Dear Author's Jane (who's a lawyer in her day job) put up a great post about the lawsuits against the publishers and Apple. She explains what's going on, what the complaint actually is, who's in trouble and for what, and who's not in trouble and why. There's some legalese, but the explanations are clear and very readable. Highly recommended for anyone interested in the business of publishing.
Angie
Sunday, May 20, 2012
Thursday, May 10, 2012
Anthology Markets
If you've just wandered in off the internet, hi and welcome. :) I do these posts every month, so if this post isn't dated in the same month you're in, click here to make sure you're seeing the most recent one.
Markets with specific deadlines are listed first, "Until Filled" markets are at the bottom. There are usually more details on the original site; always click through and read the full guidelines before submitting. Note that some publishers list multiple antho guidelines on one page, so after you click through you might have to scroll a bit.
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31 May 2012 -- Professor Challenger Anthology -- ed. J.R. Campbell and Charles Prepolec, Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing
WHAT WE'RE AFTER:
A broad range of new and original stories built around Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's LOST WORLD character Professor George Edward Challenger. Stories derived from the aftermath of events in the Lost World are welcome however simply revisiting or rehashing the Lost World without good cause is not. Challenger is a man of science first and foremost, not an explorer. Mash-ups or crossovers with public domain literary characters are welcome.
For inspiration think X-files, Quartermass, DR. Who, cryptozoology, aliens among us, supernatural occurrences, science gone awry in a Dr. Moreau, Invisible Man, Dr Jekyll vein, nature run amuck, monsters large and small, world threatening cataclysm, Lovecraft mythos, think H.G. Wells, Jules Verne, E.R. Burroghs, John Wyndham, Nigel Kneale, alternate history, new lost places, steampunk, whatever -- Be creative.
Mine the potential for all it's worth! Push it out there, get weird, play, have fun!
SUBMISSION DETAILS:
== The anthology is part invitation and part open submission. Priority will be given to invited authors but an invitation to submit is not a guarantee of acceptance. A minimum of two slots will be held for open submissions. Acceptance is based entirely on suitability of story and quality of writing.
== The maximum length for stories is 10,000 words, with shorter works preferred.
== Do not query before submitting.
== Email submissions to: Charles@bakerstreetdozen.com
== Emails MUST contain the word "submission" in the subject line, or they will be deleted automatically by the server. Please also include the story title in the subject line.
== Submissions MUST come in an attachment: Rich Text Format (.rtf) or Microsoft Word (.doc) are the only acceptable formats.
== Emails MUST contain a cover letter in the body of the email; for security reasons, email attachments with no cover letter will be deleted unread and unanswered.
== Cover letter: include your name, the title of your story, your full contact information (address, phone, email), and a brief bio. Do not describe or summarize the story.
== Reprints (stories having previously appeared in English in any format, print or electronic, including but not limited to any form of web publication) will NOT be considered.
== Submission format: no strange formatting, colour fonts, changing fonts, borders, backgrounds, etc. Leave italics in italics, NOT underlined. Put your full contact information on the first page (name, address, email address, phone). No headers, no footers, no page numbering. DO NOT leave a blank line between paragraphs. Indent paragraphs. ALWAYS put a # to indicate scene breaks (a blank line is NOT enough).
== ALWAYS include your full contact information (name/address/email/phone number) on the first page of the attached submission.
== This is a professional market paying up to 5 cents per word plus a single copy of the book. Full rate to 7,500 words, half rate for balance to 10,000 words.
== Rights: for original fiction, first World English publication, with a two-month exclusive from publication date; for all, non-exclusive anthology rights; all other rights remain with the author.
== Spelling: the editors will consider stories using British, Canadian and American spellings.
== Response time: initial responses (no / rewrite request / hold for further consideration) will be prompt, usually within fifteen days. Please query if you've not heard back within 30 days.
== We do not advise that you submit more than one story.
== Simultaneous submissions are not encouraged but are acceptable. Should you receive a "rewrite request" or "hold for further consideration" response, please indicate immediately whether your story is under consideration anywhere else.
Email submissions to: Charles@bakerstreetdozen.com
***
1 June 2012 -- Weird Science -- Torquere Press
Who doesn’t love the idea of the mad scientist, working away in his lab, his sexy creature or lab assistant just waiting for him to notice them? Or what about the grad student who discovers just the potion that will make him the stud his oblivious roommate has always wanted...
That’s the idea behind the Weird Science anthology. We’re looking for sexy, romantic male/male stories about what happens when science gets wild and wonderful in the name of love. Make us laugh, make us fall in love, and make us happy at the end! We’re not looking for hard science fiction or horror for this anthology, but we do want fully realized stories with strong characters.
Stories should be between 5000 and 12000 words long, and should be submitted in full and include a synopsis and author biography in the cover letter. Please put your name or pseudonym in the manuscript as well as in your submission email.
Send submissions to submissions@torquerepress.com with Weird Science in the subject line. Payment is a $50.00 flat fee for first time electronic and print rights for three years, and a print copy of the book. No reprints, please. Deadline for submissions is June 1 2012 for an October 2012 publication.
***
1 June 2012 -- Dark Trails -- ed. Michael Knost
Payment: Pro rate, plus percentage of shared royalties.
No reprints and no trunk stories
Story length: Up to 7,500 words.
No multiple or simultaneous subs
Deadline: Friday, June 1, 2012 (Do not inquire on story status until after September 1, 2012)
Mail submissions, queries, or questions to:
Michael Knost
Dark Trails Anthology
PO Box 12
Logan, WV 25601
NO EMAIL SUBMISSIONS ACCEPTED.
Stories should be set as a weird western or dark western. Regardless of your use of “weird” or “dark" in the story, the main focus must be with the fact that is it a western FIRST.
I AM NOT INTERESTED IN MODERN WESTERNS.
Format your manuscript according to: http://www.shunn.net/format/story.html
Be sure to include your name, address, and email on the manuscript. If this information is not on the manuscript, I will reject it without reading.
***
30 June 2012 -- Torn in Two -- Storm Moon Press
Expected Release: November 9, 2012
Genres: Any
Pairings: Bisexual
HEA or HFN Ending Required? Yes
It is often said that bisexual men are ‘torn in two’ by the opposing expectations from society. They are often accused of being confused or riding the proverbial fence between gay and straight. To many others, their attraction to men makes them ‘not straight’, while their attraction to women makes them ‘not gay’. It is this conflict that sets them apart and often ostracizes them from both communities. At Storm Moon Press, we’re of the mind that bisexual men are often misrepresented in fiction, and in this anthology, we would love to see that change for the better.
Torn In Two is a collection of short stories highlighting bisexual men, including their relationships with both men and women. We recognize that different characters will have different levels of interest in their partners, but above all else, we want to see stories that celebrate that diversity. These submissions need to contain an HEA/HFN ending, as we want to portray bisexual men in a positive, hopeful, and respectful way.
Authors will receive royalties as well as an initial payment of $50 for their story. This payment is not an advance and does not have to be earned out before royalties are paid. Royalties on individual e-book releases will be 50% of cover price on direct sales through Storm Moon Press' e-store, and 40% of cover price minus distribution costs for sales through third party vendors. In addition, authors will receive the same percentage royalty on sales of the anthology e-book divided equally among the authors, as well as 25% of cover price on direct sales of the print anthology through Storm Moon Press' e-store, and 20% of cover price minus distribution costs for sales through third party vendors, also divided equally among all authors. All royalties will be paid quarterly.
***
30 June 2012 -- Extreme Planets Anthology -- Chaosium Inc.
Chaosium is expanding into new lines of speculative fiction. Extreme Planets will be the first of these publications, with a science fiction anthology of short stories set on or about alien worlds that push the limits of what we believe is possible in a planetary environment.
These could be planets with gravities many times that of the Earth or orbiting neutron stars so their oceans are elongated into egg shapes. Carbon worlds or diamond worlds, iron worlds, or planets with extremely elliptical orbits. Worlds made of exotic elements or with bizarre atmospheres. Planets were time and space behaves strangely or against the laws of physics. Even artificially created worlds can find a home in this anthology, either transformed by bizarre technology or the creation of alien civilisations. Mostly, we hope you dazzle us with worlds we haven’t even thought about.
So how to people survive on these extreme planets? Do human’s adapt the environment to suit their needs, such as through terraforming, or do they change their own bodies to survive, such as through pantropy or cybernetic enhancement. Can humans manipulate the environment or the laws of the universe itself, such as by creating artificial gravity, to survive in these conditions? For a rounded story, these concepts need to be addressed, because there is no story that does not address the human condition.
This is a science fiction anthology—no fantasy or horror. Good characters, engaging plots and mind-blowing settings are important to us, and we also like a good sense of adventure and mystery. Literary style is fine, so long as there is a plot. Most of all we are looking for the staple requirement of the SF genre: a sense of wonder.
The anthology will be printed in both trade paperback and online e-reader formats.
Submission guidelines
== Send us your best science fiction extreme planet story.
== Story length 4,000 to 10,000 words (We may accept a couple of novellas up to 20,000 words from established authors – please query). Payment will be US 3 cents a word and 3 contributor copies. Further copies can be purchased from the publisher for half price.
== Original stories only: no reprints, multiple, or simultaneous submissions.
== Stories may be submitted via email: extremeplanets [at] gmail [dot] com with EXTREME PLANETS [Story Title] by [Author Name] in the header.
== Manuscript format: double spaced, large margins, left justified, Times New Roman or Courier New font, US English spelling. Double quotation marks for speech, not single. RTF preferred but will accept DOC files. Manuscript is to include author’s name and contact details on first page.
== The editors reserve the right to use their discretion in selecting stories.
***
30 June 2012 -- A Killer Among Demons -- ed. Craig Bezant, Dark Prints Press
A Killer Among Demons aims to encapsulate the deep, intriguing, and twisted tales that arise from the wonderful combination of paranormal/supernatural crime.
We are going to leave the guidelines quite open for this one because, to be honest, we want to be surprised. Not sure? Think of a crime that can’t be solved through traditional methods; a murder committed by a mythical creature that, by all means shouldn’t exist; an on-the-seat-of-your-chair thriller of ghostly comeuppance; a Scooby-Doo-type pulpy crime where the gang tries to rip off the mask of a monster, only to find it’s its real face; and so on…
This title will be published as both a limited print edition and an eBook/digital edition.
We are looking for short fiction 3,000 to 10,000 words in length. If you have work outside this range, please query before sending. Please submit one story at a time.
Please submit via the standard methods you have already taken the time to research – eg. A readable font, 11 or 12pt, 1.5 to double line spacing, a header with the title and your name, and PAGE NUMBERS. You may include a cover letter/intro about yourself and, specifically, your writing.
Payment is a flat fee of AUD$75.00 per story (regardless of length) for both Australian print rights and International Digital rights, plus a contributor’s copy of the print edition.
The editor for this anthology is Craig Bezant.
You can submit via e-mail at: submissions@darkprintspress.com.au
or via post at: PO BOX 3079, Joondalup, Western Australia, 6027
Response time is ~8 weeks. Please feel free to query after this time.
***
1 July 2012 -- Charity Sip Blitz -- Torquere Press
[Announced on a closed loop, but with permission to repost; general guidelines link below.]
It's that time again, where all of our great authors get together to donate to a charity working within the GLBTQ community! This year, Torquere Press has chosen NOH8 as the donation charity, and authors who contribute agree to
donate 100% of their royalties to NOH8, with Torquere Press matching the donation.
This year's theme, since this is Torquere Press' ninth anniversary as well, is leather. Nine is the leather anniversary, y'all! How cool is that?
Leather can be reflected in any way in the story. BDSM may immediately spring to mind, but leather can also mean cowboys, fast cars, Italian shoes, jewelry, or any of a million other things. We want stories that show LGBTQ
characters in positive situations, and have strong stories with happy endings. (Or at least happy for now.)
Word count is 3000 to 8000 words, and those limits are firm. Please adjust your manuscripts accordingly before submission. Deadline for submissions is July 1, 2012. Please send all submissions to submissions@torquerepress.com with Charity Sip Blitz in the subject line. For formatting questions or other content questions, please refer to our general guidelines here.
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31 July 2012 -- Steampunk Cthulu -- ed. Brian M. Sammons and Glynn Owen Barrass, Chaosium, Inc.
The age of steam meets the age of Cthulhu, in a past where technology unbound warps Victorian Britain and the world at large into a dark Steampunk reality.
In Steampunk Cthulhu (yes that’s only a working title) we are looking for stories set in a world where futuristic visions of technology, advanced machines undreamt of in the Victorian era, are powered by steam, or sometimes the inscrutable minds of dark, god-like beings.
Undreamt of yes, and maybe a nightmare here, think of what would happen if HG Wells had sent his Time Machine to a past when the Elder Things ruled the globe, or Jules Verne’s Captain Nemo was an evil acolyte of Cthulhu? Of course we don’t want you to limit yourselves to fictional characters of the genre, but you can use these, historical personages and your own protagonists and cultists of Cthulhu.
Space travel, journeys to the center of the earth and 20,000 leagues under R’lyeh, we want to see Victorian globetrotting adventurers and wild technologies in the Wild West. Think zeppelins crossed with tomes of forbidden knowledge, steam powered automatons battling indescribable beasts from beyond time and space, fanciful high-tech gadgets and blood drenched arcane artifacts, the wonders of tomorrow meting the horror of inescapable doom, and if you can put your own unique spin on both the steampunk setting and the Cthulhu Mythos, so much the better.
Authors should be well versed in both the stempunk setting and Lovecraftian horror as a good blending of both is what we’re after. If you’re looking for info on steampunk, check the Wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steampunk) for a brief overview and a small selection of authors and books to get you started. If you need to bone up on your Cthulhu Mythos you can read all of H.P. Lovecraft’s stories online for free here: http://www.hplovecraft.com/ or just look around your local bookstore – if you’re still luckily enough to have a local bookstore – as the Cthulhu Mythos has never been hotter.
This book will be published by Chaosium. Authors will receive .03 a word and 3 complementary contributor copies, with the option to purchase more at a 50% discount.
8000k word limit. Contact the editors if your work is both longer and outstanding. The deadline for submissions is July 31. Please send submissions as .rtf files to both editors below. If you have any questions, feel free to ask.
Brian M. Sammons bmanrun@hotmail.com
Glynn Owen Barrass cthulhupunk@hotmail.co.uk
***
31 July 2012 -- Into the Darkness -- ed. C. Dennis Moore and David G. Barnett, Necro Publications
INTO THE DARKNESS Anthology is looking for dark, brutal, unrelenting horror fiction from new and established authors alike. One of the things we always loved with the magazine was finding new voices in modern horror and we want to start doing that again.
Here’s some things we’re looking for:
==Solid story and interesting characters are the two most important elements.
==Modern voice. Nothing old fashioned. No traditional ghost stories. We’re not looking for writers trying to channel Lovecraft or Poe.
==New monsters. If you’re going to create a monster then explain the monster. Don’t just throw it in at the end. The monster is probably a hell of a lot more interesting than anything else. Same goes for killers and psychos.
==If you’re going to give us a vampire, zombie or other traditional monster please do something new and interesting with it.
==Violence, sex, profanity and gore are all fine as long as they are integral to the story. If you’re just trying an experiment in writing only grossout we don’t want it. After 20 years we’ve seen it and it’s boring. And don’t try and shock us by using the word cunt 50 times in your story. That’s just sad.
==Humor is always good.
==Urban fantasy is a favorite genre of ours.
==Angels, demons, heaven and hell are all topics of interest for us.
WORD COUNT: 1500-10,000
PUBLISH DATE: Late 2012/Early 2013
FORMAT: Trade Paperback and eBook for International distribution
RIGHTS: First print and electronic Exclusive Worldwide English Language Anthology Rights for a period of one year.
PAYMENT: $.02/word. Two copies of the trade paperback. Payment upon publication.
SUBMISSION SPECIFICATIONS:
==Email submissions ONLY to: intothedarknessantho@gmail.com
==Submissions should be in standard manuscript format and attached as either an MS Word document or an RTF file.
==All submissions MUST have your name, address, email and phone number.
==Check here for proper manuscript formatting: http://www.shunn.net/format/story.html
==Email subject line: ITD – Story Title - Author
==No reprints
==Multiple submissions: up to two stories per author can be submitted but send as separate emails.
==No simultaneous submissions.
==Response time of 1-2 months.
==And for f**ksake, please have some sort of grasp of spelling, grammar and punctuation. No manuscript is perfect, but seriously, don’t waste our time if you can barely spell your name or speak English. This has happened. Not kidding. :P
***
31 July 2012 (or until filled) -- Once Upon an Apocalypse -- ed. Rachel Kenley and Scott T. Goudsward, Chaosium
Over the river and through the woods does not always lead to grandma’s house or happy endings – especially if grandma’s house is infested with zombies… or if grandma is really a Lovecraftian being in disguise. Once Upon an Apocalypse is a two volume post apocalyptic anthology laden with the undead and otherwordly mythos crossing into the realm of fairy tales, nursery rhymes and other timeless stories. Editors Rachel Kenley and Scott T. Goudsward and publisher Chaosium are currently open to submissions for these two books of mixed up retold fairy tales.
What are we looking for?
For both volumes we want stories with strong narrative lines, stronger characters and a clear blending of the theme and the fairy tales. For Volume One imagine Cinderella arriving at the ball and discovering it filled with zombies. Or how different the story would be if it were Snow White and the Seven Zombies. Give us new horrors with Alice in Zombieland, and a Prince who climbs Rapunzel’s hair to get away from and find a way to defeat – you guessed it – zombies. In Volume Two we want a strong dose of Lovecraft thrown in. What happens to the townspeople in The Boy who Cried Cthulhu? Pinocchio is going to have a much harder time getting out of the Old One than the whale; a wolf would have been preferable to Little Red Riding Hood and the Byahkee and the Little Mermaid has so much more to worry about then her legs and a missing voice when she faces a Deep One.
Once you choose a story to change it’s your call how far you will take it. Make the apocalypse clear and give some meaning as to why the dead are meandering through the streets and munching on the breathing or why the Elder God has paid the town a visit. Plague, prestilence, bio warfare, meteor shower, tail of a comet… be creative.
Because we don’t want duplicates of themes, you will be able to follow the progress of the anthologies on our blog (http://onceuponanapocalypse.com) or facebook page (www.facebook.com/OnceUponAnApocalypse) where we’ll keep a current list of themes/tales accepted. For example, if we get a Sleeping Beauty story and it’s awesome, that will be it for the book. Stories should be 2K – 4K in length (please query for stories under or over our limit. We will consider them if they are of exceptional merit). The only true way to have similar stories is A Snow White and the Seven Zombies in one and Snow White Star Vampire Slayer in the other.
What aren’t we looking for?
We all know these are dark fiction anthologies, but gore for the sake of gore is un-needed. This is not splatterpunk or extreme horror. Sex? If the story calls for it fine but keep it to an R rating (maybe even PG-13). We don’t to hear about insertions and spurting fluids, unless is blood from a bite wound or a gun shot. Try to keep the violence towards animals at a minimum. In some mythos, zombies chew on animals and that’s fine, but we don’t want redneck zombies killing all of Bo-Peep’s sheep for a pie. Finally, though we shouldn’t have to mention it (but we will given the theme) – go easy on the child-related violence, please. And no kids and sex – that’s just skeevy.
Readingperiod – now through July 31, 2012 – or until filled.
Pay rates – Pays $.03 per word, no royalties and 3 free books and additional copies at 50% off cover.
Email subs to: ouaastories@ gmail.com
Format:
Stories should be an attachment to your cover letter email, NOT copied and pasted into the body of the email. The cover letter should include a single paragraph synopsis of the story and your publishing history. The submission should be in RTF or DOC format (no DOCX). Left aligned, 1/2” indentation for paragraphs, single spaced. Double space between scenes and use five stars (*****) for breaks in the story. Contact info should be on the first page of the story with word count.
Please do not query for your story until we’ve had it for at least 12 weeks. Publication is expected for the first half of 2013. No reprints and no simultaneous submissions. If we turn you down feel free to try again with a new story but give it a few days between submissions.
And please when submitting please be specific which book you are submitting to. We’re reading for both simultaneously. Subject line of the email should be Name, Story Name, Which book.
***
UNTIL FILLED -- All Access Pass -- ed. Amelia G, Blue Blood Books ** First Posted July 2011
Short version of what I’m looking for is: well-crafted fiction or memoir, cool erotica with music and/or music culture as a central theme, $50 first run + reprint rights, $25 reprints. More formal version below.
Call for Submissions: All Access Pass
Backstage Passes editor Amelia G is reading for a sequel to her anthology of rock and roll erotica, called All Access Pass. Below are general fiction guidelines for Blue Blood fiction projects. For this book in specific, music must play a central role in the story. Events could take place at a punk club or an outdoor festival, characters may be musicians, music may just really speak to a particular character, but it needs to be important. Stories ranging from balls-out memoir or entirely fantastical vampire sex are all fine, within the appropriate theme and quality standards.
When submitting electronically, please make the subject of your email ALL ACCESS PASS SUBMISSION.
Before sending anything over, please ask yourself if your work passes the Blue Blood litmus test: Is it intelligent? Is it sexy? Is it edgy/counterculture? Is it cool? Email electronic submissions to submit@blueblood.net For submissions of fiction or nonfiction text, please have your writing in a Word document with a .doc suffix (not .docx), RTF, TXT, InDesign, or Open Office format. It is preferred if you include an author bio or link to your website or online profiles.
