Jangrim:
Heya,
My team and I are also making a new Chaos Dwarf Army book. It would be interesting if we could see the work you have done on yours for ideas. In the long run we’re hoping for at the very least a degree of standardisation in the multitude of fan-made Chaos Dwarf Army books but ultimately our goal is to have a book worthy of being presented to Jervis Johnson for consideration.
Thanks in advance
James Foster aka Jangrim
Grimstonefire:
When you say ‘team’, do you have a forum set up anywhere?
You’d have to ask specific questions for me to give you advice, but generally if you have a look around the rules development section there will be some complete pdf’s, some of which have art for inspiration.
I posted my list to andy hoare over a month ago, and not even an acknowledgement :(. Just so you know in advance they may not say anything.
Thommy H:
I’m pretty sure GW’s policy is to ignore any fan rules that are sent in. It’s mostly an issue with copyrights - if they use your rules, or if they read your rules and later incorporate some of the ideas, they don’t want you suing them.
BilboBaggins:
First, there is already a list floating around that may become official for indy tournaments (they are in playtesting now).
Second, I agree with Thommy H about GW. But the easy way to get around that is to make a payoff to the fan and have the fan sign the rights over.
Thommy H:
Why would anyone just sign over the rights wholesale? If I sent GW some rules and they came to me offering a one-off payment to use them I’d realise that they liked my work and were willing to pay for it, and start negotiating. I’d want a percentage of sales and a contract to do more work for them - and I’m guessing that’s not a situation they’d want to get themselves into.
BilboBaggins:
There are people who would do it just to have their name in a published book and build their resume.
Grimstonefire:
When you submit anything to GW you surrender any IP over it. Says as much in their legal stuff.
I was more concerned with just getting an email saying ‘yep, got it. looks good’ etc. Would have been polite 
Baggronor:
When you submit anything to GW you surrender any IP over it.Its basically like submitting your work to Satan.
I was more concerned with just getting an email saying 'yep, got it. looks good' etc. Would have been politeI know what you mean. I submitted artwork a couple of years back, to no response at all.
Grimstonefire:
My basic feeling, and it’s probably something you should consider as well Jangrim is that submitting stuff to GW should not be the main reason why you want to do this. If it is you will be disappointed.
Do it for yourself, and for the fun of collaborating and sharing it with other people.
That’s what I did, primarily to complete something I had worked on for years, but also to share my vision with other people. Sending it to GW was an afterthought, but even though I knew there was a real chance I wouldn’t hear back that wasn’t an issue really as it was never the main reason I did it.
Something to consider.
Thommy H:
Yeah, and the truth is that if you are going to make the most professional looking army book you can (a laudable aim - I’ve been doing the same thing all day today), it’s not going to make a difference: GW will not take your document wholesale, slap some covers on it and ship it to stores. They might, possibly, if rights aren’t an issue, make use of some of the content - units, rules, background concepts - but they produce artwork, graphics, miniatures, etc. in-house, using their own choice of layout software that works with their printing methods. In fact, the more work you do on it, the easier it is for them to reject: they can dismiss the whole thing because it’s “complete”, and complete work is no use to them.
So, as Grim says, just do it for your own enjoyment. Don’t expect anything to come of it.
GRNDL:
I’ll second Thommy’s thoughts on the issue. Every armybook and rules supplement GW puts out is far from “just a book of rules and ideas”, it is part of a cohesively designed marketing plan that appeals to their idea of a target audience/marketing demographic and will be tailored specifically toward expected trends in the market place, competitve products and where they expect their future plans to be. One can expect that a random person’s contribution will not fit into these criteria.
Also, GW is arguably in the same situation that my company is in. We are driven by intellectual property and routinely get ideas for this and that accompanying resumes, job offers/proposals, etc. We generally never use ideas submitted like this, as they are frequently of little use to our products - I guess this is why GW has a policy of all submissions give up their copyright, so claims are automatically on weak standing in court.
zobo1942:
I met one person - years ago - who made an independent living ‘roughing out’ video game concepts, which he would put into a report format - background, concept art, illustrations, maps, game plot, etc… and would present them to different videogame companies, who would buy the idea and all the rights etc… just to put in a ‘consider for future development’ box. He seemed to do pretty well - I asked him about what he did once and his reply was <
Baggronor:
I doubt anyone could make a living like that in the computer game industry these days.
zobo1942:
Like I said, that was a long time ago - probably twelve or fourteen years ago, now. Things in that industry worked very differently. Now, it seems like the idea is to hyper-develop a single IP (or a couple of them), to reduce the length of the development cycles for the inevitable supplements and expansions.
Baggronor:
Now, it seems like the idea is to hyper-develop a single IP (or a couple of them), to reduce the length of the development cycles for the inevitable supplements and expansions.Yeah its very much more corporate, although the 'pushing the single IP' thing does work very well when they actually put some effort into creating something good. Fun to work in.
cornixt:
I call it “making another lazy sequel”