fairly simple rules when writing, so that our editors can keep their rewrite requests to a minimum. We strongly encourage you to plan your entire book page by page and describe what each page contains in terms of material and number of words. While this may not be perfectly followed during the layout, it will serve as a useful guide.

  As a general rule, there are 600 words in a page, split in two columns. There are exceptions, but this should be considered the norm. We strongly prefer pages to start with some kind of <<B>> or <<C>> header. We recommend you have a look at some of our latest books if you need to visualize how our products are normally organized. We occasionally break our own rules, but that's because we have in-house editors who can patch things up really quickly, something that's harder to do with a writer who lives half a continent away.

  Include this book plan with your submission -- it will definitely have a very positive effect on the editor who will decide whether your proposal is accepted or not.

  • 2.3.1 Chapter Pages

    The first page of a chapter is a column-long illustration (or series of illustrations), or a guard page.

  • 2.3.2 Numbering your sections

    Chapters (<<A>>-type headers) are normally written as "Chapter XX" (with XX being the chapter number). For instance, in the first edition Heavy Gear rulebook, you have Chapter 03, titled Roleplaying Rules.

    <<B>>-type headers are called sections and are written "XX.YY Section Title," where XX is the chapter number and YY is the section number. For instance, in the first edition Heavy Gear rulebook, you have section 4.2 Personal Weapons and Armor.

    Predictably, <<C>>-type headers (sub-sections) are written "XX.YY.ZZ Sub-Section Title," where XX and YY have already been described, and ZZ is the sub-section number. For instance, in the first edition Heavy Gear rulebook, you have a sub-section 7.4.1 Weapon Terms.

    Lastly, <<D>>-type headers are called segments and do not have a reference number.

    See section 2.2 Header Labels for an example.

3.0 When We Want It

Here comes the fun part. As soon as your submission is in, we will have a look at it and give you a reply within three weeks. From there, three things can happen:

• Your submission is not accepted, either because it does not meet our needs or expectations, or because we already have something similar in the works. It may be summarily commented, but we are definitely not interested.

• Your submission is acceptable, but there are some elements that need to be revised. We will provide you with detailed comments and suggestions which we would like you to use before submitting it again. Most submissions fall in this category. Back to the drawing board.

• Your submission is exactly what we are looking for. We might do some minor editing as we go along, but we will send you the writer's guidelines and you can start writing right away.

Do not call us until the allotted three weeks have passed. This is the normal amount of time it takes us to read and comment on your submission. If you have not heard from us after that time, phone/fax/write us. Do not forget that the post office works in mysterious ways... Plan accordingly and do not send your only copy.

One important word of advice about attitude and professionalism. Think of us as a client and please remember that ultimately, we publish what the customers need, not what you want.

4.0 What You Get For It

Our standard fee is 2¢ per word (in Canadian funds) for first-time authors, slightly more for veteran writers. We offer no advance payment for manuscripts; payment is made in full 90 days after publication. We do not offer royalties, and we always buy all rights ("Work for Hire"). The writer gets six (6) copies of his book. Any additional writer receives three (3) copies, up to a maximum total of twelve (12) copies. If, for instance, six writers team up to write one book, they will split twelve copies between themselves (presumably, two each).

While there are some more details involved, such as deadlines, penalties and a quality clause, these are to be discussed with the individual writers and do not belong in these guidelines.

Also, note that we do not want to deal with each individual writer who works on a project. We sign a contract with ONE person, who is responsible to handle every "ghost" writer he or she wants to work with.

5. Where We Want It

You can mail your submission to:

Dream Pod 9, Inc.
c/o Robert Dubois
5000 Iberville, Suite 332
Montreal, Quebec
H2H 2S6
Canada

We also accept email attachments (preferably in ASCII or RTF format) through the internet. Send your proposals to:

Robert Dubois, Senior Editor

If you have any questions about these guidelines, you may contact us at:

Phone: (514) 523-1350
Fax: (514) 523-8680

Please understand that we are extremely busy and may not have much time to chat. Try to have your questions ready and ask us only about topics that have some relevancy to the project you wish to submit.

• 5.1 Information Channels

  Even after we receive a letter of introduction, we can't really spare the time to send out notices to all the writers about products we're looking for and other matters. We will get in touch directly if we want you specifically for a project, but if we're just looking for proposals, we'll send out a general call.

  Such general calls are posted in a few different places:

  • Dream Pod 9's web page. Calls for submissions are normally posted on the front page, but it is updated weekly. So either check in often or look at the news archives.

  • Industry freelancer mailing lists.

  • Freelancer forums at various gaming sites such as RPG.net.

  Yes, all these channels are on the internet. If you do not have a personal, permanent online access we strongly recommend getting one. We do 99.9% of all editorial business through the Internet.

  Thanks for your interest, and good luck!