The All Access Pass anthology is seeking erotic stories with a counterculture feel — Gothic, industrial, techno, rave, punk, metal, dyke, mystery, gangster, hard-boiled, science fiction, cyberpunk, steampunk, vampire, werewolf, medieval etc. At the moment, our needs are for stories primarily from a male or female heterosexual viewpoint, lesbian viewpoint, or female bisexual viewpoint. Often, we can also place male homosexual and gender bender stories in anthologies. We look for work between 2,000 and 7,500 words. Most accepted fiction is shorter than 4,000 words. Death and horror elements are acceptable so long as they do not prevent the piece from being sex-positive. Characters may die but not as part of the sexuality. Kinky is great — leathersex, bondage, vampirism etc. are all fine. Negative attitudes about sexuality are not fine. All sex must be consensual and arousing. PLEASE DO NOT SEND US STORIES PROMOTING NAZIS, RAPE, INCEST, OR THE SEXUALIZATION OF MURDER. NO SNUFF, RACISM, OR HOMOPHOBIA. If you can write genuinely arousing fiction which still works as a story, do contact us. Payment is net 60 on on-sale date and we generally purchase first worldwide rights (exclusive from acceptance to one year after publication) along with nonexclusive reprint rights.
***
UNTIL FILLED -- Future Daze: An Anthology of YA Science Fiction -- Underwords ** First Posted May 2012
Underwords is now accepting submissions for our next project Futuredaze: An Anthology of YA Science Fiction, a science fiction anthology for teens, young adults, and the young at heart. We’re looking for fiction and poetry that sparks the imagination, twists the heart, and makes us yearn for the possibilities of a world yet to come. At a time when every other YA book features vampires, werewolves or other fantastical creatures, Futuredaze will be an anthology for the next generation of science fiction readers.
We’re looking for hard science fiction, soft science fiction, and everything in between. Think Jules Verne, Isaac Asimov, George Orwell or Ray Bradbury with a YA focus. While we adore fantasy, Futuredaze is not the right anthology for fiction or poetry based in worlds where magic or the supernatural are the driving forces.
Futuredaze's primary mission is to inspire a love of science fiction in today's teens and young adults -- providing them with a launching pad of quality fiction that will inspire them to further explore the many branches of the genre. Give us your stories of far-flung futures, interplanetary travel, and technology just beyond our reach. Give us near futures with eerie similarities to the present. Give us robots, extra terrestrials, brave new worlds and Andromeda strains.
Most of all, give us good writing. Whether you’re a pro or still looking for your first sale we want to see the widest array of fiction and poetry possible. If you’re unsure whether your piece is right for Futuredaze, please submit it and let us determine if it’s a good fit. Our only requirement is that your story or poem operates within a science fictional universe and is written for young adults. Please no explicit sex, foul language, or gratuitous violence.
Practical Matters
Submissions for Futuredaze open May 1, 2012. Response time is two months or sooner. We will accept submissions until filled. The estimated publication date is June 2013. Electronic submissions only. Overseas submissions are welcome. Send your story or poem as a Word or .rtf attachment to yasfsubmissions@gmail.com and include the word "submission" and the title of your piece in the subject line to avoid our spam folder.
Please follow standard manuscript formatting and submission conventions: i.e., double-spaced, with 1" margins, and 12 pt Times New Roman font. Your story title and last name should be included in the document header. No reprints. No simultaneous or multiple submissions. For fiction, 6,000 words max. You may submit up to 5 poems at one time. If you receive a rejection letter, you may submit a different piece. Futuredaze will come out in print and as an eBook. Paying $200 per story and $25 per poem for first North American anthology rights, payable upon publication. One-year after publication, all rights return to the creators.
Any questions? Write to us at yasfsubmissions@gmail.com.
Markets with specific deadlines are listed first, "Until Filled" markets are at the bottom. There are usually more details on the original site; always click through and read the full guidelines before submitting. Note that some publishers list multiple antho guidelines on one page, so after you click through you might have to scroll a bit.
***
31 May 2012 -- Professor Challenger Anthology -- ed. J.R. Campbell and Charles Prepolec, Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing
WHAT WE'RE AFTER:
A broad range of new and original stories built around Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's LOST WORLD character Professor George Edward Challenger. Stories derived from the aftermath of events in the Lost World are welcome however simply revisiting or rehashing the Lost World without good cause is not. Challenger is a man of science first and foremost, not an explorer. Mash-ups or crossovers with public domain literary characters are welcome.
For inspiration think X-files, Quartermass, DR. Who, cryptozoology, aliens among us, supernatural occurrences, science gone awry in a Dr. Moreau, Invisible Man, Dr Jekyll vein, nature run amuck, monsters large and small, world threatening cataclysm, Lovecraft mythos, think H.G. Wells, Jules Verne, E.R. Burroghs, John Wyndham, Nigel Kneale, alternate history, new lost places, steampunk, whatever -- Be creative.
Mine the potential for all it's worth! Push it out there, get weird, play, have fun!
SUBMISSION DETAILS:
== The anthology is part invitation and part open submission. Priority will be given to invited authors but an invitation to submit is not a guarantee of acceptance. A minimum of two slots will be held for open submissions. Acceptance is based entirely on suitability of story and quality of writing.
== The maximum length for stories is 10,000 words, with shorter works preferred.
== Do not query before submitting.
== Email submissions to: Charles@bakerstreetdozen.com
== Emails MUST contain the word "submission" in the subject line, or they will be deleted automatically by the server. Please also include the story title in the subject line.
== Submissions MUST come in an attachment: Rich Text Format (.rtf) or Microsoft Word (.doc) are the only acceptable formats.
== Emails MUST contain a cover letter in the body of the email; for security reasons, email attachments with no cover letter will be deleted unread and unanswered.
== Cover letter: include your name, the title of your story, your full contact information (address, phone, email), and a brief bio. Do not describe or summarize the story.
== Reprints (stories having previously appeared in English in any format, print or electronic, including but not limited to any form of web publication) will NOT be considered.
== Submission format: no strange formatting, colour fonts, changing fonts, borders, backgrounds, etc. Leave italics in italics, NOT underlined. Put your full contact information on the first page (name, address, email address, phone). No headers, no footers, no page numbering. DO NOT leave a blank line between paragraphs. Indent paragraphs. ALWAYS put a # to indicate scene breaks (a blank line is NOT enough).
== ALWAYS include your full contact information (name/address/email/phone number) on the first page of the attached submission.
== This is a professional market paying up to 5 cents per word plus a single copy of the book. Full rate to 7,500 words, half rate for balance to 10,000 words.
== Rights: for original fiction, first World English publication, with a two-month exclusive from publication date; for all, non-exclusive anthology rights; all other rights remain with the author.
== Spelling: the editors will consider stories using British, Canadian and American spellings.
== Response time: initial responses (no / rewrite request / hold for further consideration) will be prompt, usually within fifteen days. Please query if you've not heard back within 30 days.
== We do not advise that you submit more than one story.
== Simultaneous submissions are not encouraged but are acceptable. Should you receive a "rewrite request" or "hold for further consideration" response, please indicate immediately whether your story is under consideration anywhere else.
Email submissions to: Charles@bakerstreetdozen.com
***
1 June 2012 -- Weird Science -- Torquere Press
Who doesn’t love the idea of the mad scientist, working away in his lab, his sexy creature or lab assistant just waiting for him to notice them? Or what about the grad student who discovers just the potion that will make him the stud his oblivious roommate has always wanted...
That’s the idea behind the Weird Science anthology. We’re looking for sexy, romantic male/male stories about what happens when science gets wild and wonderful in the name of love. Make us laugh, make us fall in love, and make us happy at the end! We’re not looking for hard science fiction or horror for this anthology, but we do want fully realized stories with strong characters.
Stories should be between 5000 and 12000 words long, and should be submitted in full and include a synopsis and author biography in the cover letter. Please put your name or pseudonym in the manuscript as well as in your submission email.
Send submissions to submissions@torquerepress.com with Weird Science in the subject line. Payment is a $50.00 flat fee for first time electronic and print rights for three years, and a print copy of the book. No reprints, please. Deadline for submissions is June 1 2012 for an October 2012 publication.
***
1 June 2012 -- Dark Trails -- ed. Michael Knost
Payment: Pro rate, plus percentage of shared royalties.
No reprints and no trunk stories
Story length: Up to 7,500 words.
No multiple or simultaneous subs
Deadline: Friday, June 1, 2012 (Do not inquire on story status until after September 1, 2012)
Mail submissions, queries, or questions to:
Michael Knost
Dark Trails Anthology
PO Box 12
Logan, WV 25601
NO EMAIL SUBMISSIONS ACCEPTED.
Stories should be set as a weird western or dark western. Regardless of your use of “weird” or “dark" in the story, the main focus must be with the fact that is it a western FIRST.
I AM NOT INTERESTED IN MODERN WESTERNS.
Format your manuscript according to: http://www.shunn.net/format/story.html
Be sure to include your name, address, and email on the manuscript. If this information is not on the manuscript, I will reject it without reading.
***
30 June 2012 -- Torn in Two -- Storm Moon Press
Expected Release: November 9, 2012
Genres: Any
Pairings: Bisexual
HEA or HFN Ending Required? Yes
It is often said that bisexual men are ‘torn in two’ by the opposing expectations from society. They are often accused of being confused or riding the proverbial fence between gay and straight. To many others, their attraction to men makes them ‘not straight’, while their attraction to women makes them ‘not gay’. It is this conflict that sets them apart and often ostracizes them from both communities. At Storm Moon Press, we’re of the mind that bisexual men are often misrepresented in fiction, and in this anthology, we would love to see that change for the better.
Torn In Two is a collection of short stories highlighting bisexual men, including their relationships with both men and women. We recognize that different characters will have different levels of interest in their partners, but above all else, we want to see stories that celebrate that diversity. These submissions need to contain an HEA/HFN ending, as we want to portray bisexual men in a positive, hopeful, and respectful way.
Authors will receive royalties as well as an initial payment of $50 for their story. This payment is not an advance and does not have to be earned out before royalties are paid. Royalties on individual e-book releases will be 50% of cover price on direct sales through Storm Moon Press' e-store, and 40% of cover price minus distribution costs for sales through third party vendors. In addition, authors will receive the same percentage royalty on sales of the anthology e-book divided equally among the authors, as well as 25% of cover price on direct sales of the print anthology through Storm Moon Press' e-store, and 20% of cover price minus distribution costs for sales through third party vendors, also divided equally among all authors. All royalties will be paid quarterly.
***
30 June 2012 -- Extreme Planets Anthology -- Chaosium Inc.
Chaosium is expanding into new lines of speculative fiction. Extreme Planets will be the first of these publications, with a science fiction anthology of short stories set on or about alien worlds that push the limits of what we believe is possible in a planetary environment.
These could be planets with gravities many times that of the Earth or orbiting neutron stars so their oceans are elongated into egg shapes. Carbon worlds or diamond worlds, iron worlds, or planets with extremely elliptical orbits. Worlds made of exotic elements or with bizarre atmospheres. Planets were time and space behaves strangely or against the laws of physics. Even artificially created worlds can find a home in this anthology, either transformed by bizarre technology or the creation of alien civilisations. Mostly, we hope you dazzle us with worlds we haven’t even thought about.
So how to people survive on these extreme planets? Do human’s adapt the environment to suit their needs, such as through terraforming, or do they change their own bodies to survive, such as through pantropy or cybernetic enhancement. Can humans manipulate the environment or the laws of the universe itself, such as by creating artificial gravity, to survive in these conditions? For a rounded story, these concepts need to be addressed, because there is no story that does not address the human condition.
This is a science fiction anthology—no fantasy or horror. Good characters, engaging plots and mind-blowing settings are important to us, and we also like a good sense of adventure and mystery. Literary style is fine, so long as there is a plot. Most of all we are looking for the staple requirement of the SF genre: a sense of wonder.
The anthology will be printed in both trade paperback and online e-reader formats.
Submission guidelines
== Send us your best science fiction extreme planet story.
== Story length 4,000 to 10,000 words (We may accept a couple of novellas up to 20,000 words from established authors – please query). Payment will be US 3 cents a word and 3 contributor copies. Further copies can be purchased from the publisher for half price.
== Original stories only: no reprints, multiple, or simultaneous submissions.
== Stories may be submitted via email: extremeplanets [at] gmail [dot] com with EXTREME PLANETS [Story Title] by [Author Name] in the header.
== Manuscript format: double spaced, large margins, left justified, Times New Roman or Courier New font, US English spelling. Double quotation marks for speech, not single. RTF preferred but will accept DOC files. Manuscript is to include author’s name and contact details on first page.
== The editors reserve the right to use their discretion in selecting stories.
***
30 June 2012 -- A Killer Among Demons -- ed. Craig Bezant, Dark Prints Press
A Killer Among Demons aims to encapsulate the deep, intriguing, and twisted tales that arise from the wonderful combination of paranormal/supernatural crime.
We are going to leave the guidelines quite open for this one because, to be honest, we want to be surprised. Not sure? Think of a crime that can’t be solved through traditional methods; a murder committed by a mythical creature that, by all means shouldn’t exist; an on-the-seat-of-your-chair thriller of ghostly comeuppance; a Scooby-Doo-type pulpy crime where the gang tries to rip off the mask of a monster, only to find it’s its real face; and so on…
This title will be published as both a limited print edition and an eBook/digital edition.
We are looking for short fiction 3,000 to 10,000 words in length. If you have work outside this range, please query before sending. Please submit one story at a time.
Please submit via the standard methods you have already taken the time to research – eg. A readable font, 11 or 12pt, 1.5 to double line spacing, a header with the title and your name, and PAGE NUMBERS. You may include a cover letter/intro about yourself and, specifically, your writing.
Payment is a flat fee of AUD$75.00 per story (regardless of length) for both Australian print rights and International Digital rights, plus a contributor’s copy of the print edition.
The editor for this anthology is Craig Bezant.
You can submit via e-mail at: submissions@darkprintspress.com.au
or via post at: PO BOX 3079, Joondalup, Western Australia, 6027
Response time is ~8 weeks. Please feel free to query after this time.
***
1 July 2012 -- Charity Sip Blitz -- Torquere Press
[Announced on a closed loop, but with permission to repost; general guidelines link below.]
It's that time again, where all of our great authors get together to donate to a charity working within the GLBTQ community! This year, Torquere Press has chosen NOH8 as the donation charity, and authors who contribute agree to
donate 100% of their royalties to NOH8, with Torquere Press matching the donation.
This year's theme, since this is Torquere Press' ninth anniversary as well, is leather. Nine is the leather anniversary, y'all! How cool is that?
Leather can be reflected in any way in the story. BDSM may immediately spring to mind, but leather can also mean cowboys, fast cars, Italian shoes, jewelry, or any of a million other things. We want stories that show LGBTQ
characters in positive situations, and have strong stories with happy endings. (Or at least happy for now.)
Word count is 3000 to 8000 words, and those limits are firm. Please adjust your manuscripts accordingly before submission. Deadline for submissions is July 1, 2012. Please send all submissions to submissions@torquerepress.com with Charity Sip Blitz in the subject line. For formatting questions or other content questions, please refer to our general guidelines here.
***
31 July 2012 -- Steampunk Cthulu -- ed. Brian M. Sammons and Glynn Owen Barrass, Chaosium, Inc.
The age of steam meets the age of Cthulhu, in a past where technology unbound warps Victorian Britain and the world at large into a dark Steampunk reality.
In Steampunk Cthulhu (yes that’s only a working title) we are looking for stories set in a world where futuristic visions of technology, advanced machines undreamt of in the Victorian era, are powered by steam, or sometimes the inscrutable minds of dark, god-like beings.
Undreamt of yes, and maybe a nightmare here, think of what would happen if HG Wells had sent his Time Machine to a past when the Elder Things ruled the globe, or Jules Verne’s Captain Nemo was an evil acolyte of Cthulhu? Of course we don’t want you to limit yourselves to fictional characters of the genre, but you can use these, historical personages and your own protagonists and cultists of Cthulhu.
Space travel, journeys to the center of the earth and 20,000 leagues under R’lyeh, we want to see Victorian globetrotting adventurers and wild technologies in the Wild West. Think zeppelins crossed with tomes of forbidden knowledge, steam powered automatons battling indescribable beasts from beyond time and space, fanciful high-tech gadgets and blood drenched arcane artifacts, the wonders of tomorrow meting the horror of inescapable doom, and if you can put your own unique spin on both the steampunk setting and the Cthulhu Mythos, so much the better.
Authors should be well versed in both the stempunk setting and Lovecraftian horror as a good blending of both is what we’re after. If you’re looking for info on steampunk, check the Wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steampunk) for a brief overview and a small selection of authors and books to get you started. If you need to bone up on your Cthulhu Mythos you can read all of H.P. Lovecraft’s stories online for free here: http://www.hplovecraft.com/ or just look around your local bookstore – if you’re still luckily enough to have a local bookstore – as the Cthulhu Mythos has never been hotter.
This book will be published by Chaosium. Authors will receive .03 a word and 3 complementary contributor copies, with the option to purchase more at a 50% discount.
8000k word limit. Contact the editors if your work is both longer and outstanding. The deadline for submissions is July 31. Please send submissions as .rtf files to both editors below. If you have any questions, feel free to ask.
Brian M. Sammons bmanrun@hotmail.com
Glynn Owen Barrass cthulhupunk@hotmail.co.uk
***
31 July 2012 -- Into the Darkness -- ed. C. Dennis Moore and David G. Barnett, Necro Publications
INTO THE DARKNESS Anthology is looking for dark, brutal, unrelenting horror fiction from new and established authors alike. One of the things we always loved with the magazine was finding new voices in modern horror and we want to start doing that again.
Here’s some things we’re looking for:
==Solid story and interesting characters are the two most important elements.
==Modern voice. Nothing old fashioned. No traditional ghost stories. We’re not looking for writers trying to channel Lovecraft or Poe.
==New monsters. If you’re going to create a monster then explain the monster. Don’t just throw it in at the end. The monster is probably a hell of a lot more interesting than anything else. Same goes for killers and psychos.
==If you’re going to give us a vampire, zombie or other traditional monster please do something new and interesting with it.
==Violence, sex, profanity and gore are all fine as long as they are integral to the story. If you’re just trying an experiment in writing only grossout we don’t want it. After 20 years we’ve seen it and it’s boring. And don’t try and shock us by using the word cunt 50 times in your story. That’s just sad.
==Humor is always good.
==Urban fantasy is a favorite genre of ours.
==Angels, demons, heaven and hell are all topics of interest for us.
WORD COUNT: 1500-10,000
PUBLISH DATE: Late 2012/Early 2013
FORMAT: Trade Paperback and eBook for International distribution
RIGHTS: First print and electronic Exclusive Worldwide English Language Anthology Rights for a period of one year.
PAYMENT: $.02/word. Two copies of the trade paperback. Payment upon publication.
SUBMISSION SPECIFICATIONS:
==Email submissions ONLY to: intothedarknessantho@gmail.com
==Submissions should be in standard manuscript format and attached as either an MS Word document or an RTF file.
==All submissions MUST have your name, address, email and phone number.
==Check here for proper manuscript formatting: http://www.shunn.net/format/story.html
==Email subject line: ITD – Story Title - Author
==No reprints
==Multiple submissions: up to two stories per author can be submitted but send as separate emails.
==No simultaneous submissions.
==Response time of 1-2 months.
==And for f**ksake, please have some sort of grasp of spelling, grammar and punctuation. No manuscript is perfect, but seriously, don’t waste our time if you can barely spell your name or speak English. This has happened. Not kidding. :P
***
31 July 2012 (or until filled) -- Once Upon an Apocalypse -- ed. Rachel Kenley and Scott T. Goudsward, Chaosium
Over the river and through the woods does not always lead to grandma’s house or happy endings – especially if grandma’s house is infested with zombies… or if grandma is really a Lovecraftian being in disguise. Once Upon an Apocalypse is a two volume post apocalyptic anthology laden with the undead and otherwordly mythos crossing into the realm of fairy tales, nursery rhymes and other timeless stories. Editors Rachel Kenley and Scott T. Goudsward and publisher Chaosium are currently open to submissions for these two books of mixed up retold fairy tales.
What are we looking for?
For both volumes we want stories with strong narrative lines, stronger characters and a clear blending of the theme and the fairy tales. For Volume One imagine Cinderella arriving at the ball and discovering it filled with zombies. Or how different the story would be if it were Snow White and the Seven Zombies. Give us new horrors with Alice in Zombieland, and a Prince who climbs Rapunzel’s hair to get away from and find a way to defeat – you guessed it – zombies. In Volume Two we want a strong dose of Lovecraft thrown in. What happens to the townspeople in The Boy who Cried Cthulhu? Pinocchio is going to have a much harder time getting out of the Old One than the whale; a wolf would have been preferable to Little Red Riding Hood and the Byahkee and the Little Mermaid has so much more to worry about then her legs and a missing voice when she faces a Deep One.
Once you choose a story to change it’s your call how far you will take it. Make the apocalypse clear and give some meaning as to why the dead are meandering through the streets and munching on the breathing or why the Elder God has paid the town a visit. Plague, prestilence, bio warfare, meteor shower, tail of a comet… be creative.
Because we don’t want duplicates of themes, you will be able to follow the progress of the anthologies on our blog (http://onceuponanapocalypse.com) or facebook page (www.facebook.com/OnceUponAnApocalypse) where we’ll keep a current list of themes/tales accepted. For example, if we get a Sleeping Beauty story and it’s awesome, that will be it for the book. Stories should be 2K – 4K in length (please query for stories under or over our limit. We will consider them if they are of exceptional merit). The only true way to have similar stories is A Snow White and the Seven Zombies in one and Snow White Star Vampire Slayer in the other.
What aren’t we looking for?
We all know these are dark fiction anthologies, but gore for the sake of gore is un-needed. This is not splatterpunk or extreme horror. Sex? If the story calls for it fine but keep it to an R rating (maybe even PG-13). We don’t to hear about insertions and spurting fluids, unless is blood from a bite wound or a gun shot. Try to keep the violence towards animals at a minimum. In some mythos, zombies chew on animals and that’s fine, but we don’t want redneck zombies killing all of Bo-Peep’s sheep for a pie. Finally, though we shouldn’t have to mention it (but we will given the theme) – go easy on the child-related violence, please. And no kids and sex – that’s just skeevy.
Readingperiod – now through July 31, 2012 – or until filled.
Pay rates – Pays $.03 per word, no royalties and 3 free books and additional copies at 50% off cover.
