Player-Written Books

F.A.Q.

QUESTION - I've written a book. Where do I send it?

ANSWER: All books should be e-mailed to DR-LIBRARIES@Play.net, with the subject of the e-mail "BOOK SUBMISSION."

QUESTION - What types of books are you looking for?

ANSWER: All kinds, as long as they follow the submission guidelines (see below). Four types in particular that are highly prized in submission:

1. CURRENT EVENTS. Not history (only GMs can write official game history), but current events. When you're a journalist writing about a war in some nation, you're writing current events, not history -- although, 70 years from now, the people that look back on it and read it will consider it historical. Writing about events that you observe as a player, such as the Mirror Wraith Prophecy, the Gorbesh War, and so forth, falls under the CURRENT EVENTS category, and we especially enjoy those.
2. AREA GUIDES: An area guide would be a book detailing some of the features of a particular city, town, hunting area, or province in the game. Write about the city of Ratha in a scholarly fashion -- what are some of its interesting features, or some of its history? Talk about some of its major locations, or the peoples that inhabit it (either Rathans as a whole, or particularly well-known persons). Or write about the famous taverns of Shard. Or the city of Therenborough.
3. PERSONAL BIOGRAPHIES: Talk about your character. Where did you go to get where you are today? What places and people have had an effect on you? And so on.
4. CREATIVE WORKS: The category of CREATIVE WORKS would include writing an Elanthian play, creating a ballad about some incident in the past, writing a poem about some famed object, or Elanthian concept, or a god, write an epic poem detailing a particularly gruesome battle in one of Elanthia's past wars, etc.

QUESTION - Submission Guidelines were mentioned. What are they?

ANSWER: Certain guidelines must be followed for a book to be considered for publication in DragonRealms. They are:

Please read the following guidelines very carefully, and adhere to them! Books that do not meet these criteria will be rejected!

1. No copyrighted material may be submitted.
2. Each book must be submitted via e-mail with the subject "BOOK SUBMISSION." Your email must include the name of the character that wrote the book (your primary playing character, generally), your account name, and the hours you are usually online.
3. Submit each book as a plain text file, not as an attachment.
4. Separate paragraphs with a blank line. Use no indentation.
5. Page breaks will be added by the Library Staff. Do not add special marks or words indicating that a book page has ended or a new page has begun.
6. There is no maximum length restriction on a prose book, but your submission should generally be at least 1,000 words in length. Please note that this rule is for prose submissions only, and does not apply to poetry or other special types of books.
7. The book must be both IG and IC. "IG" means that it must remain "In Genre": dealing with the sorts of themes appropriate to a medieval fantasy setting. This excludes using Real World or current references in a book. "IC" means that the book must remain "In Character": it must be written from the perspective of an author that would be living in Elanthia. References should not be made to other fantasy game or book environments.
8. Don't create history. Only the GameMaster staff is authorized to create the game world's history.
9. Use conventional grammar and spelling. We will check for mistakes, but you stand a much better chance of being published if we don't need to correct every third word.

QUESTION - What if I want to write an entire series of books? Such as a series of stories, poetry, songs, or plays?

ANSWER: This kind of submission would be perfectly acceptable. Just make note of that in your email to us.

QUESTION - What do I get for writing a book?

ANSWER: For starters, recognition. Your book, with your character's name, will be placed in the game for all time, for all to read. Secondly, you will receive a copy a book with your title. The book will be scripted to function as a roleplaying prop, and contains a number of verbs that make it more interactive.