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Old 06-29-2013, 10:17 AM   #1
nik1979
 
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Default What are the odds of getting published I am JTAS these days?

Been very productive lately and considering doing more than the regular polish on my work and submit something to JTAS. But If they are getting a lot of applications, they want less crunch compression (I focus on getting all the crunch and making it easier to digest) or crunch, they are focused on adventures and reviews then I'll move on.
I usually read JTAS for crunch so I'm follow marks stuff.
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Old 06-29-2013, 12:06 PM   #2
Hans Rancke-Madsen
 
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Default Re: What are the odds of getting published I am JTAS these days?

I believe the odds of getting published are very good, as long as you actually submit omething. I keep meaning to finish something and submitting it and I keep putting it off "just one more week" for one reason and another (This week I have an infection in my leg that means I spend most of the day at hospital and find it painful to sit at the screen for more than a few minutes at a time).

But next week...


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Old 06-29-2013, 03:21 PM   #3
Malenfant
 
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Default Re: What are the odds of getting published I am JTAS these days?

Quote:
Originally Posted by nik1979 View Post
Been very productive lately and considering doing more than the regular polish on my work and submit something to JTAS. But If they are getting a lot of applications, they want less crunch compression (I focus on getting all the crunch and making it easier to digest) or crunch, they are focused on adventures and reviews then I'll move on.
I usually read JTAS for crunch so I'm follow marks stuff.
I was under the impression that only one or two people were ever submitting to JTAS nowadays. I would say the chances of getting through are very good, but whether it's actually worth sending something there is another matter - it's not like JTAS has a large audience after all. They've also been mulling over making individual articles accessible to subscribers for years and nothing has come of it (and I doubt that anything ever will either).

I guess it depends what you're after - if you want a lot of people to read your stuff, you may be better off self-publishing or sending it to a fanzine (I think Mongoose were looking for writers for a new Compendium, and they'll pay too). If you're more interested in writing for SJG store credit or something then it'll be more worth sending it to JTAS.
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Old 06-29-2013, 07:36 PM   #4
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Default Re: What are the odds of getting published I am JTAS these days?

Thanks guys,
I think I can possibly meet the goal. Although you give a good point since I'm able to advertise my work and get more people to read it sells published. I'm not really after the pay, just want to be published for once lolz. I guess the answer is how things turn out.
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Old 06-30-2013, 01:57 AM   #5
Malenfant
 
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Default Re: What are the odds of getting published I am JTAS these days?

Well put it this way, on the one hand, it was nice getting my Brown Dwarf and Interstellar Wanderers articles published, and I picked up a lot of SJG products as a result of spending that store credit.

On the other hand... nobody outside JTAS can read them, and there's a lot more interest in those subjects outside JTAS and SJG than there is inside it. But I honestly cannot for a second recommend that people fork out $20 or however much it is to join JTAS just to read those articles and the few other really good ones that were written by other people. I would much prefer to see my articles and the other highly rated/useful ones released individually as PDFs and made available for general purchase than tucked behind a paywall for almost nobody to see.

But it seems that SJG isn't interested in doing that - maybe they think they won't be able to recoup any money from it, but I definitely think that more than 10 people would pay a couple of dollars to download an article they're interested in instead of spending $20 to read it and a bunch of other things that they aren't interested in. I'm not sure what they'd be losing by trying it out - they've got e23, and it wouldn't take long for someone to convert an article to PDF format for individual sale there. But... it's up to them and they don't seem to be interested in going anywhere with it.
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Old 06-30-2013, 02:33 AM   #6
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Default Re: What are the odds of getting published I am JTAS these days?

I feel your frustration and see that the current status quo Will not do I can only assume certain things when a company is not changing it's monetization model when time has shown things progressing in a different direction.
I'm G+ traveller gurps traveller or JTAS gets very little love if any. Although freelance traveller keeps making my Gmail account spam so I'm definitely not going to be able to join that.
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Old 06-30-2013, 09:52 AM   #7
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Default Re: What are the odds of getting published I am JTAS these days?