Email subs to: ouaastories@ gmail.com
Format:
Stories should be an attachment to your cover letter email, NOT copied and pasted into the body of the email. The cover letter should include a single paragraph synopsis of the story and your publishing history. The submission should be in RTF or DOC format (no DOCX). Left aligned, 1/2” indentation for paragraphs, single spaced. Double space between scenes and use five stars (*****) for breaks in the story. Contact info should be on the first page of the story with word count.
Please do not query for your story until we’ve had it for at least 12 weeks. Publication is expected for the first half of 2013. No reprints and no simultaneous submissions. If we turn you down feel free to try again with a new story but give it a few days between submissions.
And please when submitting please be specific which book you are submitting to. We’re reading for both simultaneously. Subject line of the email should be Name, Story Name, Which book.
***
UNTIL FILLED -- All Access Pass -- ed. Amelia G, Blue Blood Books ** First Posted July 2011
Short version of what I’m looking for is: well-crafted fiction or memoir, cool erotica with music and/or music culture as a central theme, $50 first run + reprint rights, $25 reprints. More formal version below.
Call for Submissions: All Access Pass
Backstage Passes editor Amelia G is reading for a sequel to her anthology of rock and roll erotica, called All Access Pass. Below are general fiction guidelines for Blue Blood fiction projects. For this book in specific, music must play a central role in the story. Events could take place at a punk club or an outdoor festival, characters may be musicians, music may just really speak to a particular character, but it needs to be important. Stories ranging from balls-out memoir or entirely fantastical vampire sex are all fine, within the appropriate theme and quality standards.
When submitting electronically, please make the subject of your email ALL ACCESS PASS SUBMISSION.
Before sending anything over, please ask yourself if your work passes the Blue Blood litmus test: Is it intelligent? Is it sexy? Is it edgy/counterculture? Is it cool? Email electronic submissions to submit@blueblood.net For submissions of fiction or nonfiction text, please have your writing in a Word document with a .doc suffix (not .docx), RTF, TXT, InDesign, or Open Office format. It is preferred if you include an author bio or link to your website or online profiles.
The All Access Pass anthology is seeking erotic stories with a counterculture feel — Gothic, industrial, techno, rave, punk, metal, dyke, mystery, gangster, hard-boiled, science fiction, cyberpunk, steampunk, vampire, werewolf, medieval etc. At the moment, our needs are for stories primarily from a male or female heterosexual viewpoint, lesbian viewpoint, or female bisexual viewpoint. Often, we can also place male homosexual and gender bender stories in anthologies. We look for work between 2,000 and 7,500 words. Most accepted fiction is shorter than 4,000 words. Death and horror elements are acceptable so long as they do not prevent the piece from being sex-positive. Characters may die but not as part of the sexuality. Kinky is great — leathersex, bondage, vampirism etc. are all fine. Negative attitudes about sexuality are not fine. All sex must be consensual and arousing. PLEASE DO NOT SEND US STORIES PROMOTING NAZIS, RAPE, INCEST, OR THE SEXUALIZATION OF MURDER. NO SNUFF, RACISM, OR HOMOPHOBIA. If you can write genuinely arousing fiction which still works as a story, do contact us. Payment is net 60 on on-sale date and we generally purchase first worldwide rights (exclusive from acceptance to one year after publication) along with nonexclusive reprint rights.
***
UNTIL FILLED -- Future Daze: An Anthology of YA Science Fiction -- Underwords ** First Posted May 2012
Underwords is now accepting submissions for our next project Futuredaze: An Anthology of YA Science Fiction, a science fiction anthology for teens, young adults, and the young at heart. We’re looking for fiction and poetry that sparks the imagination, twists the heart, and makes us yearn for the possibilities of a world yet to come. At a time when every other YA book features vampires, werewolves or other fantastical creatures, Futuredaze will be an anthology for the next generation of science fiction readers.
We’re looking for hard science fiction, soft science fiction, and everything in between. Think Jules Verne, Isaac Asimov, George Orwell or Ray Bradbury with a YA focus. While we adore fantasy, Futuredaze is not the right anthology for fiction or poetry based in worlds where magic or the supernatural are the driving forces.
Futuredaze's primary mission is to inspire a love of science fiction in today's teens and young adults -- providing them with a launching pad of quality fiction that will inspire them to further explore the many branches of the genre. Give us your stories of far-flung futures, interplanetary travel, and technology just beyond our reach. Give us near futures with eerie similarities to the present. Give us robots, extra terrestrials, brave new worlds and Andromeda strains.
Most of all, give us good writing. Whether you’re a pro or still looking for your first sale we want to see the widest array of fiction and poetry possible. If you’re unsure whether your piece is right for Futuredaze, please submit it and let us determine if it’s a good fit. Our only requirement is that your story or poem operates within a science fictional universe and is written for young adults. Please no explicit sex, foul language, or gratuitous violence.
Practical Matters
Submissions for Futuredaze open May 1, 2012. Response time is two months or sooner. We will accept submissions until filled. The estimated publication date is June 2013. Electronic submissions only. Overseas submissions are welcome. Send your story or poem as a Word or .rtf attachment to yasfsubmissions@gmail.com and include the word "submission" and the title of your piece in the subject line to avoid our spam folder.
Please follow standard manuscript formatting and submission conventions: i.e., double-spaced, with 1" margins, and 12 pt Times New Roman font. Your story title and last name should be included in the document header. No reprints. No simultaneous or multiple submissions. For fiction, 6,000 words max. You may submit up to 5 poems at one time. If you receive a rejection letter, you may submit a different piece. Futuredaze will come out in print and as an eBook. Paying $200 per story and $25 per poem for first North American anthology rights, payable upon publication. One-year after publication, all rights return to the creators.
Any questions? Write to us at yasfsubmissions@gmail.com.
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
More Harlequin Shenanigans
Harlequin is the single biggest publisher of romance, which is the single largest genre in the MMPB world. Harlequin has always courted newbie authors, famously taking unagented new writers when other New York publishers were (theoretically) requiring agent submissions more and more. They're also one of the most predatory of the publishers, and always have been; even when I was poking around on the het side of romance, I never had any aspirations of writing for Harlequin, and what I heard from other romance writers just reinforced that aversion.
Back in the late 80s and early 90s, I hung out on RomEx, a roundtable on GEnie that was the Romance Writers of America's (RWA's) online home at the time, and it was a great place. Lots of readers and writers -- both published and aspiring -- were members, and there was a lot of talk about writing and publishing, among other things. There were even published writers from other genres who hung out on RomEx because the writing talk was valuable for everyone.
One of the things I learned there was that, at the time, Harlequin's standard contract included a clause saying that you had to write under a pseudonym, and that Harlequin would own it. What that meant was that if a writer wanted to move on to another publisher, she had to start over with a new name, back in the days when communicating to all your readers that you were now writing under Jane Newname was even more difficult than it is now. This kept a lot of writers tethered to Harlequin, since moving on would most likely mean taking a sharp pay cut while they rebuilt their audience.
I heard a few years ago that Harlequin doesn't do that anymore. Well, okay, that's good. I don't know when they stopped, but the fact that they ever did it was enough to keep me away; corporate culture doesn't change that much over a decade or two, and a corporation willing to do something that skeevy, even in the past, is a corporation I'd just as soon not do business with.
Then last June, we heard that Harlequin was unilaterally changing royalty rates, notifying its authors via e-mail, and giving them a deadline to reply if they objected. Wow. So Harlequin might not be kidnapping your pseudonym anymore, but they think they can modify every active author contract they've got with a single e-mail and nobody's signature. Umm, sure. Definitely not interested in writing for Harlequin.
Now, Harlequin author Ann Voss Peterson is explaining why she can't afford to write for Harlquin anymore, despite great sales -- one book sold almost 200,000 copies, and she's never failed to earn out her advance in their first royalty period. And yet she can't afford to stay with them. It turns out that she's earning an average of 2.4% royalty on each copy sold.
Two-point-four percent? Seriously? We all know the New York publishers' royalty rates are predatory, especially on e-books, but Harlequin makes them look downright generous. Click through and read what Ms. Peterson has to say if you've ever considered writing for Harlequin, or even if you haven't. The math is horrifying. :/
Angie, still not at all interested in being a Harlequin author
Back in the late 80s and early 90s, I hung out on RomEx, a roundtable on GEnie that was the Romance Writers of America's (RWA's) online home at the time, and it was a great place. Lots of readers and writers -- both published and aspiring -- were members, and there was a lot of talk about writing and publishing, among other things. There were even published writers from other genres who hung out on RomEx because the writing talk was valuable for everyone.
One of the things I learned there was that, at the time, Harlequin's standard contract included a clause saying that you had to write under a pseudonym, and that Harlequin would own it. What that meant was that if a writer wanted to move on to another publisher, she had to start over with a new name, back in the days when communicating to all your readers that you were now writing under Jane Newname was even more difficult than it is now. This kept a lot of writers tethered to Harlequin, since moving on would most likely mean taking a sharp pay cut while they rebuilt their audience.
I heard a few years ago that Harlequin doesn't do that anymore. Well, okay, that's good. I don't know when they stopped, but the fact that they ever did it was enough to keep me away; corporate culture doesn't change that much over a decade or two, and a corporation willing to do something that skeevy, even in the past, is a corporation I'd just as soon not do business with.
Then last June, we heard that Harlequin was unilaterally changing royalty rates, notifying its authors via e-mail, and giving them a deadline to reply if they objected. Wow. So Harlequin might not be kidnapping your pseudonym anymore, but they think they can modify every active author contract they've got with a single e-mail and nobody's signature. Umm, sure. Definitely not interested in writing for Harlequin.
Now, Harlequin author Ann Voss Peterson is explaining why she can't afford to write for Harlquin anymore, despite great sales -- one book sold almost 200,000 copies, and she's never failed to earn out her advance in their first royalty period. And yet she can't afford to stay with them. It turns out that she's earning an average of 2.4% royalty on each copy sold.
Two-point-four percent? Seriously? We all know the New York publishers' royalty rates are predatory, especially on e-books, but Harlequin makes them look downright generous. Click through and read what Ms. Peterson has to say if you've ever considered writing for Harlequin, or even if you haven't. The math is horrifying. :/
Angie, still not at all interested in being a Harlequin author
Monday, May 7, 2012
April Stuff
Writing: 5058 = 1pt
Editing: 67,875 = 13pts
TOTAL = 14 pts
No subs last month, sucky writing, but lots of editing. That's probably not going to change this month, either, with my novel in process. I'm going to have about 5 days to do edits on 114K words toward the end of May, then it's going through two rounds of proofing (which I'll get to go over and make changes on) and they're looking to release in late July. [flail] This one's definitely going through faster than the last one, and once I get edits back I'm not going to have time for much else. Oh, did I mention the spousal unit and I are going on two out-of-town vacations...? We leave for a cruise (Alaska) this coming Friday, edits should be waiting for me when we get back on the 18th, I hope, and they're due on the 25th, which is when we fly down for BayCon so I have to get it all done in time to send it before I go.
I'm actually lucky my vacations dovetail with the schedule so well, otherwise we'd have to do some scrambling, and with a schedule this tight, that could've been awkward. On how long we have, I guess it's just a matter of what they have in the pipeline at the time and which slot they decide to put a book into. Hidden Magic got slotted far enough down the line that the schedule was almost leisurely (although it didn't feel quite so slow then), while Emerging Magic was slotted sooner and needs to hustle.
Still wish I were writing more, but at least I'll have a new book out soon, which is very cool. :)
Angie
Editing: 67,875 = 13pts
TOTAL = 14 pts
No subs last month, sucky writing, but lots of editing. That's probably not going to change this month, either, with my novel in process. I'm going to have about 5 days to do edits on 114K words toward the end of May, then it's going through two rounds of proofing (which I'll get to go over and make changes on) and they're looking to release in late July. [flail] This one's definitely going through faster than the last one, and once I get edits back I'm not going to have time for much else. Oh, did I mention the spousal unit and I are going on two out-of-town vacations...? We leave for a cruise (Alaska) this coming Friday, edits should be waiting for me when we get back on the 18th, I hope, and they're due on the 25th, which is when we fly down for BayCon so I have to get it all done in time to send it before I go.
I'm actually lucky my vacations dovetail with the schedule so well, otherwise we'd have to do some scrambling, and with a schedule this tight, that could've been awkward. On how long we have, I guess it's just a matter of what they have in the pipeline at the time and which slot they decide to put a book into. Hidden Magic got slotted far enough down the line that the schedule was almost leisurely (although it didn't feel quite so slow then), while Emerging Magic was slotted sooner and needs to hustle.
Still wish I were writing more, but at least I'll have a new book out soon, which is very cool. :)
Angie
Monday, April 23, 2012
New Contracts and a Sale
I just sent back the contract for Emerging Magic, the full length sequel to A Hidden Magic. At the same time, I signed a contract for a paperback edition of A Hidden Magic, which is awesome. :) I've been hoping for a paperback for a long time; I'm looking forward to signing a copy and handing it to my mom. I'm also interested to see whether there are any differences in the process, from my POV, for a paperback. I don't know whether Torquere does paper galleys, frex.; I never had a reason to ask before. I'll find out now.
Hidden Magic took almost exactly six months from acceptance to publication, and Emerging Magic is about 50% longer, so I imagine it'll take at least six months. At least it's in the pipeline, though. I haven't had anything new out in a while and I'm looking forward to getting back into it.
While I'm on the subject, Amazon has two of my books at 20% off:
A Hidden Magic is $5.59
A Spirit of Vengeance is $3.43
I have no idea how long these prices will last, but if you've been thinking of getting one or both, this is a good time.
Angie
Hidden Magic took almost exactly six months from acceptance to publication, and Emerging Magic is about 50% longer, so I imagine it'll take at least six months. At least it's in the pipeline, though. I haven't had anything new out in a while and I'm looking forward to getting back into it.
While I'm on the subject, Amazon has two of my books at 20% off:
A Hidden Magic is $5.59
A Spirit of Vengeance is $3.43
I have no idea how long these prices will last, but if you've been thinking of getting one or both, this is a good time.
Angie
Friday, April 20, 2012
A Good Negative Example
So I was clicking links from blog to blog and I came across something that was posted a year ago. It's okay that it's not current; the point I want to make about it is general rather than specific, so timing is irrelevant.
The blog post was called L.J. Smith Got Fired From Writing Her Own Novels. (For anyone who doesn't know, as I didn't, Ms. Smith wrote the books from which the TV show Vampire Diaries was made.)
Well, that perks up one's interest, particularly if one is a writer. Then I read the post, which purports to contain an actual e-mail written by Ms. Smith herself.
First a caveat: there's been some discussion as to whether this is authentic. Someone who linked it opined that, seeing as how no one -- not Ms. Smith herself and not her publisher -- had jumped up to refute it in the year since the post went up, it's probably authentic. I'm willing to buy that, so far as it goes.
Anyway, what actually happened was that Ms. Smith was approached by an agent (?) who worked for a book packager, with an offer of a job -- writing a series of books that'd already been created, as in the idea and characters and such had already been developed and they were just looking for someone to do the writing itself. It was a work for hire contract, so the packager owns the series and characters and such, not Ms. Smith. So when (about a year ago, I suppose) Ms. Smith was fired from writing "her" books, well, they were never actually her books.
Ms. Smith, in the e-mail which she supposedly wrote, said:
When I was called by an agent and asked to write the vampire trilogy, that agent wasn’t from a publisher, but from what is now Alloy Entertainment, Ltd. And they are a book packager. A book packager sells books, already made with covers and all, to publishers, like HarperCollins—my publisher for The Vampire Diaries and The Secret Circle. And both these series were written "for hire" which means that the book packager owns the books the author produces. Although I didn’t even understand what "for hire" meant back in 1990, when I agreed to write books for them, I found out eventually, to my horror and dismay. It means that even though I have written the entire series, I don’t own anything about The Vampire Diaries. And from now on, the books will be written by an anonymous ghostwriter, just as Stefan’s Diaries are. It will say "Created by L. J. Smith" on the cover, but I am not allowed even to change a word in the ghostwriter’s book.
She describes the work-for-hire process as though it's some sort of alien concept -- strange and confusing and clearly unethical -- she says, "You might wonder why the book packager and Harper would do this to me," as though the whole point is to Do Something To Her, as though it's obviously personal. They're being incredibly mean to her because they're mean people and they do mean things for no reason. And at the bottom of the letter, she says "I’ve worked so hard to make Vampire Diaries a good series, only to have the unthinkable happen to me. And I have no one but myself to blame for not being submissive enough."
[headdesk]
Ms. Smith's problem isn't that she's not submissive enough. Her problem is that she was incredibly ignorant of the business in which she works. Note that an agent of the packager approached her -- she had enough of a track record to draw that sort of offer. No one contacts a random unpublished newbie and offers this kind of opportunity, and looking through her Goodreads listings, there are a couple of books that came out before the earliest Vampire Diary book. So she wasn't a complete newbie, she was multi-published already, she'd been around -- and yet she'd never heard the term "work for hire?" Seriously?
And when she ran across a term in her contract that she didn't understand, she didn't ask anyone about it? I wonder if she even read her contract, or whether she just signed where the nice agent (who, from how she's described, worked for the packager and not for Ms. Smith) told her to? [sigh]
(I also wonder whether that agent got 15% of everything, despite representing the packager's interests and not Ms. Smith's.)
When I went to Oregon to take a workshop in March with Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Kathryn Rusch, there was a sign on the wall of the workshop room that said "You Are Responsible For Your Own Career." Dean and Kris both emphasize, in their workshops and on their blogs and in personal conversation, that writers need to treat writing as a business, to learn the business, to behave as businesspeople do in every other business. That means reading your contracts, it means getting a knowledgeable advocate on your side if you don't understand everything in your contract -- and that means an IP attorney, not an agent -- and it means being ready to walk away from a contract if the publisher (or packager, in this case) won't give on a contract clause that you personally consider a deal breaker. People who sign contracts they don't understand have no one to blame but themselves when those contracts turn around and bite them on the ass. Not understanding her contract was Ms. Smith's mistake, not being insufficiently submissive. On the contrary, she was far TOO submissive toward whoever it was who told her she should sign the contract without understanding all the terms in it.
What happened was Ms. Smith's fault and nobody else's. The packager and/or publisher didn't mistreat her -- she was hired to write their series. She apparently fought them on edits and disagreed with them on the direction the series should take, so they fired her and hired someone else who'd do the work as instructed. It was business and there was nothing personal about it; no one did anything "to" her.
Hopefully Ms. Smith will hire an IP attorney to go over her contracts from now on, and explain to her what they say and what it all means. If so, then she'll have learned something, and that'd be a positive outcome to an unfortunate episode. From everyone else's point of view, at least she can serve as a good negative example -- if you're a writer, don't do what she did.
Angie
The blog post was called L.J. Smith Got Fired From Writing Her Own Novels. (For anyone who doesn't know, as I didn't, Ms. Smith wrote the books from which the TV show Vampire Diaries was made.)
Well, that perks up one's interest, particularly if one is a writer. Then I read the post, which purports to contain an actual e-mail written by Ms. Smith herself.
First a caveat: there's been some discussion as to whether this is authentic. Someone who linked it opined that, seeing as how no one -- not Ms. Smith herself and not her publisher -- had jumped up to refute it in the year since the post went up, it's probably authentic. I'm willing to buy that, so far as it goes.
Anyway, what actually happened was that Ms. Smith was approached by an agent (?) who worked for a book packager, with an offer of a job -- writing a series of books that'd already been created, as in the idea and characters and such had already been developed and they were just looking for someone to do the writing itself. It was a work for hire contract, so the packager owns the series and characters and such, not Ms. Smith. So when (about a year ago, I suppose) Ms. Smith was fired from writing "her" books, well, they were never actually her books.
Ms. Smith, in the e-mail which she supposedly wrote, said:
When I was called by an agent and asked to write the vampire trilogy, that agent wasn’t from a publisher, but from what is now Alloy Entertainment, Ltd. And they are a book packager. A book packager sells books, already made with covers and all, to publishers, like HarperCollins—my publisher for The Vampire Diaries and The Secret Circle. And both these series were written "for hire" which means that the book packager owns the books the author produces. Although I didn’t even understand what "for hire" meant back in 1990, when I agreed to write books for them, I found out eventually, to my horror and dismay. It means that even though I have written the entire series, I don’t own anything about The Vampire Diaries. And from now on, the books will be written by an anonymous ghostwriter, just as Stefan’s Diaries are. It will say "Created by L. J. Smith" on the cover, but I am not allowed even to change a word in the ghostwriter’s book.
She describes the work-for-hire process as though it's some sort of alien concept -- strange and confusing and clearly unethical -- she says, "You might wonder why the book packager and Harper would do this to me," as though the whole point is to Do Something To Her, as though it's obviously personal. They're being incredibly mean to her because they're mean people and they do mean things for no reason. And at the bottom of the letter, she says "I’ve worked so hard to make Vampire Diaries a good series, only to have the unthinkable happen to me. And I have no one but myself to blame for not being submissive enough."
[headdesk]
Ms. Smith's problem isn't that she's not submissive enough. Her problem is that she was incredibly ignorant of the business in which she works. Note that an agent of the packager approached her -- she had enough of a track record to draw that sort of offer. No one contacts a random unpublished newbie and offers this kind of opportunity, and looking through her Goodreads listings, there are a couple of books that came out before the earliest Vampire Diary book. So she wasn't a complete newbie, she was multi-published already, she'd been around -- and yet she'd never heard the term "work for hire?" Seriously?
And when she ran across a term in her contract that she didn't understand, she didn't ask anyone about it? I wonder if she even read her contract, or whether she just signed where the nice agent (who, from how she's described, worked for the packager and not for Ms. Smith) told her to? [sigh]
(I also wonder whether that agent got 15% of everything, despite representing the packager's interests and not Ms. Smith's.)
When I went to Oregon to take a workshop in March with Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Kathryn Rusch, there was a sign on the wall of the workshop room that said "You Are Responsible For Your Own Career." Dean and Kris both emphasize, in their workshops and on their blogs and in personal conversation, that writers need to treat writing as a business, to learn the business, to behave as businesspeople do in every other business. That means reading your contracts, it means getting a knowledgeable advocate on your side if you don't understand everything in your contract -- and that means an IP attorney, not an agent -- and it means being ready to walk away from a contract if the publisher (or packager, in this case) won't give on a contract clause that you personally consider a deal breaker. People who sign contracts they don't understand have no one to blame but themselves when those contracts turn around and bite them on the ass. Not understanding her contract was Ms. Smith's mistake, not being insufficiently submissive. On the contrary, she was far TOO submissive toward whoever it was who told her she should sign the contract without understanding all the terms in it.
What happened was Ms. Smith's fault and nobody else's. The packager and/or publisher didn't mistreat her -- she was hired to write their series. She apparently fought them on edits and disagreed with them on the direction the series should take, so they fired her and hired someone else who'd do the work as instructed. It was business and there was nothing personal about it; no one did anything "to" her.
Hopefully Ms. Smith will hire an IP attorney to go over her contracts from now on, and explain to her what they say and what it all means. If so, then she'll have learned something, and that'd be a positive outcome to an unfortunate episode. From everyone else's point of view, at least she can serve as a good negative example -- if you're a writer, don't do what she did.
Angie
Monday, April 16, 2012
Anthology Markets
If you've just wandered in off the internet, hi and welcome. :) I do these posts every month, so if this post isn't dated in the same month you're in, click here to make sure you're seeing the most recent one.
Markets with specific deadlines are listed first, "Until Filled" markets are at the bottom. There are usually more details on the original site; always click through and read the full guidelines before submitting. Note that some publishers list multiple antho guidelines on one page, so after you click through you might have to scroll a bit.
Non-erotica/romance writers: check out Mark of the Beast, Mirror Shards, Sword and Sorceress, Bloodstones, Classical Horror, the Professor Challenger Anthology, Dark Trails, Extreme Planets, or A Killer Among Demons.
Note that Mortis Operandi has been filled.
***
1 May 2012 -- Mark of the Beast -- ed. Scott David Aniolowski, Chaosium, Inc.
Author and Editor Scott David Aniolowski is now accepting submissions for MARK OF THE BEAST; New Legends of the Werewolf, an anthology of werewolf tales to be published in late 2012 by Chaosium, Inc.
Werewolves have recently become very big in pop culture, thanks to the popularity of certain young adult novels and their movie adaptations. Unfortunately, our lycanthropic friends are now being portrayed as pouty, angsty, shirtless hunky teens, instead of savage, bestial figures from folklore and nightmares. It is my goal to assemble stories that put the horror back into the werewolf.
There are countless variations on the werewolf legend from around the world and throughout history. The more common causes for lycanthropy include being bitten by a wolf or werewolf, cursed by a Gypsy or witch, a family curse, donning an enchanted pelt, imbibing potions or poisons, selling your soul to the devil, falling from religious grace, etc. Some werewolves change from human to giant wolf – some to hybrid wolf-men. And the infliction strikes at various times, depending upon the legend: during a full moon, while under great emotional stress, when the pelt is worn or potion drank – or even at will – etc. Some werewolves are aware of their condition and remember everything when they change – others have no knowledge whatsoever, or experience memories as “nightmares”. Some are solitary – others live in packs. Silver kills some werewolves but not all. Clinical Lycanthropy is a real mental disorder wherein the sufferer believes he or she is a werewolf. And so on….
I want authors to explore different legends and aspects of the werewolf stories, and just about any genre is acceptable (Gothic horror, quiet horror, sci-fi, cyberpunk, splatter, psychological, Victorian London, the old west, folklore/urban legend, etc. -- NO HUMOR -- SERIOUS HORROR STORIES ONLY!) as long as the underlying theme is HORROR! Pop culture has turned the werewolf into dreamy poster boys and romance novel figures (don’t believe me? Browse Amazon.com and see for yourself how many werewolf romance novels there are!). I want to give the werewolf his balls back! I want to make him a figure of terror and nightmares again.
HERE'S THE IMPORTANT PART: Send submissions in MS Word doc. or rtf. files. Basic formatting: single spaced, aligned left, no tabs (double space between paragraphs ONLY), no page numbering, no headers or footers, etc. Considering short-shorts/flash fiction up to 8,000ish words. Poetry is okay, as well. Reprints will be considered only if they have previously appeared in very limited run publications (indicate previous publication along with date and approximate circulation). Payment is 3 cents a word for new works (possibly less for reprints), and 5 contributor copies of the published book. Publication will be in trade paperback format with an estimated release of late 2012. Deadline for submissions is May 1, 2012. DO NOT SEND ME RUN-OF-THE-MILL, STANDARD OR TYPICAL WEREWOLF STORIES. I WANT TO SEE SOMETHING NEW AND FRESH AND EXCITING!
***
5 May 2012 -- Mirror Shards, Vol. 2 -- Black Moon Books
Augmented reality holds the promise of great social change in both the near and far-flung futures. It’s also a wonderful medium for storytelling as information and graphics overlain eye-screens challenges the doors of perception and creates mixed-reality worlds to work and play. Black Moon Books is seeking stories between 3000 and 9000 words (soft edges) that utilize augmented reality as a way to explore the human condition. The stories can be set in any place, time, or genre, as long as the story cannot exist bereft of augmented reality. Feel free to explore the edges of the technology.
The anthology will pay from $0.02/word to $0.05/word. Minimum payment per word will be $0.02 for all accepted slush stories, but one pro paying slot ($0.05/word) will be given for the best story (Gold Prize.) Rights I’ll ask for include exclusivity for 3 months, First Electronic & First English-Language Book Rights. One copy will be provided for each author in the anthology.
Stories should be emailed to mirrorshards2012 (at) blackmoonbooks (dot) com and should follow standard manuscript formatting (courier new, 12 point, double spaced, etc.) The file should be attached as an .doc or .rtf (not .docx). Multiple submissions are welcome, though your best bet is to pick your best story and send only that one.
A brief cover letter listing current publication credits would be helpful in the body of the email. If you have received an honorable mention or above in the Writers of the Future contest, please note that.
The submission period for the anthology will be from February 11, 2012 to May 5, 2012. All story selections will be complete by May 10, 2012. Payment will be on acceptance and will be either mailed as a check or sent through PayPal. Publication date will be in early August. Accepted authors will also be required to provide a brief bio for the anthology. Authors are also encouraged to put their stories up online once the rights have reverted and will be requested (optional) to put a note in their stories linking back to the anthology to help each other (ie – if you liked this story, please check out other authors writing AR stories in...)
I will try to notify quickly for rejections. I will also notify authors of those stories I’m holding as a “maybe”. The latest possible date for all notifications, acceptance or rejection, will be May 10, 2012.
***
12 May 2012 -- Sword and Sorceress 27 -- ed. Elizabeth Waters
Stories should be the type generally referred to as "sword and sorcery" and must have a strong female protagonist whom the reader will care about. See Sword & Sorceress 22, Sword & Sorceress 23, Sword & Sorceress 24, and Sword & Sorceress 25, and Sword & Sorceress 26 (or S&S 1-20) for examples. We do not want stories with explicit sex, gratuitous violence, or profanity. We are NOT a market for poetry. We are willing to consider stories set in modern times (urban fantasy), but we won't buy more than one or two of those for the anthology. We always want something short and funny for the last story.
No reprints. No simultaneous submissions.
With regard to multiple submissions, do not submit more than one story at a time. If we've rejected your first one, you may send one more as long as it's before the deadline. We have occasionally bought someone's second sumbmission. We have never bought a third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, or eighth submission. If you send us two stories, and we don't hold either of them, wait until next year to try again. Please do not re-submit stories we have already rejected (including stories rejected in previous years).
If you have not previously sold to Sword & Sorceress, please read What is a Short Story? and Why Did my Story Get Rejected? before submitting to us.
Please do not explain or describe your story in the e-mail (cover letter). If your story can't stand on its own, fix the story.
Reading period: Saturday, April 14 to Friday, May 12, 2012. Stories received before or after this period will be deleted unread.
Response time is expected to follow MZB's traditional standards: you should hear within a week if we're holding your story for the final line-up or rejecting it.
Deadline: May 12, 2012.
Length: up to 9,000 words, with preference given to shorter stories. The longer a story is, the better it has to be. Long stories should be submitted early in the reading period.
Formatting and Submission:
Format with one-inch margins on all four sides of page.
Please do not use a header or footer.
Your name, full mailing address, and email address must be in the upper left corner, single spaced.
Skip two lines, center the text, then put the title, with your name (or byline) on the next line. We're not going to be as rigid as MZB was about pen names, but we expect them to be reasonable, rather than cute.
The rest of the manuscript should be single-spaced, with the first line of each paragraph indented 1/2 inch.
If you need to indicate a break, put "#" on a line by itself, centered.
Do not underline; use italics instead. Do not use bold face. We prefer Courier New font, size 12.
Word count will be determined by our word processor; that way it will be the same for everyone.
Save your document as an .rtf file (rich text format or interchange format, depending on what your computer calls it). E-mail as it as an attachment to mzbworks at yahoo dot com. The subject line should be "SS27, your last name, story title" (e.g.: SS27, Bradley, Dark Intruder) -- we don't want submissions caught in the spam filter.
Rights purchased: first rights, non-exclusive eBook and audio book rights.
Payment: 5 cents per word as an advance against a pro rata share of royalties and foreign or other sales.
***
15 May 2012 -- Bloodstones -- ed. Amanda Pillar, Ticonderoga Publications
This is the first in a series of anthologies from Ticonderoga Publications that will focus on non-traditional horror. I want stories that are horrific, but that also fit within other genres—let’s look beyond the borders. This year’s anthology will focus on non-traditional urban fantasy. This means that I don’t want stories that feature vampires, witches or werewolves; if you send one, it probably won’t make it through to the final cut.
Give me tales of Sirens, Harpies, Bunyips, goblins, djinns, Mesopotamian demons, deposed gods…characters that spill from mythology and into modern suburbia.
Any stories involving cultural borrowing from indigenous cultures should be respectful of the beliefs of the traditional owners.
Romantic elements are acceptable, as long as the story is dark and has horrific themes/elements.
The story must be set on contemporary Earth, but it can take place in a fictional city.
The anthology will be published by Ticonderoga Publications in late 2012.
Submission Guidelines:
Send me your best dark urban fantasy story.
== Story length 1,000 to 7,500 words. (Longer stories may be accepted, although payment is capped at 7,500).
== Original stories only: no reprints, multiple, or simultaneous submissions.
== Stories may be submitted via email at bloodstones@ticonderogapublications.com
== Manuscript format: double spaced, large margins, Times New Roman font, Australian English spelling.
== The editor reserve the right to use their discretion in selecting stories.
== Submission period: 1 February to 15 May, 2012
== Payment: 2 copies of anthology and Aus 2 cents/word (GST inc., maximum payment $150) on publication.
***
30 May 2012 -- Classical Horror -- ed. DF Lewis, Megazanthus Press
DF Lewis is intending to publish a Horror anthology book with the above title in 2012. (Horror stories, Weird Literature or Ghost Fiction.)
Each story must feature in some way Classical Music, i.e. from Bach to Britten.
Stories between 2000 and 10,000 words.
One-off payment upon publication: 1p (£0.01) per word
Submissions (not simultaneous or multiple) as a Word attachment to dflewis48@hotmail.com. (Please expect a simple acknowledgement within a few days of your submission. Otherwise please send it again.)
Stories must be previously unpublished.
As with the HA of HA, DF Lewis will edit, publish, design, typeset and print (via Lulu) this book. It will be distributed under an ISBN system.
NOTES:
I may need to keep your story for the whole reading-period but may not be able eventually to accept it depending on the timing of other acceptable stories being submitted to me over the period.
Some of my favourite composers: Brahms, Mahler, Beethoven, Shostakovich, Sibelius, Schubert…. And particularly interested in Chamber Music. Having said that, whatever the particular Classical Music chosen to feature in the story will not weigh in the balance as much as HOW it features.
Please see the HA of HA, for the type of story I favour.
As a paying market for writers, MEGAZANTHUS PRESS / NEMONYMOUS (2001 – 2011) has previously published 184 original stories by various authors. 'Classical Horror' follows in this tradition.
…Wagner (Parsifal), Glass (Akhnaten), Mozart (Requiem), Faure, Franck, Debussy, Ravel, Szymanowski, Penderecki, Anton Webern, Alban Berg, Schmidt, Ades, Null Immortalis etc etc
PS: I am keen to get horror stories about characters interacting in some way with classical music. Not necessarily horror stories about the plots of operas or the lives of composers.
PPS: IF THERE IS SOME OBSCURE PIECE OF CLASSICAL MUSIC YOU WOULD LIKE TO REQUEST AS INSPIRATION FOR A STORY, I MAY BE ABLE TO SEND IT TO YOU AS AN ADDRESS TO AN ON-LINE FILE.
***
31 May 2012 -- Professor Challenger Anthology -- ed. J.R. Campbell and Charles Prepolec, Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing
WHAT WE'RE AFTER:
A broad range of new and original stories built around Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's LOST WORLD character Professor George Edward Challenger. Stories derived from the aftermath of events in the Lost World are welcome however simply revisiting or rehashing the Lost World without good cause is not. Challenger is a man of science first and foremost, not an explorer. Mash-ups or crossovers with public domain literary characters are welcome.
For inspiration think X-files, Quartermass, DR. Who, cryptozoology, aliens among us, supernatural occurrences, science gone awry in a Dr. Moreau, Invisible Man, Dr Jekyll vein, nature run amuck, monsters large and small, world threatening cataclysm, Lovecraft mythos, think H.G. Wells, Jules Verne, E.R. Burroghs, John Wyndham, Nigel Kneale, alternate history, new lost places, steampunk, whatever -- Be creative.
Mine the potential for all it's worth! Push it out there, get weird, play, have fun!
SUBMISSION DETAILS:
== The anthology is part invitation and part open submission. Priority will be given to invited authors but an invitation to submit is not a guarantee of acceptance. A minimum of two slots will be held for open submissions. Acceptance is based entirely on suitability of story and quality of writing.
== The maximum length for stories is 10,000 words, with shorter works preferred.
== Do not query before submitting.
== Email submissions to: Charles@bakerstreetdozen.com
== Emails MUST contain the word "submission" in the subject line, or they will be deleted automatically by the server. Please also include the story title in the subject line.
== Submissions MUST come in an attachment: Rich Text Format (.rtf) or Microsoft Word (.doc) are the only acceptable formats.
== Emails MUST contain a cover letter in the body of the email; for security reasons, email attachments with no cover letter will be deleted unread and unanswered.
== Cover letter: include your name, the title of your story, your full contact information (address, phone, email), and a brief bio. Do not describe or summarize the story.
== Reprints (stories having previously appeared in English in any format, print or electronic, including but not limited to any form of web publication) will NOT be considered.
== Submission format: no strange formatting, colour fonts, changing fonts, borders, backgrounds, etc. Leave italics in italics, NOT underlined. Put your full contact information on the first page (name, address, email address, phone). No headers, no footers, no page numbering. DO NOT leave a blank line between paragraphs. Indent paragraphs. ALWAYS put a # to indicate scene breaks (a blank line is NOT enough).
== ALWAYS include your full contact information (name/address/email/phone number) on the first page of the attached submission.
== This is a professional market paying up to 5 cents per word plus a single copy of the book. Full rate to 7,500 words, half rate for balance to 10,000 words.
== Rights: for original fiction, first World English publication, with a two-month exclusive from publication date; for all, non-exclusive anthology rights; all other rights remain with the author.
== Spelling: the editors will consider stories using British, Canadian and American spellings.
== Response time: initial responses (no / rewrite request / hold for further consideration) will be prompt, usually within fifteen days. Please query if you've not heard back within 30 days.
== We do not advise that you submit more than one story.
== Simultaneous submissions are not encouraged but are acceptable. Should you receive a "rewrite request" or "hold for further consideration" response, please indicate immediately whether your story is under consideration anywhere else.
Email submissions to: Charles@bakerstreetdozen.com
***
1 June 2012 -- Weird Science -- Torquere Press
Who doesn’t love the idea of the mad scientist, working away in his lab, his sexy creature or lab assistant just waiting for him to notice them? Or what about the grad student who discovers just the potion that will make him the stud his oblivious roommate has always wanted...
That’s the idea behind the Weird Science anthology. We’re looking for sexy, romantic male/male stories about what happens when science gets wild and wonderful in the name of love. Make us laugh, make us fall in love, and make us happy at the end! We’re not looking for hard science fiction or horror for this anthology, but we do want fully realized stories with strong characters.
Stories should be between 5000 and 12000 words long, and should be submitted in full and include a synopsis and author biography in the cover letter. Please put your name or pseudonym in the manuscript as well as in your submission email.
Send submissions to submissions@torquerepress.com with Weird Science in the subject line. Payment is a $50.00 flat fee for first time electronic and print rights for three years, and a print copy of the book. No reprints, please. Deadline for submissions is June 1 2012 for an October 2012 publication.
***
1 June 2012 -- Dark Trails -- ed. Michael Knost
Payment: Pro rate, plus percentage of shared royalties.
No reprints and no trunk stories
Story length: Up to 7,500 words.
No multiple or simultaneous subs
Deadline: Friday, June 1, 2012 (Do not inquire on story status until after September 1, 2012)
Mail submissions, queries, or questions to:
Michael Knost
Dark Trails Anthology
PO Box 12
Logan, WV 25601
NO EMAIL SUBMISSIONS ACCEPTED.
Stories should be set as a weird western or dark western. Regardless of your use of “weird” or “dark" in the story, the main focus must be with the fact that is it a western FIRST.
I AM NOT INTERESTED IN MODERN WESTERNS.
Format your manuscript according to: http://www.shunn.net/format/story.html
Be sure to include your name, address, and email on the manuscript. If this information is not on the manuscript, I will reject it without reading.
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30 June 2012 -- Torn in Two -- Storm Moon Press
Expected Release: November 9, 2012
Genres: Any
Pairings: Bisexual
HEA or HFN Ending Required? Yes
It is often said that bisexual men are ‘torn in two’ by the opposing expectations from society. They are often accused of being confused or riding the proverbial fence between gay and straight. To many others, their attraction to men makes them ‘not straight’, while their attraction to women makes them ‘not gay’. It is this conflict that sets them apart and often ostracizes them from both communities. At Storm Moon Press, we’re of the mind that bisexual men are often misrepresented in fiction, and in this anthology, we would love to see that change for the better.
Torn In Two is a collection of short stories highlighting bisexual men, including their relationships with both men and women. We recognize that different characters will have different levels of interest in their partners, but above all else, we want to see stories that celebrate that diversity. These submissions need to contain an HEA/HFN ending, as we want to portray bisexual men in a positive, hopeful, and respectful way.
Authors will receive royalties as well as an initial payment of $50 for their story. This payment is not an advance and does not have to be earned out before royalties are paid. Royalties on individual e-book releases will be 50% of cover price on direct sales through Storm Moon Press' e-store, and 40% of cover price minus distribution costs for sales through third party vendors. In addition, authors will receive the same percentage royalty on sales of the anthology e-book divided equally among the authors, as well as 25% of cover price on direct sales of the print anthology through Storm Moon Press' e-store, and 20% of cover price minus distribution costs for sales through third party vendors, also divided equally among all authors. All royalties will be paid quarterly.
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30 June 2012 -- Extreme Planets Anthology -- Chaosium Inc.
Chaosium is expanding into new lines of speculative fiction. Extreme Planets will be the first of these publications, with a science fiction anthology of short stories set on or about alien worlds that push the limits of what we believe is possible in a planetary environment.
These could be planets with gravities many times that of the Earth or orbiting neutron stars so their oceans are elongated into egg shapes. Carbon worlds or diamond worlds, iron worlds, or planets with extremely elliptical orbits. Worlds made of exotic elements or with bizarre atmospheres. Planets were time and space behaves strangely or against the laws of physics. Even artificially created worlds can find a home in this anthology, either transformed by bizarre technology or the creation of alien civilisations. Mostly, we hope you dazzle us with worlds we haven’t even thought about.
So how to people survive on these extreme planets? Do human’s adapt the environment to suit their needs, such as through terraforming, or do they change their own bodies to survive, such as through pantropy or cybernetic enhancement. Can humans manipulate the environment or the laws of the universe itself, such as by creating artificial gravity, to survive in these conditions? For a rounded story, these concepts need to be addressed, because there is no story that does not address the human condition.
This is a science fiction anthology—no fantasy or horror. Good characters, engaging plots and mind-blowing settings are important to us, and we also like a good sense of adventure and mystery. Literary style is fine, so long as there is a plot. Most of all we are looking for the staple requirement of the SF genre: a sense of wonder.
The anthology will be printed in both trade paperback and online e-reader formats.
Submission guidelines
== Send us your best science fiction extreme planet story.
== Story length 4,000 to 10,000 words (We may accept a couple of novellas up to 20,000 words from established authors – please query). Payment will be US 3 cents a word and 3 contributor copies. Further copies can be purchased from the publisher for half price.
== Original stories only: no reprints, multiple, or simultaneous submissions.
== Stories may be submitted via email: extremeplanets [at] gmail [dot] com with EXTREME PLANETS [Story Title] by [Author Name] in the header.
== Manuscript format: double spaced, large margins, left justified, Times New Roman or Courier New font, US English spelling. Double quotation marks for speech, not single. RTF preferred but will accept DOC files. Manuscript is to include author’s name and contact details on first page.
== The editors reserve the right to use their discretion in selecting stories.
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30 June 2012 -- A Killer Among Demons -- ed. Craig Bezant, Dark Prints Press
A Killer Among Demons aims to encapsulate the deep, intriguing, and twisted tales that arise from the wonderful combination of paranormal/supernatural crime.
We are going to leave the guidelines quite open for this one because, to be honest, we want to be surprised. Not sure? Think of a crime that can’t be solved through traditional methods; a murder committed by a mythical creature that, by all means shouldn’t exist; an on-the-seat-of-your-chair thriller of ghostly comeuppance; a Scooby-Doo-type pulpy crime where the gang tries to rip off the mask of a monster, only to find it’s its real face; and so on…
This title will be published as both a limited print edition and an eBook/digital edition.