Now hold on there. There are 13 years of articles in this version of JTAS. There are great articles in every single year, some of them classics that should be read by everyone who plays Traveller. Its a little presumptuous to say that is not worth $20 to anyone but a handful of die-hards.

The fact that JTAS is not promoted is a shame, not a reason to avoid it. In my humble opinion it is one of the best resources for Traveller players out there, and not just GURPS players, worth much more than the $20 price tag. I know its a catch-22 for Steve Jackson Games when it comes to this sort of thing - they can't afford to promopt it actively, and without promotion is doesn't make money. A circular logic that is all to familiar to anyone who has seen great gaming products just fade out, or great products or services in general.

In the intresests of transparency I have some article published there. I'm proud to be part of the JTAS legacy, if only a small footnote.

But really, if you know anyone who plays any version of Traveller you should encourage them to read JTAS. Just a handful of articles by Paul Drye, James Maliszewski, Chris Thrash and Hans Rancke-Madsen, not to mention the wonderful Mark Gellis, are worth far more than $20.
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Old 06-30-2013, 10:33 AM   #8
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Default Re: What are the odds of getting published I am JTAS these days?

Oh, I'm not saying that there aren't good articles in there. I just wouldn't want to pay (or tell anyone that they should pay) $20 to read them. Unless they knew exactly what the articles were, they'd have to dig through a lot of... not-so-good articles to find them.

It doesn't even have the newsgroups going for it (which were handy, though somewhat insular by their nature behind a paywall), because there are these free forums now and they're accessible to everyone.
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Old 06-30-2013, 11:09 AM   #9
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Default Re: What are the odds of getting published I am JTAS these days?

Fair enough.

I'm just saying that it is worth far more than $20 for the 'good articles' and well worth searching for. And really, how do you know what a good article is if you are only looking for a specific set of criteria?

Sure, some are classics and can easily be found on the Article Ratings page. Oddly enough there are 20 articles there, top 10 by rating and top 10 by number of votes recieved. Thats $1 a pop. Sure, some are not classics or even specifically game related, but still...

I think the best way to generate ideas to run a game, or write up and adventure or setting, is to 'surf' a site like JTAS.

For example, I'm interested in grav belts right now. I put it in the search and get a good number of hits, the first one is about designing grav vehicles. That is something I didn't have in mind when I was looking and now I"m very interested in that aspect. City traffic full of differing grav vehicles makes a setting much more compelling than just air/rafts and grav belts. Sure, I could have just come up with it on my own - but I didn't. I would otherwise describe a city with differing g-vehicles but if one came into play it would be an air/raft or g-carrier clone.

You do get this on newsgroups, and Freelance Travller (also a great site), but at JTAS you do get the benefit of editing and professional presentation. Not that Freelance doesn't have that, IMO its a complement to JTAS.

All that said; Pyramid has gone to the PDF format. Would JTAS benefit from such a treatment? Would the cost of producing it in PDF bi-weekly outweigh its current income? I would think so if they haven't done it yet. Then again, more and more people prefer that format. I'm not one, yet, but obviously online delivery is changing - what made sense a decade plus ago might not make that much sense, or money, now.
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Old 06-30-2013, 12:12 PM   #10
Malenfant
 
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Default Re: What are the odds of getting published I am JTAS these days?

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Originally Posted by Drifter View Post
You do get this on newsgroups, and Freelance Travller (also a great site), but at JTAS you do get the benefit of editing and professional presentation. Not that Freelance doesn't have that, IMO its a complement to JTAS.
That wasn't true when I submitted my articles - they pretty much showed up exactly as I submitted them, and weren't edited (at least not in a way that I noticed).

Quote:
All that said; Pyramid has gone to the PDF format. Would JTAS benefit from such a treatment? Would the cost of producing it in PDF bi-weekly outweigh its current income? I would think so if they haven't done it yet. Then again, more and more people prefer that format. I'm not one, yet, but obviously online delivery is changing - what made sense a decade plus ago might not make that much sense, or money, now.
I doubt that SJG will do anything with JTAS. I don't even know why they still have it considering that they've not done anything else with Traveller for years. (I wonder what would happen if they gave up/lost the license - would all the rights to the articles revert back to their authors?)
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