We are looking for short fiction 3,000 to 10,000 words in length. If you have work outside this range, please query before sending. Please submit one story at a time.
Please submit via the standard methods you have already taken the time to research – eg. A readable font, 11 or 12pt, 1.5 to double line spacing, a header with the title and your name, and PAGE NUMBERS. You may include a cover letter/intro about yourself and, specifically, your writing.
Payment is a flat fee of AUD$75.00 per story (regardless of length) for both Australian print rights and International Digital rights, plus a contributor’s copy of the print edition.
The editor for this anthology is Craig Bezant.
You can submit via e-mail at: submissions@darkprintspress.com.au
or via post at: PO BOX 3079, Joondalup, Western Australia, 6027
Response time is ~8 weeks. Please feel free to query after this time.
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UNTIL FILLED -- All Access Pass -- ed. Amelia G, Blue Blood Books ** First Posted July 2011
Short version of what I’m looking for is: well-crafted fiction or memoir, cool erotica with music and/or music culture as a central theme, $50 first run + reprint rights, $25 reprints. More formal version below.
Call for Submissions: All Access Pass
Backstage Passes editor Amelia G is reading for a sequel to her anthology of rock and roll erotica, called All Access Pass. Below are general fiction guidelines for Blue Blood fiction projects. For this book in specific, music must play a central role in the story. Events could take place at a punk club or an outdoor festival, characters may be musicians, music may just really speak to a particular character, but it needs to be important. Stories ranging from balls-out memoir or entirely fantastical vampire sex are all fine, within the appropriate theme and quality standards.
When submitting electronically, please make the subject of your email ALL ACCESS PASS SUBMISSION.
Before sending anything over, please ask yourself if your work passes the Blue Blood litmus test: Is it intelligent? Is it sexy? Is it edgy/counterculture? Is it cool? Email electronic submissions to submit@blueblood.net For submissions of fiction or nonfiction text, please have your writing in a Word document with a .doc suffix (not .docx), RTF, TXT, InDesign, or Open Office format. It is preferred if you include an author bio or link to your website or online profiles.
The All Access Pass anthology is seeking erotic stories with a counterculture feel — Gothic, industrial, techno, rave, punk, metal, dyke, mystery, gangster, hard-boiled, science fiction, cyberpunk, steampunk, vampire, werewolf, medieval etc. At the moment, our needs are for stories primarily from a male or female heterosexual viewpoint, lesbian viewpoint, or female bisexual viewpoint. Often, we can also place male homosexual and gender bender stories in anthologies. We look for work between 2,000 and 7,500 words. Most accepted fiction is shorter than 4,000 words. Death and horror elements are acceptable so long as they do not prevent the piece from being sex-positive. Characters may die but not as part of the sexuality. Kinky is great — leathersex, bondage, vampirism etc. are all fine. Negative attitudes about sexuality are not fine. All sex must be consensual and arousing. PLEASE DO NOT SEND US STORIES PROMOTING NAZIS, RAPE, INCEST, OR THE SEXUALIZATION OF MURDER. NO SNUFF, RACISM, OR HOMOPHOBIA. If you can write genuinely arousing fiction which still works as a story, do contact us. Payment is net 60 on on-sale date and we generally purchase first worldwide rights (exclusive from acceptance to one year after publication) along with nonexclusive reprint rights.
Markets with specific deadlines are listed first, "Until Filled" markets are at the bottom. There are usually more details on the original site; always click through and read the full guidelines before submitting. Note that some publishers list multiple antho guidelines on one page, so after you click through you might have to scroll a bit.
Non-erotica/romance writers: check out Mark of the Beast, Mirror Shards, Sword and Sorceress, Bloodstones, Classical Horror, the Professor Challenger Anthology, Dark Trails, Extreme Planets, or A Killer Among Demons.
Note that Mortis Operandi has been filled.
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1 May 2012 -- Mark of the Beast -- ed. Scott David Aniolowski, Chaosium, Inc.
Author and Editor Scott David Aniolowski is now accepting submissions for MARK OF THE BEAST; New Legends of the Werewolf, an anthology of werewolf tales to be published in late 2012 by Chaosium, Inc.
Werewolves have recently become very big in pop culture, thanks to the popularity of certain young adult novels and their movie adaptations. Unfortunately, our lycanthropic friends are now being portrayed as pouty, angsty, shirtless hunky teens, instead of savage, bestial figures from folklore and nightmares. It is my goal to assemble stories that put the horror back into the werewolf.
There are countless variations on the werewolf legend from around the world and throughout history. The more common causes for lycanthropy include being bitten by a wolf or werewolf, cursed by a Gypsy or witch, a family curse, donning an enchanted pelt, imbibing potions or poisons, selling your soul to the devil, falling from religious grace, etc. Some werewolves change from human to giant wolf – some to hybrid wolf-men. And the infliction strikes at various times, depending upon the legend: during a full moon, while under great emotional stress, when the pelt is worn or potion drank – or even at will – etc. Some werewolves are aware of their condition and remember everything when they change – others have no knowledge whatsoever, or experience memories as “nightmares”. Some are solitary – others live in packs. Silver kills some werewolves but not all. Clinical Lycanthropy is a real mental disorder wherein the sufferer believes he or she is a werewolf. And so on….
I want authors to explore different legends and aspects of the werewolf stories, and just about any genre is acceptable (Gothic horror, quiet horror, sci-fi, cyberpunk, splatter, psychological, Victorian London, the old west, folklore/urban legend, etc. -- NO HUMOR -- SERIOUS HORROR STORIES ONLY!) as long as the underlying theme is HORROR! Pop culture has turned the werewolf into dreamy poster boys and romance novel figures (don’t believe me? Browse Amazon.com and see for yourself how many werewolf romance novels there are!). I want to give the werewolf his balls back! I want to make him a figure of terror and nightmares again.
HERE'S THE IMPORTANT PART: Send submissions in MS Word doc. or rtf. files. Basic formatting: single spaced, aligned left, no tabs (double space between paragraphs ONLY), no page numbering, no headers or footers, etc. Considering short-shorts/flash fiction up to 8,000ish words. Poetry is okay, as well. Reprints will be considered only if they have previously appeared in very limited run publications (indicate previous publication along with date and approximate circulation). Payment is 3 cents a word for new works (possibly less for reprints), and 5 contributor copies of the published book. Publication will be in trade paperback format with an estimated release of late 2012. Deadline for submissions is May 1, 2012. DO NOT SEND ME RUN-OF-THE-MILL, STANDARD OR TYPICAL WEREWOLF STORIES. I WANT TO SEE SOMETHING NEW AND FRESH AND EXCITING!
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5 May 2012 -- Mirror Shards, Vol. 2 -- Black Moon Books
Augmented reality holds the promise of great social change in both the near and far-flung futures. It’s also a wonderful medium for storytelling as information and graphics overlain eye-screens challenges the doors of perception and creates mixed-reality worlds to work and play. Black Moon Books is seeking stories between 3000 and 9000 words (soft edges) that utilize augmented reality as a way to explore the human condition. The stories can be set in any place, time, or genre, as long as the story cannot exist bereft of augmented reality. Feel free to explore the edges of the technology.
The anthology will pay from $0.02/word to $0.05/word. Minimum payment per word will be $0.02 for all accepted slush stories, but one pro paying slot ($0.05/word) will be given for the best story (Gold Prize.) Rights I’ll ask for include exclusivity for 3 months, First Electronic & First English-Language Book Rights. One copy will be provided for each author in the anthology.
Stories should be emailed to mirrorshards2012 (at) blackmoonbooks (dot) com and should follow standard manuscript formatting (courier new, 12 point, double spaced, etc.) The file should be attached as an .doc or .rtf (not .docx). Multiple submissions are welcome, though your best bet is to pick your best story and send only that one.
A brief cover letter listing current publication credits would be helpful in the body of the email. If you have received an honorable mention or above in the Writers of the Future contest, please note that.
The submission period for the anthology will be from February 11, 2012 to May 5, 2012. All story selections will be complete by May 10, 2012. Payment will be on acceptance and will be either mailed as a check or sent through PayPal. Publication date will be in early August. Accepted authors will also be required to provide a brief bio for the anthology. Authors are also encouraged to put their stories up online once the rights have reverted and will be requested (optional) to put a note in their stories linking back to the anthology to help each other (ie – if you liked this story, please check out other authors writing AR stories in...)
I will try to notify quickly for rejections. I will also notify authors of those stories I’m holding as a “maybe”. The latest possible date for all notifications, acceptance or rejection, will be May 10, 2012.
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12 May 2012 -- Sword and Sorceress 27 -- ed. Elizabeth Waters
Stories should be the type generally referred to as "sword and sorcery" and must have a strong female protagonist whom the reader will care about. See Sword & Sorceress 22, Sword & Sorceress 23, Sword & Sorceress 24, and Sword & Sorceress 25, and Sword & Sorceress 26 (or S&S 1-20) for examples. We do not want stories with explicit sex, gratuitous violence, or profanity. We are NOT a market for poetry. We are willing to consider stories set in modern times (urban fantasy), but we won't buy more than one or two of those for the anthology. We always want something short and funny for the last story.
No reprints. No simultaneous submissions.
With regard to multiple submissions, do not submit more than one story at a time. If we've rejected your first one, you may send one more as long as it's before the deadline. We have occasionally bought someone's second sumbmission. We have never bought a third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, or eighth submission. If you send us two stories, and we don't hold either of them, wait until next year to try again. Please do not re-submit stories we have already rejected (including stories rejected in previous years).
If you have not previously sold to Sword & Sorceress, please read What is a Short Story? and Why Did my Story Get Rejected? before submitting to us.
Please do not explain or describe your story in the e-mail (cover letter). If your story can't stand on its own, fix the story.
Reading period: Saturday, April 14 to Friday, May 12, 2012. Stories received before or after this period will be deleted unread.
Response time is expected to follow MZB's traditional standards: you should hear within a week if we're holding your story for the final line-up or rejecting it.
Deadline: May 12, 2012.
Length: up to 9,000 words, with preference given to shorter stories. The longer a story is, the better it has to be. Long stories should be submitted early in the reading period.
Formatting and Submission:
Format with one-inch margins on all four sides of page.
Please do not use a header or footer.
Your name, full mailing address, and email address must be in the upper left corner, single spaced.
Skip two lines, center the text, then put the title, with your name (or byline) on the next line. We're not going to be as rigid as MZB was about pen names, but we expect them to be reasonable, rather than cute.
The rest of the manuscript should be single-spaced, with the first line of each paragraph indented 1/2 inch.
If you need to indicate a break, put "#" on a line by itself, centered.
Do not underline; use italics instead. Do not use bold face. We prefer Courier New font, size 12.
Word count will be determined by our word processor; that way it will be the same for everyone.
Save your document as an .rtf file (rich text format or interchange format, depending on what your computer calls it). E-mail as it as an attachment to mzbworks at yahoo dot com. The subject line should be "SS27, your last name, story title" (e.g.: SS27, Bradley, Dark Intruder) -- we don't want submissions caught in the spam filter.
Rights purchased: first rights, non-exclusive eBook and audio book rights.
Payment: 5 cents per word as an advance against a pro rata share of royalties and foreign or other sales.
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15 May 2012 -- Bloodstones -- ed. Amanda Pillar, Ticonderoga Publications
This is the first in a series of anthologies from Ticonderoga Publications that will focus on non-traditional horror. I want stories that are horrific, but that also fit within other genres—let’s look beyond the borders. This year’s anthology will focus on non-traditional urban fantasy. This means that I don’t want stories that feature vampires, witches or werewolves; if you send one, it probably won’t make it through to the final cut.
Give me tales of Sirens, Harpies, Bunyips, goblins, djinns, Mesopotamian demons, deposed gods…characters that spill from mythology and into modern suburbia.
Any stories involving cultural borrowing from indigenous cultures should be respectful of the beliefs of the traditional owners.
Romantic elements are acceptable, as long as the story is dark and has horrific themes/elements.
The story must be set on contemporary Earth, but it can take place in a fictional city.
The anthology will be published by Ticonderoga Publications in late 2012.
Submission Guidelines:
Send me your best dark urban fantasy story.
== Story length 1,000 to 7,500 words. (Longer stories may be accepted, although payment is capped at 7,500).
== Original stories only: no reprints, multiple, or simultaneous submissions.
== Stories may be submitted via email at bloodstones@ticonderogapublications.com
== Manuscript format: double spaced, large margins, Times New Roman font, Australian English spelling.
== The editor reserve the right to use their discretion in selecting stories.
== Submission period: 1 February to 15 May, 2012
== Payment: 2 copies of anthology and Aus 2 cents/word (GST inc., maximum payment $150) on publication.
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30 May 2012 -- Classical Horror -- ed. DF Lewis, Megazanthus Press
DF Lewis is intending to publish a Horror anthology book with the above title in 2012. (Horror stories, Weird Literature or Ghost Fiction.)
Each story must feature in some way Classical Music, i.e. from Bach to Britten.
Stories between 2000 and 10,000 words.
One-off payment upon publication: 1p (£0.01) per word
Submissions (not simultaneous or multiple) as a Word attachment to dflewis48@hotmail.com. (Please expect a simple acknowledgement within a few days of your submission. Otherwise please send it again.)
Stories must be previously unpublished.
As with the HA of HA, DF Lewis will edit, publish, design, typeset and print (via Lulu) this book. It will be distributed under an ISBN system.
NOTES:
I may need to keep your story for the whole reading-period but may not be able eventually to accept it depending on the timing of other acceptable stories being submitted to me over the period.
Some of my favourite composers: Brahms, Mahler, Beethoven, Shostakovich, Sibelius, Schubert…. And particularly interested in Chamber Music. Having said that, whatever the particular Classical Music chosen to feature in the story will not weigh in the balance as much as HOW it features.
Please see the HA of HA, for the type of story I favour.
As a paying market for writers, MEGAZANTHUS PRESS / NEMONYMOUS (2001 – 2011) has previously published 184 original stories by various authors. 'Classical Horror' follows in this tradition.
…Wagner (Parsifal), Glass (Akhnaten), Mozart (Requiem), Faure, Franck, Debussy, Ravel, Szymanowski, Penderecki, Anton Webern, Alban Berg, Schmidt, Ades, Null Immortalis etc etc
PS: I am keen to get horror stories about characters interacting in some way with classical music. Not necessarily horror stories about the plots of operas or the lives of composers.
PPS: IF THERE IS SOME OBSCURE PIECE OF CLASSICAL MUSIC YOU WOULD LIKE TO REQUEST AS INSPIRATION FOR A STORY, I MAY BE ABLE TO SEND IT TO YOU AS AN ADDRESS TO AN ON-LINE FILE.
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31 May 2012 -- Professor Challenger Anthology -- ed. J.R. Campbell and Charles Prepolec, Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing
WHAT WE'RE AFTER:
A broad range of new and original stories built around Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's LOST WORLD character Professor George Edward Challenger. Stories derived from the aftermath of events in the Lost World are welcome however simply revisiting or rehashing the Lost World without good cause is not. Challenger is a man of science first and foremost, not an explorer. Mash-ups or crossovers with public domain literary characters are welcome.
For inspiration think X-files, Quartermass, DR. Who, cryptozoology, aliens among us, supernatural occurrences, science gone awry in a Dr. Moreau, Invisible Man, Dr Jekyll vein, nature run amuck, monsters large and small, world threatening cataclysm, Lovecraft mythos, think H.G. Wells, Jules Verne, E.R. Burroghs, John Wyndham, Nigel Kneale, alternate history, new lost places, steampunk, whatever -- Be creative.
Mine the potential for all it's worth! Push it out there, get weird, play, have fun!
SUBMISSION DETAILS:
== The anthology is part invitation and part open submission. Priority will be given to invited authors but an invitation to submit is not a guarantee of acceptance. A minimum of two slots will be held for open submissions. Acceptance is based entirely on suitability of story and quality of writing.
== The maximum length for stories is 10,000 words, with shorter works preferred.
== Do not query before submitting.
== Email submissions to: Charles@bakerstreetdozen.com
== Emails MUST contain the word "submission" in the subject line, or they will be deleted automatically by the server. Please also include the story title in the subject line.
== Submissions MUST come in an attachment: Rich Text Format (.rtf) or Microsoft Word (.doc) are the only acceptable formats.
== Emails MUST contain a cover letter in the body of the email; for security reasons, email attachments with no cover letter will be deleted unread and unanswered.
== Cover letter: include your name, the title of your story, your full contact information (address, phone, email), and a brief bio. Do not describe or summarize the story.
== Reprints (stories having previously appeared in English in any format, print or electronic, including but not limited to any form of web publication) will NOT be considered.
== Submission format: no strange formatting, colour fonts, changing fonts, borders, backgrounds, etc. Leave italics in italics, NOT underlined. Put your full contact information on the first page (name, address, email address, phone). No headers, no footers, no page numbering. DO NOT leave a blank line between paragraphs. Indent paragraphs. ALWAYS put a # to indicate scene breaks (a blank line is NOT enough).
== ALWAYS include your full contact information (name/address/email/phone number) on the first page of the attached submission.
== This is a professional market paying up to 5 cents per word plus a single copy of the book. Full rate to 7,500 words, half rate for balance to 10,000 words.
== Rights: for original fiction, first World English publication, with a two-month exclusive from publication date; for all, non-exclusive anthology rights; all other rights remain with the author.
== Spelling: the editors will consider stories using British, Canadian and American spellings.
== Response time: initial responses (no / rewrite request / hold for further consideration) will be prompt, usually within fifteen days. Please query if you've not heard back within 30 days.
== We do not advise that you submit more than one story.
== Simultaneous submissions are not encouraged but are acceptable. Should you receive a "rewrite request" or "hold for further consideration" response, please indicate immediately whether your story is under consideration anywhere else.
Email submissions to: Charles@bakerstreetdozen.com
***
1 June 2012 -- Weird Science -- Torquere Press
Who doesn’t love the idea of the mad scientist, working away in his lab, his sexy creature or lab assistant just waiting for him to notice them? Or what about the grad student who discovers just the potion that will make him the stud his oblivious roommate has always wanted...
That’s the idea behind the Weird Science anthology. We’re looking for sexy, romantic male/male stories about what happens when science gets wild and wonderful in the name of love. Make us laugh, make us fall in love, and make us happy at the end! We’re not looking for hard science fiction or horror for this anthology, but we do want fully realized stories with strong characters.
Stories should be between 5000 and 12000 words long, and should be submitted in full and include a synopsis and author biography in the cover letter. Please put your name or pseudonym in the manuscript as well as in your submission email.
Send submissions to submissions@torquerepress.com with Weird Science in the subject line. Payment is a $50.00 flat fee for first time electronic and print rights for three years, and a print copy of the book. No reprints, please. Deadline for submissions is June 1 2012 for an October 2012 publication.
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1 June 2012 -- Dark Trails -- ed. Michael Knost
Payment: Pro rate, plus percentage of shared royalties.
No reprints and no trunk stories
Story length: Up to 7,500 words.
No multiple or simultaneous subs
Deadline: Friday, June 1, 2012 (Do not inquire on story status until after September 1, 2012)
Mail submissions, queries, or questions to:
Michael Knost
Dark Trails Anthology
PO Box 12
Logan, WV 25601
NO EMAIL SUBMISSIONS ACCEPTED.
Stories should be set as a weird western or dark western. Regardless of your use of “weird” or “dark" in the story, the main focus must be with the fact that is it a western FIRST.
I AM NOT INTERESTED IN MODERN WESTERNS.
Format your manuscript according to: http://www.shunn.net/format/story.html
Be sure to include your name, address, and email on the manuscript. If this information is not on the manuscript, I will reject it without reading.
***
30 June 2012 -- Torn in Two -- Storm Moon Press
Expected Release: November 9, 2012
Genres: Any
Pairings: Bisexual
HEA or HFN Ending Required? Yes
It is often said that bisexual men are ‘torn in two’ by the opposing expectations from society. They are often accused of being confused or riding the proverbial fence between gay and straight. To many others, their attraction to men makes them ‘not straight’, while their attraction to women makes them ‘not gay’. It is this conflict that sets them apart and often ostracizes them from both communities. At Storm Moon Press, we’re of the mind that bisexual men are often misrepresented in fiction, and in this anthology, we would love to see that change for the better.
Torn In Two is a collection of short stories highlighting bisexual men, including their relationships with both men and women. We recognize that different characters will have different levels of interest in their partners, but above all else, we want to see stories that celebrate that diversity. These submissions need to contain an HEA/HFN ending, as we want to portray bisexual men in a positive, hopeful, and respectful way.
Authors will receive royalties as well as an initial payment of $50 for their story. This payment is not an advance and does not have to be earned out before royalties are paid. Royalties on individual e-book releases will be 50% of cover price on direct sales through Storm Moon Press' e-store, and 40% of cover price minus distribution costs for sales through third party vendors. In addition, authors will receive the same percentage royalty on sales of the anthology e-book divided equally among the authors, as well as 25% of cover price on direct sales of the print anthology through Storm Moon Press' e-store, and 20% of cover price minus distribution costs for sales through third party vendors, also divided equally among all authors. All royalties will be paid quarterly.
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30 June 2012 -- Extreme Planets Anthology -- Chaosium Inc.
Chaosium is expanding into new lines of speculative fiction. Extreme Planets will be the first of these publications, with a science fiction anthology of short stories set on or about alien worlds that push the limits of what we believe is possible in a planetary environment.
These could be planets with gravities many times that of the Earth or orbiting neutron stars so their oceans are elongated into egg shapes. Carbon worlds or diamond worlds, iron worlds, or planets with extremely elliptical orbits. Worlds made of exotic elements or with bizarre atmospheres. Planets were time and space behaves strangely or against the laws of physics. Even artificially created worlds can find a home in this anthology, either transformed by bizarre technology or the creation of alien civilisations. Mostly, we hope you dazzle us with worlds we haven’t even thought about.
So how to people survive on these extreme planets? Do human’s adapt the environment to suit their needs, such as through terraforming, or do they change their own bodies to survive, such as through pantropy or cybernetic enhancement. Can humans manipulate the environment or the laws of the universe itself, such as by creating artificial gravity, to survive in these conditions? For a rounded story, these concepts need to be addressed, because there is no story that does not address the human condition.
This is a science fiction anthology—no fantasy or horror. Good characters, engaging plots and mind-blowing settings are important to us, and we also like a good sense of adventure and mystery. Literary style is fine, so long as there is a plot. Most of all we are looking for the staple requirement of the SF genre: a sense of wonder.
The anthology will be printed in both trade paperback and online e-reader formats.
Submission guidelines
== Send us your best science fiction extreme planet story.
== Story length 4,000 to 10,000 words (We may accept a couple of novellas up to 20,000 words from established authors – please query). Payment will be US 3 cents a word and 3 contributor copies. Further copies can be purchased from the publisher for half price.
== Original stories only: no reprints, multiple, or simultaneous submissions.
== Stories may be submitted via email: extremeplanets [at] gmail [dot] com with EXTREME PLANETS [Story Title] by [Author Name] in the header.
== Manuscript format: double spaced, large margins, left justified, Times New Roman or Courier New font, US English spelling. Double quotation marks for speech, not single. RTF preferred but will accept DOC files. Manuscript is to include author’s name and contact details on first page.
== The editors reserve the right to use their discretion in selecting stories.
***
30 June 2012 -- A Killer Among Demons -- ed. Craig Bezant, Dark Prints Press
A Killer Among Demons aims to encapsulate the deep, intriguing, and twisted tales that arise from the wonderful combination of paranormal/supernatural crime.
We are going to leave the guidelines quite open for this one because, to be honest, we want to be surprised. Not sure? Think of a crime that can’t be solved through traditional methods; a murder committed by a mythical creature that, by all means shouldn’t exist; an on-the-seat-of-your-chair thriller of ghostly comeuppance; a Scooby-Doo-type pulpy crime where the gang tries to rip off the mask of a monster, only to find it’s its real face; and so on…
This title will be published as both a limited print edition and an eBook/digital edition.
We are looking for short fiction 3,000 to 10,000 words in length. If you have work outside this range, please query before sending. Please submit one story at a time.
Please submit via the standard methods you have already taken the time to research – eg. A readable font, 11 or 12pt, 1.5 to double line spacing, a header with the title and your name, and PAGE NUMBERS. You may include a cover letter/intro about yourself and, specifically, your writing.
Payment is a flat fee of AUD$75.00 per story (regardless of length) for both Australian print rights and International Digital rights, plus a contributor’s copy of the print edition.
The editor for this anthology is Craig Bezant.
You can submit via e-mail at: submissions@darkprintspress.com.au
or via post at: PO BOX 3079, Joondalup, Western Australia, 6027
Response time is ~8 weeks. Please feel free to query after this time.
***
UNTIL FILLED -- All Access Pass -- ed. Amelia G, Blue Blood Books ** First Posted July 2011
Short version of what I’m looking for is: well-crafted fiction or memoir, cool erotica with music and/or music culture as a central theme, $50 first run + reprint rights, $25 reprints. More formal version below.
Call for Submissions: All Access Pass
Backstage Passes editor Amelia G is reading for a sequel to her anthology of rock and roll erotica, called All Access Pass. Below are general fiction guidelines for Blue Blood fiction projects. For this book in specific, music must play a central role in the story. Events could take place at a punk club or an outdoor festival, characters may be musicians, music may just really speak to a particular character, but it needs to be important. Stories ranging from balls-out memoir or entirely fantastical vampire sex are all fine, within the appropriate theme and quality standards.
When submitting electronically, please make the subject of your email ALL ACCESS PASS SUBMISSION.
Before sending anything over, please ask yourself if your work passes the Blue Blood litmus test: Is it intelligent? Is it sexy? Is it edgy/counterculture? Is it cool? Email electronic submissions to submit@blueblood.net For submissions of fiction or nonfiction text, please have your writing in a Word document with a .doc suffix (not .docx), RTF, TXT, InDesign, or Open Office format. It is preferred if you include an author bio or link to your website or online profiles.
The All Access Pass anthology is seeking erotic stories with a counterculture feel — Gothic, industrial, techno, rave, punk, metal, dyke, mystery, gangster, hard-boiled, science fiction, cyberpunk, steampunk, vampire, werewolf, medieval etc. At the moment, our needs are for stories primarily from a male or female heterosexual viewpoint, lesbian viewpoint, or female bisexual viewpoint. Often, we can also place male homosexual and gender bender stories in anthologies. We look for work between 2,000 and 7,500 words. Most accepted fiction is shorter than 4,000 words. Death and horror elements are acceptable so long as they do not prevent the piece from being sex-positive. Characters may die but not as part of the sexuality. Kinky is great — leathersex, bondage, vampirism etc. are all fine. Negative attitudes about sexuality are not fine. All sex must be consensual and arousing. PLEASE DO NOT SEND US STORIES PROMOTING NAZIS, RAPE, INCEST, OR THE SEXUALIZATION OF MURDER. NO SNUFF, RACISM, OR HOMOPHOBIA. If you can write genuinely arousing fiction which still works as a story, do contact us. Payment is net 60 on on-sale date and we generally purchase first worldwide rights (exclusive from acceptance to one year after publication) along with nonexclusive reprint rights.
Thursday, April 5, 2012
March Stuff and an Early April Mishap
Writing: 5997 words = 1
Editing: 114,093 words = 23
Sub: 1 loooong novel = 1
TOTAL = 25 points
I didn't look at my total until April, so of course I didn't have a chance to write another Three Freaking Words to get another writing point. [headdesk]
I finally finished Emerging Magic the sequel to A Hidden Magic. Actually, I finished it in February, but it took most of March to get through an editing pass and ready to submit, but it's in, yay! This sucker's taken more than twice as long as I thought it would, and having it finally finished feels wonderful. :)
I'm visiting my mom in Reno over Easter, and the world is letting me know I should've stayed home. :/ I only have one pair of jeans that fit, so I wore them up here, and brought a couple of pairs of sweats to sleep in, and bum around the house in, and hopefully wear to the gym if I can go with my brother whenever he goes. Also brought a skirt in case we go somewhere fancy for Easter dinner. So I flew up Tuesday, and when I got in, my mom made me a cup of hot chocolate. She has a tablecloth on her table, which I'm not used to, and somehow while sitting down to drink (with the cup at my place already) I managed to catch the tablecloth on... I don't even know what, maybe I sat on it somehow, although I didn't think it was that long. Anyway, next thing I know the cup's fallen over and I have HOT chocolate all in my lap and some on my top, and a second later it soaks through and it's freaking HOT! Damn!
So I go change out of my jeans and top, put on a pair of sweats and a T-shirt, and put my jeans and top and the tablecloth and the placemat and all in the laundry. They wash, and I put 'em in the dryer when I go to bed.
Yesterday, we're going grocery shopping so I go to get dressed. Get my jeans out of the dryer... and there's a huge shredded rip down the seam in the seat! [headdesk] Totally ruined. The washing machine just ate my jeans, and of course they're all I have. :(
I get online and go to the site where I bought the jeans to get more. Can't just go out and buy a pair; no stores I know of carry pants for women who are tall and fat both, right there on the rack. I wear a 24T, and the only way to get those is mail order, and not from very many places even that way. :/ So I go to Woman Within, and sure enough they have a nice selection. I pick a couple of pairs, both on sale yay, and order. I was originally thinking to just have them sent home and that I'd be wearing sweats the rest of my time here (got the skirt, but I don't like wearing them unless I have to) but I see the site has a super-duper express-zoom delivery option that'll get you your stuff the next business day if you order before 4pm Eastern, for only twenty dollars extra on the delivery charge. O_O Okay, yeah, it's a lot, but if I can get jeans to wear while I'm here, that's awesome. The stuff I ordered was on sale, so it sort of makes up for the delivery charge, right? :P So I change delivery to Mom's address and go for it. By this time it's like three minutes after 1 here, which is 4 on the east coast, so I'm hoping it'll sneak in and be delivered tomorrow (which would be today now) and if not then it'll come on Friday and that's still good.
I hit confirm order and it chugs along... and the confirmation screen comes up showing regular delivery to Mom's address, estimated delivery date April 14th. WTF?? O_O
I won't even be here then! :( :( :( Something screwed up, and I'm pissed off.
So I send an e-mail to their customer service address, explain what happened and why this is completely unacceptable. I tell them I want delivery expedited to arrive either Thursday, or Friday at the very latest, or I want the order cancelled, one or the other. Hit send, then we go off grocery shopping with me in my sweats.
Give them credit, by the time we got back, there was an answer in my e-mail with an apology for the screw-up. The Customer Service lady said she'd make sure I got my stuff on Friday. We'll see. If so, then cool. I still wish their system had worked the way it was supposed to the first time, but an efficient and prompt fix is what you want from a good company. Everybody makes mistakes; what separates the good companies (and people) from the bad is what they do after they've made the mistake.
I hope everyone has a great Easter, or just a great weekend if you don't observe the holiday. [wave/hugz]
Angie, hanging out in sweats in Reno
Editing: 114,093 words = 23
Sub: 1 loooong novel = 1
TOTAL = 25 points
I didn't look at my total until April, so of course I didn't have a chance to write another Three Freaking Words to get another writing point. [headdesk]
I finally finished Emerging Magic the sequel to A Hidden Magic. Actually, I finished it in February, but it took most of March to get through an editing pass and ready to submit, but it's in, yay! This sucker's taken more than twice as long as I thought it would, and having it finally finished feels wonderful. :)
I'm visiting my mom in Reno over Easter, and the world is letting me know I should've stayed home. :/ I only have one pair of jeans that fit, so I wore them up here, and brought a couple of pairs of sweats to sleep in, and bum around the house in, and hopefully wear to the gym if I can go with my brother whenever he goes. Also brought a skirt in case we go somewhere fancy for Easter dinner. So I flew up Tuesday, and when I got in, my mom made me a cup of hot chocolate. She has a tablecloth on her table, which I'm not used to, and somehow while sitting down to drink (with the cup at my place already) I managed to catch the tablecloth on... I don't even know what, maybe I sat on it somehow, although I didn't think it was that long. Anyway, next thing I know the cup's fallen over and I have HOT chocolate all in my lap and some on my top, and a second later it soaks through and it's freaking HOT! Damn!
So I go change out of my jeans and top, put on a pair of sweats and a T-shirt, and put my jeans and top and the tablecloth and the placemat and all in the laundry. They wash, and I put 'em in the dryer when I go to bed.
Yesterday, we're going grocery shopping so I go to get dressed. Get my jeans out of the dryer... and there's a huge shredded rip down the seam in the seat! [headdesk] Totally ruined. The washing machine just ate my jeans, and of course they're all I have. :(
I get online and go to the site where I bought the jeans to get more. Can't just go out and buy a pair; no stores I know of carry pants for women who are tall and fat both, right there on the rack. I wear a 24T, and the only way to get those is mail order, and not from very many places even that way. :/ So I go to Woman Within, and sure enough they have a nice selection. I pick a couple of pairs, both on sale yay, and order. I was originally thinking to just have them sent home and that I'd be wearing sweats the rest of my time here (got the skirt, but I don't like wearing them unless I have to) but I see the site has a super-duper express-zoom delivery option that'll get you your stuff the next business day if you order before 4pm Eastern, for only twenty dollars extra on the delivery charge. O_O Okay, yeah, it's a lot, but if I can get jeans to wear while I'm here, that's awesome. The stuff I ordered was on sale, so it sort of makes up for the delivery charge, right? :P So I change delivery to Mom's address and go for it. By this time it's like three minutes after 1 here, which is 4 on the east coast, so I'm hoping it'll sneak in and be delivered tomorrow (which would be today now) and if not then it'll come on Friday and that's still good.
I hit confirm order and it chugs along... and the confirmation screen comes up showing regular delivery to Mom's address, estimated delivery date April 14th. WTF?? O_O
I won't even be here then! :( :( :( Something screwed up, and I'm pissed off.
So I send an e-mail to their customer service address, explain what happened and why this is completely unacceptable. I tell them I want delivery expedited to arrive either Thursday, or Friday at the very latest, or I want the order cancelled, one or the other. Hit send, then we go off grocery shopping with me in my sweats.
Give them credit, by the time we got back, there was an answer in my e-mail with an apology for the screw-up. The Customer Service lady said she'd make sure I got my stuff on Friday. We'll see. If so, then cool. I still wish their system had worked the way it was supposed to the first time, but an efficient and prompt fix is what you want from a good company. Everybody makes mistakes; what separates the good companies (and people) from the bad is what they do after they've made the mistake.
I hope everyone has a great Easter, or just a great weekend if you don't observe the holiday. [wave/hugz]
Angie, hanging out in sweats in Reno
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Pitching Guest Posts
I just got an e-mail from a stranger offering to write a guest post for me. Okay, I'm open to the idea. Except in this case, the pitch letter was very badly written. (A couple of sentences had no period, and one sentence had two periods; maybe he thought they averaged out? plus the plural intro to a singular example, and the fragment that just wandered off into the ether.) Also, the one topic suggested had nothing whatsoever to do with writing or publishing or e-books, my usual topics, nor even about social justice issues, which I also blog about sometimes. It sounded like this person had already written a post on tips for "medical health insurance" (redundant, anyone?) and was sending a generic (badly written) letter to as many blog owners as he could find and hoping someone bit. He said he'd read "http://angiesdesk.blogspot.com" -- yes, the full URL rather than the blog's name -- but looking at the topic he suggested, I frankly don't believe him.
I have to say, I wasn't at all impressed. I wrote up a critique of the pitch letter and sent it back, because I'm a writer and this guy presenting himself as a writer sort of ticked me off.
A couple of years ago, I got another offer from a stranger for a guest post. This one actually sent me a custom letter, or possibly a generic letter that was well enough written to look custom, which is close enough. We went back and forth in e-mail a couple of times, and I told him that I usually post about writing, publishing, e-books, that sort of thing, and that I'd look at anything he came up with on those topics. I should've been more specific.
Again, I got the impression the guy -- despite his apparently personal approach and his discussions with me -- had never actually read my blog. What I got back a few days later was a post on "E-Books 101," a sort of, "Electronic books, or e-books, are a rapidly growing phenomenon in the publishing world. An e-book is an electronic media file..." blah-blah-blah, basically explaining what an e-book was and how it worked and cetera, as though writing for an audience who'd never heard of them before.
Umm, no. Anyone who reads my blog knows what an e-book is [cough] and probably knows more about them than this guy did, even after he did his research and wrote the piece. It sounded like he hit Wikipedia or something, then summarized the basics.
After these experiences, the primary advice I'd give anyone who wants to go around pitching random guest posts is to READ THE BLOG YOU'RE PITCHING TO. That should be pretty basic, right? Apparently not.
Know your audience, which is the audience of the blog you're pitching. Just because a topic is new to you doesn't mean it's new to the readers of that blog. Read the blog, see what's been discussed in the last dozen posts at least, and note the level of discussion. A blog by an electronically published writer, addressing other writers, isn't going to need an "E-Books 101" type post; that's ridiculously elementary for a professional audience. That's like going to a blog for foodies and pitching an article on the difference between stirring and folding, or a post explaining what truffles are. :/
Write to the level of your target audience. If that's going to require significant research on your part, then it will; consider that before sending off your pitch.
And if you plan to pitch your writing skills, learn to write first -- bad grammar and punctuation in your pitch letter aren't going to win you any gigs. [eyeroll]
I'm open to guest posts, but I'm not going to loan my soapbox for just anything. As anyone who looks at my calendar list can tell, I'm not exactly desperate to keep up a steady stream of material here. I post when I have something to talk about, and if I don't then I don't. I'm okay with that, and I'm not going to post something I don't think folks who read here will be interested in just to get something up that day or that week. Particularly if I've never heard of the writer, I'm going to be pretty choosy about guest material; random pitches, even if well written (which the first one from a couple of years ago was) aren't going to make the cut.
Angie
I have to say, I wasn't at all impressed. I wrote up a critique of the pitch letter and sent it back, because I'm a writer and this guy presenting himself as a writer sort of ticked me off.
A couple of years ago, I got another offer from a stranger for a guest post. This one actually sent me a custom letter, or possibly a generic letter that was well enough written to look custom, which is close enough. We went back and forth in e-mail a couple of times, and I told him that I usually post about writing, publishing, e-books, that sort of thing, and that I'd look at anything he came up with on those topics. I should've been more specific.
Again, I got the impression the guy -- despite his apparently personal approach and his discussions with me -- had never actually read my blog. What I got back a few days later was a post on "E-Books 101," a sort of, "Electronic books, or e-books, are a rapidly growing phenomenon in the publishing world. An e-book is an electronic media file..." blah-blah-blah, basically explaining what an e-book was and how it worked and cetera, as though writing for an audience who'd never heard of them before.
Umm, no. Anyone who reads my blog knows what an e-book is [cough] and probably knows more about them than this guy did, even after he did his research and wrote the piece. It sounded like he hit Wikipedia or something, then summarized the basics.
After these experiences, the primary advice I'd give anyone who wants to go around pitching random guest posts is to READ THE BLOG YOU'RE PITCHING TO. That should be pretty basic, right? Apparently not.
Know your audience, which is the audience of the blog you're pitching. Just because a topic is new to you doesn't mean it's new to the readers of that blog. Read the blog, see what's been discussed in the last dozen posts at least, and note the level of discussion. A blog by an electronically published writer, addressing other writers, isn't going to need an "E-Books 101" type post; that's ridiculously elementary for a professional audience. That's like going to a blog for foodies and pitching an article on the difference between stirring and folding, or a post explaining what truffles are. :/
Write to the level of your target audience. If that's going to require significant research on your part, then it will; consider that before sending off your pitch.
And if you plan to pitch your writing skills, learn to write first -- bad grammar and punctuation in your pitch letter aren't going to win you any gigs. [eyeroll]
I'm open to guest posts, but I'm not going to loan my soapbox for just anything. As anyone who looks at my calendar list can tell, I'm not exactly desperate to keep up a steady stream of material here. I post when I have something to talk about, and if I don't then I don't. I'm okay with that, and I'm not going to post something I don't think folks who read here will be interested in just to get something up that day or that week. Particularly if I've never heard of the writer, I'm going to be pretty choosy about guest material; random pitches, even if well written (which the first one from a couple of years ago was) aren't going to make the cut.
Angie
Saturday, March 10, 2012
Anthology Markets
If you've just wandered in off the internet, hi and welcome. :) I do these posts every month, so if this post isn't dated in the same month you're in, click here to make sure you're seeing the most recent one.
Markets with specific deadlines are listed first, "Until Filled" markets are at the bottom. There are usually more details on the original site; always click through and read the full guidelines before submitting. Note that some publishers list multiple antho guidelines on one page, so after you click through you might have to scroll a bit.
Non-erotica/romance writers: check out Bibliotheca Fantastica, King David and the Spiders from Mars, Campfire Tales, Mark of the Beast, Mirror Shards, Sword and Sorceress, Bloodstones, Classical Horror, the Professor Challenger Anthology, Dark Trails, and Mortis Operandi.
***
31 March 2012 -- Picking Up the Pieces -- Storm Moon Press
Expected Release: August 3, 2012
Genres: Paranormal, Sci-Fi, Urban Fantasy
Pairings: Bisexual
HEA or HFN Ending Required? No
The world has ended. No, it wasn’t the zombies. It wasn’t even by supernatural forces (aliens, vampires, religious/The Rapture, etc). What happened is up to you, but for this anthology, we’re looking for natural causes such as meteors, viruses, technology going haywire, or even nuclear winter. Whether you send the survivors into the wild or up into space, Picking Up the Pieces is the perfect opportunity to explore the major shifts of society and sexuality while putting a focus on bisexuality in particular.
We’re looking for short stories that show characters dealing with the fall-out after the apocalypse. This can include a restructuring of gender roles, bisexuality becoming a necessity due to one sex being nearly wiped out, etc. Be creative and show us your best bisexual characters struggling to survive and find a bit of romance at the same time.
Authors will receive royalties as well as an initial payment of $50 for their story. This payment is not an advance and does not have to be earned out before royalties are paid. Royalties on individual e-book releases will be 50% of cover price on direct sales through Storm Moon Press' e-store, and 40% of cover price minus distribution costs for sales through third party vendors. In addition, authors will receive the same percentage royalty on sales of the anthology e-book divided equally among the authors, as well as 25% of cover price on direct sales of the print anthology through Storm Moon Press' e-store, and 20% of cover price minus distribution costs for sales through third party vendors, also divided equally among all authors. All royalties will be paid quarterly.
***
31 March 2012 -- Bibliotheca Fantastica -- ed. Claude Lalumière and Don Pizarro, Dagan Books
What we want: Stories having to do with lost, rare, weird, or imaginary books, or any aspect of book history or book culture, past, present, future, or uchronic. Any genre. Although the fantastical is not essential per se, stories should evoke a sense of the fantastic, the unknown, the weird, wonder, terror, mystery, pulp, and/or adventure, etc.
Originals only, no reprints. No simultaneous submissions. Accepting stories of up to 10,000 words in length. We will accept two submissions per author.
We will accept submissions from December 15, 2011, at noon EST, to midnight EST on March 31, 2012. We are taking submissions through an automated system that will not allow you to submit before December 15, but the link to do so will appear here: http://daganbooks.submishmash.com/submit
Dagan Books is paying 2 cents per word for each accepted story, plus contributor copies. Bibliotheca Fantastica will be available in both print and ebook, and is scheduled to be published Fall 2012.
***
31 March 2012 -- King David and the Spiders from Mars -- ed. Tim Lieder, Dybbuk Press
Due to the positive response to She Nailed a Stake Through His Head: Tales of Biblical Terror, I will be editing another Bible-themed anthology. Tentatively titled King David & The Spiders from Mars: More Tales of Biblical Terror, this will be a Bible-themed horror anthology specifically based on The Book of Samuel. Some of my favorite stories from the first anthology were David centered including Elissa Malcohn's "Judgement at Naioth" and Christi Krug's "As If Favorites of Their God."
What I'm Looking For: Short stories, ideally between 1000-12000 words. All stories must be based in some way on the book of Samuel (usually edited to be 1 & 2) which is the story about how Israel transitioned from a Judge based society to a kingdom under King David. Even though this is primarily a horror anthology, I'm willing to look at stories that fall into different categories including bizarro, science fiction, fantasy, literary and romance (although if you write a romance between Tamar and Amnon, I'm going to be worried about you and not in a good way). There are several stories within Samuel including the madness of Saul, the end of Eli's family as the major priesthood, David & Goliath and the death of Absalom so feel free to use whatever inspires you. Also, even though the Book of Ruth is a completely different book, it serves as a prequel to the David saga so if you got a great Ruth story, I will read it.
Update: Since I am not getting many stories thus far, I will accept stories from the rest of the Bible so if you have this awesome Elijah or Jonah story, feel free to send it. I will still appreciate the stories from the Book of Samuel more and may give them greater consideration but I won't reject a story because it's from a different part of the Bible.
Check out this Amazon List for reading suggestions. Please at least read the book of Samuel once to get the flavor of the stories. If you only know the story of David & Goliath, you will be at a disadvantage since that's the most popular story in the bunch and you will have a lot of competition.
Also, if you are going to do a David & Goliath story read the original. This is a much more interesting story than the children's books would have you believe and all that "come from behind victory" blather is inaccurate (not to mention boring as hell).
Other Suggestions:
Retellings of Biblical Stories from the perspective of another character.
Kiastic Storytelling
Deconstructionist Commentary akin to Rashi
Biblical stories retold in different literary styles (high adventure, Victorian, Romance, Mystery, etc.)
Modern stories told in the Biblical style (Best use Robert Alter's Art of Biblical Poetry and Art of Biblical Narrative if you want a crash course)
Parodies of Prophets
"Queen Esther vs. The Brain Eating Penis Monster from Outer Space" (note that just sticking this title on a lame story is not going to endear you to me. Write a story that would justify this kind of title and I'm interested)
Biblical Movie Parodies
I am also impressed by the following: original takes on classic stories, strong female characters, stories that actually understand the original tales, style.
Formatting Guidelines: Please use Standard Manuscript format. I am going to be a little more hard on people not using this format since the last time I had stories where I couldn't get back to the writers because they neglected to put their emails on the stories so I had no way of knowing how to tell them that they were rejected. One even made it to the Maybe pile. Please submit in .rtf or .doc.
What I am not Looking For: I have a blog post for the first Bible anthology where I go off on the "do not want" list. It basically comes down to "no preachiness" which is the major pitfall for people tackling these kind of stories. I don't want a story with an agenda - whether it's atheist, Christian or Jewish. I am not interested in other stories in the Bible. Do not set a Sodom & Gomorrah story in San Francisco. Do not send poetry. Do not retell a Bible story from a character's perspective that adds absolutely nothing to the narrative. In the last anthology, I got a bunch of stories that had to stop to tell me that "Jesus is love" but since this one is about King David, I figure there will be less of those in this slush pile. Still, don't do that.
Also note that all snotty replies to rejections will be aired publicly on this blog and mocked mercilessly.
Pay: $100 advance against equal share of royalties - to be paid out no later than publication.
Reading Period: November 1, 2011 - January 31, 2012. All stories submitted before November 1 will be deleted unread. Although that's the best case scenario. If I do read them I will mock them on this blog. I am using a three month window as well as waiting until November 1 because I don't want trunk stories and I doubt anyone has been submitting their awesome King David Rips Off Foreskins story to markets until now. This gives you time to write an original story and send it by November 1 or to spend about 4 months perfecting it until it's ready at the end of January.
Reprints. Yes. Same price. Make sure you tell me where it was originally published and that it is available for reprint right sales.
Send to: timlieder1 - at - gmail.com
***
1 April 2012 -- Masks Off! -- Torquere Press
Everyone loves a masquerade, right? The masks, the mystery, the seduction of the reveal! Now imagine a masquerade with an extra layer: some of the men wear a mask beneath their mask. They're shapeshifters. Be they cats or canines, dragons or foxes, all shifters are welcome, as long they don't forget to wear a mask.
We’re looking for sexy, romantic male/male tales for Masks Off! In which at least one partner is a shifter. Light BDSM is welcome, but is not mandatory. Stories should be between 5000 and 12000 words long, and should be submitted in full and include a synopsis and author biography in the cover letter. Please put your name or pseudonym in the manuscript as well as in your submission email.
Send submissions to submissions@torquerepress.com with Masks Off! in the subject line. Payment is a $50.00 flat fee for first time electronic and print rights for three years, and a print copy of the book. No reprints, please. Deadline for submissions is April 1, 2012 for an August 2012 publication.
***
17 April 2012 -- Campfire Tales -- Cool Well Press
Think back to when you were a kid and your family went camping. Late in the evening, you would sit next to the crackling campfire, burning popcorn, and getting sticky from making Smores. The night sounds were all around you—the haunting call of loons on the nearby lake, the gentle lap of water against the dock, the chirping crickets, the scuffling and thumping of animals moving around in the forest. Dad would lean back in his camp chair and start to tell stories. Dad was a pretty animated piece of work, especially when he was trying to scare you. He would often tell tales from legends he'd heard about when he was a kid. Stories about Big Foot, the evil Puckwudgies, giant thunderbirds, huge lake monsters, fiendish witches and nasty shape shifters. Dad always had a story, and after he told it, you laid awake in your sleeping bag all night, listening...
COOL WELL PRESS is opening a call for submissions for their new young adult anthology, CAMPFIRE TALES, to be published in July 2012. We want your best campfire tales based on legends and lore from all over the world. Stories may be set in any era or locale, and is targeted for 11 to 15 year old readers. No sexually explicit stories. These should have a paranormal flare and be 2,500 to 5,000 words. Deadline is April 17, 2012. Please follow the submission guidelines when preparing your manuscript. Send completed submission to denise@coolwellpress.com and mark the subject of the email as CAMPFIRE TALES.
Authors whose stories are accepted will be sent a contract. Compensation will be a one-time payment at .10 per word and a copy of each format of the final anthology.
***
1 May 2012 -- Mark of the Beast -- ed. Scott David Aniolowski, Chaosium, Inc.
Author and Editor Scott David Aniolowski is now accepting submissions for MARK OF THE BEAST; New Legends of the Werewolf, an anthology of werewolf tales to be published in late 2012 by Chaosium, Inc.
Werewolves have recently become very big in pop culture, thanks to the popularity of certain young adult novels and their movie adaptations. Unfortunately, our lycanthropic friends are now being portrayed as pouty, angsty, shirtless hunky teens, instead of savage, bestial figures from folklore and nightmares. It is my goal to assemble stories that put the horror back into the werewolf.
There are countless variations on the werewolf legend from around the world and throughout history. The more common causes for lycanthropy include being bitten by a wolf or werewolf, cursed by a Gypsy or witch, a family curse, donning an enchanted pelt, imbibing potions or poisons, selling your soul to the devil, falling from religious grace, etc. Some werewolves change from human to giant wolf – some to hybrid wolf-men. And the infliction strikes at various times, depending upon the legend: during a full moon, while under great emotional stress, when the pelt is worn or potion drank – or even at will – etc. Some werewolves are aware of their condition and remember everything when they change – others have no knowledge whatsoever, or experience memories as “nightmares”. Some are solitary – others live in packs. Silver kills some werewolves but not all. Clinical Lycanthropy is a real mental disorder wherein the sufferer believes he or she is a werewolf. And so on….
I want authors to explore different legends and aspects of the werewolf stories, and just about any genre is acceptable (Gothic horror, quiet horror, sci-fi, cyberpunk, splatter, psychological, Victorian London, the old west, folklore/urban legend, etc. -- NO HUMOR -- SERIOUS HORROR STORIES ONLY!) as long as the underlying theme is HORROR! Pop culture has turned the werewolf into dreamy poster boys and romance novel figures (don’t believe me? Browse Amazon.com and see for yourself how many werewolf romance novels there are!). I want to give the werewolf his balls back! I want to make him a figure of terror and nightmares again.
HERE'S THE IMPORTANT PART: Send submissions in MS Word doc. or rtf. files. Basic formatting: single spaced, aligned left, no tabs (double space between paragraphs ONLY), no page numbering, no headers or footers, etc. Considering short-shorts/flash fiction up to 8,000ish words. Poetry is okay, as well. Reprints will be considered only if they have previously appeared in very limited run publications (indicate previous publication along with date and approximate circulation). Payment is 3 cents a word for new works (possibly less for reprints), and 5 contributor copies of the published book. Publication will be in trade paperback format with an estimated release of late 2012. Deadline for submissions is May 1, 2012. DO NOT SEND ME RUN-OF-THE-MILL, STANDARD OR TYPICAL WEREWOLF STORIES. I WANT TO SEE SOMETHING NEW AND FRESH AND EXCITING!
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5 May 2012 -- Mirror Shards, Vol. 2 -- Black Moon Books
Augmented reality holds the promise of great social change in both the near and far-flung futures. It’s also a wonderful medium for storytelling as information and graphics overlain eye-screens challenges the doors of perception and creates mixed-reality worlds to work and play. Black Moon Books is seeking stories between 3000 and 9000 words (soft edges) that utilize augmented reality as a way to explore the human condition. The stories can be set in any place, time, or genre, as long as the story cannot exist bereft of augmented reality. Feel free to explore the edges of the technology.
The anthology will pay from $0.02/word to $0.05/word. Minimum payment per word will be $0.02 for all accepted slush stories, but one pro paying slot ($0.05/word) will be given for the best story (Gold Prize.) Rights I’ll ask for include exclusivity for 3 months, First Electronic & First English-Language Book Rights. One copy will be provided for each author in the anthology.
Stories should be emailed to mirrorshards2012 (at) blackmoonbooks (dot) com and should follow standard manuscript formatting (courier new, 12 point, double spaced, etc.) The file should be attached as an .doc or .rtf (not .docx). Multiple submissions are welcome, though your best bet is to pick your best story and send only that one.
A brief cover letter listing current publication credits would be helpful in the body of the email. If you have received an honorable mention or above in the Writers of the Future contest, please note that.
The submission period for the anthology will be from February 11, 2012 to May 5, 2012. All story selections will be complete by May 10, 2012. Payment will be on acceptance and will be either mailed as a check or sent through PayPal. Publication date will be in early August. Accepted authors will also be required to provide a brief bio for the anthology. Authors are also encouraged to put their stories up online once the rights have reverted and will be requested (optional) to put a note in their stories linking back to the anthology to help each other (ie – if you liked this story, please check out other authors writing AR stories in...)
I will try to notify quickly for rejections. I will also notify authors of those stories I’m holding as a “maybe”. The latest possible date for all notifications, acceptance or rejection, will be May 10, 2012.
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12 May 2012 -- Sword and Sorceress 27 -- ed. Elizabeth Waters
Stories should be the type generally referred to as "sword and sorcery" and must have a strong female protagonist whom the reader will care about. See Sword & Sorceress 22, Sword & Sorceress 23, Sword & Sorceress 24, and Sword & Sorceress 25, and Sword & Sorceress 26 (or S&S 1-20) for examples. We do not want stories with explicit sex, gratuitous violence, or profanity. We are NOT a market for poetry. We are willing to consider stories set in modern times (urban fantasy), but we won't buy more than one or two of those for the anthology. We always want something short and funny for the last story.
No reprints. No simultaneous submissions.
With regard to multiple submissions, do not submit more than one story at a time. If we've rejected your first one, you may send one more as long as it's before the deadline. We have occasionally bought someone's second sumbmission. We have never bought a third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, or eighth submission. If you send us two stories, and we don't hold either of them, wait until next year to try again. Please do not re-submit stories we have already rejected (including stories rejected in previous years).
If you have not previously sold to Sword & Sorceress, please read What is a Short Story? and Why Did my Story Get Rejected? before submitting to us.
Please do not explain or describe your story in the e-mail (cover letter). If your story can't stand on its own, fix the story.
Reading period: Saturday, April 14 to Friday, May 12, 2012. Stories received before or after this period will be deleted unread.
Response time is expected to follow MZB's traditional standards: you should hear within a week if we're holding your story for the final line-up or rejecting it.
Deadline: May 12, 2012.
Length: up to 9,000 words, with preference given to shorter stories. The longer a story is, the better it has to be. Long stories should be submitted early in the reading period.
Formatting and Submission:
Format with one-inch margins on all four sides of page.
Please do not use a header or footer.
Your name, full mailing address, and email address must be in the upper left corner, single spaced.
Skip two lines, center the text, then put the title, with your name (or byline) on the next line. We're not going to be as rigid as MZB was about pen names, but we expect them to be reasonable, rather than cute.
The rest of the manuscript should be single-spaced, with the first line of each paragraph indented 1/2 inch.
If you need to indicate a break, put "#" on a line by itself, centered.
Do not underline; use italics instead. Do not use bold face. We prefer Courier New font, size 12.
Word count will be determined by our word processor; that way it will be the same for everyone.
Save your document as an .rtf file (rich text format or interchange format, depending on what your computer calls it). E-mail as it as an attachment to mzbworks at yahoo dot com. The subject line should be "SS27, your last name, story title" (e.g.: SS27, Bradley, Dark Intruder) -- we don't want submissions caught in the spam filter.
Rights purchased: first rights, non-exclusive eBook and audio book rights.
Payment: 5 cents per word as an advance against a pro rata share of royalties and foreign or other sales.
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15 May 2012 -- Bloodstones -- ed. Amanda Pillar, Ticonderoga Publications
This is the first in a series of anthologies from Ticonderoga Publications that will focus on non-traditional horror. I want stories that are horrific, but that also fit within other genres—let’s look beyond the borders. This year’s anthology will focus on non-traditional urban fantasy. This means that I don’t want stories that feature vampires, witches or werewolves; if you send one, it probably won’t make it through to the final cut.
Give me tales of Sirens, Harpies, Bunyips, goblins, djinns, Mesopotamian demons, deposed gods…characters that spill from mythology and into modern suburbia.
Any stories involving cultural borrowing from indigenous cultures should be respectful of the beliefs of the traditional owners.
Romantic elements are acceptable, as long as the story is dark and has horrific themes/elements.
The story must be set on contemporary Earth, but it can take place in a fictional city.
The anthology will be published by Ticonderoga Publications in late 2012.
Submission Guidelines:
Send me your best dark urban fantasy story.
== Story length 1,000 to 7,500 words. (Longer stories may be accepted, although payment is capped at 7,500).
== Original stories only: no reprints, multiple, or simultaneous submissions.
== Stories may be submitted via email at bloodstones@ticonderogapublications.com
== Manuscript format: double spaced, large margins, Times New Roman font, Australian English spelling.
== The editor reserve the right to use their discretion in selecting stories.
== Submission period: 1 February to 15 May, 2012
== Payment: 2 copies of anthology and Aus 2 cents/word (GST inc., maximum payment $150) on publication.
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30 May 2012 -- Classical Horror -- ed. DF Lewis, Megazanthus Press
DF Lewis is intending to publish a Horror anthology book with the above title in 2012. (Horror stories, Weird Literature or Ghost Fiction.)
Each story must feature in some way Classical Music, i.e. from Bach to Britten.
Stories between 2000 and 10,000 words.
One-off payment upon publication: 1p (£0.01) per word
Submissions (not simultaneous or multiple) as a Word attachment to dflewis48@hotmail.com. (Please expect a simple acknowledgement within a few days of your submission. Otherwise please send it again.)
Stories must be previously unpublished.
As with the HA of HA, DF Lewis will edit, publish, design, typeset and print (via Lulu) this book. It will be distributed under an ISBN system.
NOTES:
I may need to keep your story for the whole reading-period but may not be able eventually to accept it depending on the timing of other acceptable stories being submitted to me over the period.
Some of my favourite composers: Brahms, Mahler, Beethoven, Shostakovich, Sibelius, Schubert…. And particularly interested in Chamber Music. Having said that, whatever the particular Classical Music chosen to feature in the story will not weigh in the balance as much as HOW it features.
Please see the HA of HA, for the type of story I favour.
As a paying market for writers, MEGAZANTHUS PRESS / NEMONYMOUS (2001 – 2011) has previously published 184 original stories by various authors. 'Classical Horror' follows in this tradition.
…Wagner (Parsifal), Glass (Akhnaten), Mozart (Requiem), Faure, Franck, Debussy, Ravel, Szymanowski, Penderecki, Anton Webern, Alban Berg, Schmidt, Ades, Null Immortalis etc etc
PS: I am keen to get horror stories about characters interacting in some way with classical music. Not necessarily horror stories about the plots of operas or the lives of composers.
PPS: IF THERE IS SOME OBSCURE PIECE OF CLASSICAL MUSIC YOU WOULD LIKE TO REQUEST AS INSPIRATION FOR A STORY, I MAY BE ABLE TO SEND IT TO YOU AS AN ADDRESS TO AN ON-LINE FILE.
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31 May 2012 -- Professor Challenger Anthology -- ed. J.R. Campbell and Charles Prepolec, Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing
WHAT WE'RE AFTER:
A broad range of new and original stories built around Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's LOST WORLD character Professor George Edward Challenger. Stories derived from the aftermath of events in the Lost World are welcome however simply revisiting or rehashing the Lost World without good cause is not. Challenger is a man of science first and foremost, not an explorer. Mash-ups or crossovers with public domain literary characters are welcome.
For inspiration think X-files, Quartermass, DR. Who, cryptozoology, aliens among us, supernatural occurrences, science gone awry in a Dr. Moreau, Invisible Man, Dr Jekyll vein, nature run amuck, monsters large and small, world threatening cataclysm, Lovecraft mythos, think H.G. Wells, Jules Verne, E.R. Burroghs, John Wyndham, Nigel Kneale, alternate history, new lost places, steampunk, whatever -- Be creative.
Mine the potential for all it's worth! Push it out there, get weird, play, have fun!
SUBMISSION DETAILS:
== The anthology is part invitation and part open submission. Priority will be given to invited authors but an invitation to submit is not a guarantee of acceptance. A minimum of two slots will be held for open submissions. Acceptance is based entirely on suitability of story and quality of writing.
== The maximum length for stories is 10,000 words, with shorter works preferred.
== Do not query before submitting.
== Email submissions to: Charles@bakerstreetdozen.com
== Emails MUST contain the word "submission" in the subject line, or they will be deleted automatically by the server. Please also include the story title in the subject line.
== Submissions MUST come in an attachment: Rich Text Format (.rtf) or Microsoft Word (.doc) are the only acceptable formats.
== Emails MUST contain a cover letter in the body of the email; for security reasons, email attachments with no cover letter will be deleted unread and unanswered.
== Cover letter: include your name, the title of your story, your full contact information (address, phone, email), and a brief bio. Do not describe or summarize the story.
== Reprints (stories having previously appeared in English in any format, print or electronic, including but not limited to any form of web publication) will NOT be considered.
== Submission format: no strange formatting, colour fonts, changing fonts, borders, backgrounds, etc. Leave italics in italics, NOT underlined. Put your full contact information on the first page (name, address, email address, phone). No headers, no footers, no page numbering. DO NOT leave a blank line between paragraphs. Indent paragraphs. ALWAYS put a # to indicate scene breaks (a blank line is NOT enough).
== ALWAYS include your full contact information (name/address/email/phone number) on the first page of the attached submission.
== This is a professional market paying up to 5 cents per word plus a single copy of the book. Full rate to 7,500 words, half rate for balance to 10,000 words.
== Rights: for original fiction, first World English publication, with a two-month exclusive from publication date; for all, non-exclusive anthology rights; all other rights remain with the author.
== Spelling: the editors will consider stories using British, Canadian and American spellings.
== Response time: initial responses (no / rewrite request / hold for further consideration) will be prompt, usually within fifteen days. Please query if you've not heard back within 30 days.
== We do not advise that you submit more than one story.
== Simultaneous submissions are not encouraged but are acceptable. Should you receive a "rewrite request" or "hold for further consideration" response, please indicate immediately whether your story is under consideration anywhere else.
Email submissions to: Charles@bakerstreetdozen.com
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1 June 2012 -- Weird Science -- Torquere Press
Who doesn’t love the idea of the mad scientist, working away in his lab, his sexy creature or lab assistant just waiting for him to notice them? Or what about the grad student who discovers just the potion that will make him the stud his oblivious roommate has always wanted...
That’s the idea behind the Weird Science anthology. We’re looking for sexy, romantic male/male stories about what happens when science gets wild and wonderful in the name of love. Make us laugh, make us fall in love, and make us happy at the end! We’re not looking for hard science fiction or horror for this anthology, but we do want fully realized stories with strong characters.
Stories should be between 5000 and 12000 words long, and should be submitted in full and include a synopsis and author biography in the cover letter. Please put your name or pseudonym in the manuscript as well as in your submission email.
Send submissions to submissions@torquerepress.com with Weird Science in the subject line. Payment is a $50.00 flat fee for first time electronic and print rights for three years, and a print copy of the book. No reprints, please. Deadline for submissions is June 1 2012 for an October 2012 publication.
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1 June 2012 -- Dark Trails -- ed. Michael Knost
Payment: Pro rate, plus percentage of shared royalties.
No reprints and no trunk stories
Story length: Up to 7,500 words.
No multiple or simultaneous subs
Deadline: Friday, June 1, 2012 (Do not inquire on story status until after September 1, 2012)
Mail submissions, queries, or questions to:
Michael Knost
Dark Trails Anthology
PO Box 12
Logan, WV 25601
NO EMAIL SUBMISSIONS ACCEPTED.
Stories should be set as a weird western or dark western. Regardless of your use of “weird” or “dark" in the story, the main focus must be with the fact that is it a western FIRST.
I AM NOT INTERESTED IN MODERN WESTERNS.
Format your manuscript according to: http://www.shunn.net/format/story.html
Be sure to include your name, address, and email on the manuscript. If this information is not on the manuscript, I will reject it without reading.
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UNTIL FILLED -- Mortis Operandi -- ed. Kfir Luzzatto and Dru Pagliassotti, The Harrow Press ** Over a year old -- updated by the editor Jan 2012
MORTIS OPERANDI is looking for stories that revolve around the investigation of a crime and in which the supernatural plays a central role. While we’re expecting a fair share of murders, we strongly encourage stories that revolve around OTHER kinds of crime — for example, arson, assault, blackmail, bullying, burglary, dowry death, embezzlement, fraud, kidnapping, larceny, libel, piracy, product liability, slavery, smuggling, terrorism, treason, and toxic pollution are all fair game.
By "supernatural" we mean magic, monsters, and/or miracles, but we don’t consider psychic abilities (although the inclusion of a minor character possessing them will not in itself disqualify a story), extraterrestrial life, or UFOs to be supernatural.
Types of stories may include whodunits, police procedurals, hardboiled fiction, and courtroom dramas. All genres and treatments are welcome, including ecclesiastic, fantasy, humor, horror, historical, military, romance, and parody. Settings outside the U.S. and U.K. are welcome. Settings on other worlds aren’t.
We want well-written stories that demonstrate originality of concept and plot. Zombies, vampires, and werewolves will be a hard sell, and romantically inclined vampires will be staked on sight. Think outside of the coffin.
Stories will be judged exclusively on the basis of their literary merit; a history of prior publication is not necessary.
Get more information about our thoughts on this antho at Market Scoop.
Submissions & Queries: anthology [[ at ]] theharrowpress.com
==No simultaneous submissions. One submission at a time.
==Please attach your stories to your email in Microsoft Word, RTF, or text-only format. Stories pasted in the body of an email will not be read.
==Please include the words “Submission: Mortis Operandi” in the Subject line of your e-mail.
Length: 3,000-6,000 words. Please include an approximate word count in your e-mail submission.
Reprints: No
Language: English
Payment: US $50/story, upon publication, and a free copy of the book
Rights: Exclusive English anthology print and electronic (e-book) rights. Please read our Sample Contract (pdf) for full details.
Submission period: Opens 1.1.11 -- Closes when filled.
Publication Date: 2012
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UNTIL FILLED -- All Access Pass -- ed. Amelia G, Blue Blood Books ** First Posted July 2011
Short version of what I’m looking for is: well-crafted fiction or memoir, cool erotica with music and/or music culture as a central theme, $50 first run + reprint rights, $25 reprints. More formal version below.
Call for Submissions: All Access Pass
Backstage Passes editor Amelia G is reading for a sequel to her anthology of rock and roll erotica, called All Access Pass. Below are general fiction guidelines for Blue Blood fiction projects. For this book in specific, music must play a central role in the story. Events could take place at a punk club or an outdoor festival, characters may be musicians, music may just really speak to a particular character, but it needs to be important. Stories ranging from balls-out memoir or entirely fantastical vampire sex are all fine, within the appropriate theme and quality standards.
When submitting electronically, please make the subject of your email ALL ACCESS PASS SUBMISSION.
Before sending anything over, please ask yourself if your work passes the Blue Blood litmus test: Is it intelligent? Is it sexy? Is it edgy/counterculture? Is it cool? Email electronic submissions to submit@blueblood.net For submissions of fiction or nonfiction text, please have your writing in a Word document with a .doc suffix (not .docx), RTF, TXT, InDesign, or Open Office format. It is preferred if you include an author bio or link to your website or online profiles.
The All Access Pass anthology is seeking erotic stories with a counterculture feel — Gothic, industrial, techno, rave, punk, metal, dyke, mystery, gangster, hard-boiled, science fiction, cyberpunk, steampunk, vampire, werewolf, medieval etc. At the moment, our needs are for stories primarily from a male or female heterosexual viewpoint, lesbian viewpoint, or female bisexual viewpoint. Often, we can also place male homosexual and gender bender stories in anthologies. We look for work between 2,000 and 7,500 words. Most accepted fiction is shorter than 4,000 words. Death and horror elements are acceptable so long as they do not prevent the piece from being sex-positive. Characters may die but not as part of the sexuality. Kinky is great — leathersex, bondage, vampirism etc. are all fine. Negative attitudes about sexuality are not fine. All sex must be consensual and arousing. PLEASE DO NOT SEND US STORIES PROMOTING NAZIS, RAPE, INCEST, OR THE SEXUALIZATION OF MURDER. NO SNUFF, RACISM, OR HOMOPHOBIA. If you can write genuinely arousing fiction which still works as a story, do contact us. Payment is net 60 on on-sale date and we generally purchase first worldwide rights (exclusive from acceptance to one year after publication) along with nonexclusive reprint rights.
Markets with specific deadlines are listed first, "Until Filled" markets are at the bottom. There are usually more details on the original site; always click through and read the full guidelines before submitting. Note that some publishers list multiple antho guidelines on one page, so after you click through you might have to scroll a bit.
Non-erotica/romance writers: check out Bibliotheca Fantastica, King David and the Spiders from Mars, Campfire Tales, Mark of the Beast, Mirror Shards, Sword and Sorceress, Bloodstones, Classical Horror, the Professor Challenger Anthology, Dark Trails, and Mortis Operandi.
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31 March 2012 -- Picking Up the Pieces -- Storm Moon Press
Expected Release: August 3, 2012
Genres: Paranormal, Sci-Fi, Urban Fantasy
Pairings: Bisexual
HEA or HFN Ending Required? No
The world has ended. No, it wasn’t the zombies. It wasn’t even by supernatural forces (aliens, vampires, religious/The Rapture, etc). What happened is up to you, but for this anthology, we’re looking for natural causes such as meteors, viruses, technology going haywire, or even nuclear winter. Whether you send the survivors into the wild or up into space, Picking Up the Pieces is the perfect opportunity to explore the major shifts of society and sexuality while putting a focus on bisexuality in particular.
We’re looking for short stories that show characters dealing with the fall-out after the apocalypse. This can include a restructuring of gender roles, bisexuality becoming a necessity due to one sex being nearly wiped out, etc. Be creative and show us your best bisexual characters struggling to survive and find a bit of romance at the same time.
Authors will receive royalties as well as an initial payment of $50 for their story. This payment is not an advance and does not have to be earned out before royalties are paid. Royalties on individual e-book releases will be 50% of cover price on direct sales through Storm Moon Press' e-store, and 40% of cover price minus distribution costs for sales through third party vendors. In addition, authors will receive the same percentage royalty on sales of the anthology e-book divided equally among the authors, as well as 25% of cover price on direct sales of the print anthology through Storm Moon Press' e-store, and 20% of cover price minus distribution costs for sales through third party vendors, also divided equally among all authors. All royalties will be paid quarterly.
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31 March 2012 -- Bibliotheca Fantastica -- ed. Claude Lalumière and Don Pizarro, Dagan Books
What we want: Stories having to do with lost, rare, weird, or imaginary books, or any aspect of book history or book culture, past, present, future, or uchronic. Any genre. Although the fantastical is not essential per se, stories should evoke a sense of the fantastic, the unknown, the weird, wonder, terror, mystery, pulp, and/or adventure, etc.
Originals only, no reprints. No simultaneous submissions. Accepting stories of up to 10,000 words in length. We will accept two submissions per author.
We will accept submissions from December 15, 2011, at noon EST, to midnight EST on March 31, 2012. We are taking submissions through an automated system that will not allow you to submit before December 15, but the link to do so will appear here: http://daganbooks.submishmash.com/submit
Dagan Books is paying 2 cents per word for each accepted story, plus contributor copies. Bibliotheca Fantastica will be available in both print and ebook, and is scheduled to be published Fall 2012.
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31 March 2012 -- King David and the Spiders from Mars -- ed. Tim Lieder, Dybbuk Press
Due to the positive response to She Nailed a Stake Through His Head: Tales of Biblical Terror, I will be editing another Bible-themed anthology. Tentatively titled King David & The Spiders from Mars: More Tales of Biblical Terror, this will be a Bible-themed horror anthology specifically based on The Book of Samuel. Some of my favorite stories from the first anthology were David centered including Elissa Malcohn's "Judgement at Naioth" and Christi Krug's "As If Favorites of Their God."
What I'm Looking For: Short stories, ideally between 1000-12000 words. All stories must be based in some way on the book of Samuel (usually edited to be 1 & 2) which is the story about how Israel transitioned from a Judge based society to a kingdom under King David. Even though this is primarily a horror anthology, I'm willing to look at stories that fall into different categories including bizarro, science fiction, fantasy, literary and romance (although if you write a romance between Tamar and Amnon, I'm going to be worried about you and not in a good way). There are several stories within Samuel including the madness of Saul, the end of Eli's family as the major priesthood, David & Goliath and the death of Absalom so feel free to use whatever inspires you. Also, even though the Book of Ruth is a completely different book, it serves as a prequel to the David saga so if you got a great Ruth story, I will read it.
Update: Since I am not getting many stories thus far, I will accept stories from the rest of the Bible so if you have this awesome Elijah or Jonah story, feel free to send it. I will still appreciate the stories from the Book of Samuel more and may give them greater consideration but I won't reject a story because it's from a different part of the Bible.
Check out this Amazon List for reading suggestions. Please at least read the book of Samuel once to get the flavor of the stories. If you only know the story of David & Goliath, you will be at a disadvantage since that's the most popular story in the bunch and you will have a lot of competition.
Also, if you are going to do a David & Goliath story read the original. This is a much more interesting story than the children's books would have you believe and all that "come from behind victory" blather is inaccurate (not to mention boring as hell).
Other Suggestions:
Retellings of Biblical Stories from the perspective of another character.
Kiastic Storytelling
Deconstructionist Commentary akin to Rashi
Biblical stories retold in different literary styles (high adventure, Victorian, Romance, Mystery, etc.)
Modern stories told in the Biblical style (Best use Robert Alter's Art of Biblical Poetry and Art of Biblical Narrative if you want a crash course)
Parodies of Prophets
"Queen Esther vs. The Brain Eating Penis Monster from Outer Space" (note that just sticking this title on a lame story is not going to endear you to me. Write a story that would justify this kind of title and I'm interested)
Biblical Movie Parodies
I am also impressed by the following: original takes on classic stories, strong female characters, stories that actually understand the original tales, style.
Formatting Guidelines: Please use Standard Manuscript format. I am going to be a little more hard on people not using this format since the last time I had stories where I couldn't get back to the writers because they neglected to put their emails on the stories so I had no way of knowing how to tell them that they were rejected. One even made it to the Maybe pile. Please submit in .rtf or .doc.
What I am not Looking For: I have a blog post for the first Bible anthology where I go off on the "do not want" list. It basically comes down to "no preachiness" which is the major pitfall for people tackling these kind of stories. I don't want a story with an agenda - whether it's atheist, Christian or Jewish. I am not interested in other stories in the Bible. Do not set a Sodom & Gomorrah story in San Francisco. Do not send poetry. Do not retell a Bible story from a character's perspective that adds absolutely nothing to the narrative. In the last anthology, I got a bunch of stories that had to stop to tell me that "Jesus is love" but since this one is about King David, I figure there will be less of those in this slush pile. Still, don't do that.
Also note that all snotty replies to rejections will be aired publicly on this blog and mocked mercilessly.
Pay: $100 advance against equal share of royalties - to be paid out no later than publication.
Reading Period: November 1, 2011 - January 31, 2012. All stories submitted before November 1 will be deleted unread. Although that's the best case scenario. If I do read them I will mock them on this blog. I am using a three month window as well as waiting until November 1 because I don't want trunk stories and I doubt anyone has been submitting their awesome King David Rips Off Foreskins story to markets until now. This gives you time to write an original story and send it by November 1 or to spend about 4 months perfecting it until it's ready at the end of January.
Reprints. Yes. Same price. Make sure you tell me where it was originally published and that it is available for reprint right sales.
Send to: timlieder1 - at - gmail.com
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1 April 2012 -- Masks Off! -- Torquere Press
Everyone loves a masquerade, right? The masks, the mystery, the seduction of the reveal! Now imagine a masquerade with an extra layer: some of the men wear a mask beneath their mask. They're shapeshifters. Be they cats or canines, dragons or foxes, all shifters are welcome, as long they don't forget to wear a mask.
We’re looking for sexy, romantic male/male tales for Masks Off! In which at least one partner is a shifter. Light BDSM is welcome, but is not mandatory. Stories should be between 5000 and 12000 words long, and should be submitted in full and include a synopsis and author biography in the cover letter. Please put your name or pseudonym in the manuscript as well as in your submission email.
Send submissions to submissions@torquerepress.com with Masks Off! in the subject line. Payment is a $50.00 flat fee for first time electronic and print rights for three years, and a print copy of the book. No reprints, please. Deadline for submissions is April 1, 2012 for an August 2012 publication.
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17 April 2012 -- Campfire Tales -- Cool Well Press
Think back to when you were a kid and your family went camping. Late in the evening, you would sit next to the crackling campfire, burning popcorn, and getting sticky from making Smores. The night sounds were all around you—the haunting call of loons on the nearby lake, the gentle lap of water against the dock, the chirping crickets, the scuffling and thumping of animals moving around in the forest. Dad would lean back in his camp chair and start to tell stories. Dad was a pretty animated piece of work, especially when he was trying to scare you. He would often tell tales from legends he'd heard about when he was a kid. Stories about Big Foot, the evil Puckwudgies, giant thunderbirds, huge lake monsters, fiendish witches and nasty shape shifters. Dad always had a story, and after he told it, you laid awake in your sleeping bag all night, listening...
COOL WELL PRESS is opening a call for submissions for their new young adult anthology, CAMPFIRE TALES, to be published in July 2012. We want your best campfire tales based on legends and lore from all over the world. Stories may be set in any era or locale, and is targeted for 11 to 15 year old readers. No sexually explicit stories. These should have a paranormal flare and be 2,500 to 5,000 words. Deadline is April 17, 2012. Please follow the submission guidelines when preparing your manuscript. Send completed submission to denise@coolwellpress.com and mark the subject of the email as CAMPFIRE TALES.
Authors whose stories are accepted will be sent a contract. Compensation will be a one-time payment at .10 per word and a copy of each format of the final anthology.
***
1 May 2012 -- Mark of the Beast -- ed. Scott David Aniolowski, Chaosium, Inc.
Author and Editor Scott David Aniolowski is now accepting submissions for MARK OF THE BEAST; New Legends of the Werewolf, an anthology of werewolf tales to be published in late 2012 by Chaosium, Inc.
Werewolves have recently become very big in pop culture, thanks to the popularity of certain young adult novels and their movie adaptations. Unfortunately, our lycanthropic friends are now being portrayed as pouty, angsty, shirtless hunky teens, instead of savage, bestial figures from folklore and nightmares. It is my goal to assemble stories that put the horror back into the werewolf.
There are countless variations on the werewolf legend from around the world and throughout history. The more common causes for lycanthropy include being bitten by a wolf or werewolf, cursed by a Gypsy or witch, a family curse, donning an enchanted pelt, imbibing potions or poisons, selling your soul to the devil, falling from religious grace, etc. Some werewolves change from human to giant wolf – some to hybrid wolf-men. And the infliction strikes at various times, depending upon the legend: during a full moon, while under great emotional stress, when the pelt is worn or potion drank – or even at will – etc. Some werewolves are aware of their condition and remember everything when they change – others have no knowledge whatsoever, or experience memories as “nightmares”. Some are solitary – others live in packs. Silver kills some werewolves but not all. Clinical Lycanthropy is a real mental disorder wherein the sufferer believes he or she is a werewolf. And so on….
I want authors to explore different legends and aspects of the werewolf stories, and just about any genre is acceptable (Gothic horror, quiet horror, sci-fi, cyberpunk, splatter, psychological, Victorian London, the old west, folklore/urban legend, etc. -- NO HUMOR -- SERIOUS HORROR STORIES ONLY!) as long as the underlying theme is HORROR! Pop culture has turned the werewolf into dreamy poster boys and romance novel figures (don’t believe me? Browse Amazon.com and see for yourself how many werewolf romance novels there are!). I want to give the werewolf his balls back! I want to make him a figure of terror and nightmares again.
HERE'S THE IMPORTANT PART: Send submissions in MS Word doc. or rtf. files. Basic formatting: single spaced, aligned left, no tabs (double space between paragraphs ONLY), no page numbering, no headers or footers, etc. Considering short-shorts/flash fiction up to 8,000ish words. Poetry is okay, as well. Reprints will be considered only if they have previously appeared in very limited run publications (indicate previous publication along with date and approximate circulation). Payment is 3 cents a word for new works (possibly less for reprints), and 5 contributor copies of the published book. Publication will be in trade paperback format with an estimated release of late 2012. Deadline for submissions is May 1, 2012. DO NOT SEND ME RUN-OF-THE-MILL, STANDARD OR TYPICAL WEREWOLF STORIES. I WANT TO SEE SOMETHING NEW AND FRESH AND EXCITING!
***
5 May 2012 -- Mirror Shards, Vol. 2 -- Black Moon Books
Augmented reality holds the promise of great social change in both the near and far-flung futures. It’s also a wonderful medium for storytelling as information and graphics overlain eye-screens challenges the doors of perception and creates mixed-reality worlds to work and play. Black Moon Books is seeking stories between 3000 and 9000 words (soft edges) that utilize augmented reality as a way to explore the human condition. The stories can be set in any place, time, or genre, as long as the story cannot exist bereft of augmented reality. Feel free to explore the edges of the technology.
The anthology will pay from $0.02/word to $0.05/word. Minimum payment per word will be $0.02 for all accepted slush stories, but one pro paying slot ($0.05/word) will be given for the best story (Gold Prize.) Rights I’ll ask for include exclusivity for 3 months, First Electronic & First English-Language Book Rights. One copy will be provided for each author in the anthology.
Stories should be emailed to mirrorshards2012 (at) blackmoonbooks (dot) com and should follow standard manuscript formatting (courier new, 12 point, double spaced, etc.) The file should be attached as an .doc or .rtf (not .docx). Multiple submissions are welcome, though your best bet is to pick your best story and send only that one.
A brief cover letter listing current publication credits would be helpful in the body of the email. If you have received an honorable mention or above in the Writers of the Future contest, please note that.
The submission period for the anthology will be from February 11, 2012 to May 5, 2012. All story selections will be complete by May 10, 2012. Payment will be on acceptance and will be either mailed as a check or sent through PayPal. Publication date will be in early August. Accepted authors will also be required to provide a brief bio for the anthology. Authors are also encouraged to put their stories up online once the rights have reverted and will be requested (optional) to put a note in their stories linking back to the anthology to help each other (ie – if you liked this story, please check out other authors writing AR stories in...)
I will try to notify quickly for rejections. I will also notify authors of those stories I’m holding as a “maybe”. The latest possible date for all notifications, acceptance or rejection, will be May 10, 2012.
***
12 May 2012 -- Sword and Sorceress 27 -- ed. Elizabeth Waters
Stories should be the type generally referred to as "sword and sorcery" and must have a strong female protagonist whom the reader will care about. See Sword & Sorceress 22, Sword & Sorceress 23, Sword & Sorceress 24, and Sword & Sorceress 25, and Sword & Sorceress 26 (or S&S 1-20) for examples. We do not want stories with explicit sex, gratuitous violence, or profanity. We are NOT a market for poetry. We are willing to consider stories set in modern times (urban fantasy), but we won't buy more than one or two of those for the anthology. We always want something short and funny for the last story.
No reprints. No simultaneous submissions.
With regard to multiple submissions, do not submit more than one story at a time. If we've rejected your first one, you may send one more as long as it's before the deadline. We have occasionally bought someone's second sumbmission. We have never bought a third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, or eighth submission. If you send us two stories, and we don't hold either of them, wait until next year to try again. Please do not re-submit stories we have already rejected (including stories rejected in previous years).
If you have not previously sold to Sword & Sorceress, please read What is a Short Story? and Why Did my Story Get Rejected? before submitting to us.
Please do not explain or describe your story in the e-mail (cover letter). If your story can't stand on its own, fix the story.
Reading period: Saturday, April 14 to Friday, May 12, 2012. Stories received before or after this period will be deleted unread.
Response time is expected to follow MZB's traditional standards: you should hear within a week if we're holding your story for the final line-up or rejecting it.
Deadline: May 12, 2012.
Length: up to 9,000 words, with preference given to shorter stories. The longer a story is, the better it has to be. Long stories should be submitted early in the reading period.
Formatting and Submission:
Format with one-inch margins on all four sides of page.
Please do not use a header or footer.
Your name, full mailing address, and email address must be in the upper left corner, single spaced.
Skip two lines, center the text, then put the title, with your name (or byline) on the next line. We're not going to be as rigid as MZB was about pen names, but we expect them to be reasonable, rather than cute.
The rest of the manuscript should be single-spaced, with the first line of each paragraph indented 1/2 inch.
If you need to indicate a break, put "#" on a line by itself, centered.
Do not underline; use italics instead. Do not use bold face. We prefer Courier New font, size 12.
Word count will be determined by our word processor; that way it will be the same for everyone.
Save your document as an .rtf file (rich text format or interchange format, depending on what your computer calls it). E-mail as it as an attachment to mzbworks at yahoo dot com. The subject line should be "SS27, your last name, story title" (e.g.: SS27, Bradley, Dark Intruder) -- we don't want submissions caught in the spam filter.
Rights purchased: first rights, non-exclusive eBook and audio book rights.
Payment: 5 cents per word as an advance against a pro rata share of royalties and foreign or other sales.
***
15 May 2012 -- Bloodstones -- ed. Amanda Pillar, Ticonderoga Publications
This is the first in a series of anthologies from Ticonderoga Publications that will focus on non-traditional horror. I want stories that are horrific, but that also fit within other genres—let’s look beyond the borders. This year’s anthology will focus on non-traditional urban fantasy. This means that I don’t want stories that feature vampires, witches or werewolves; if you send one, it probably won’t make it through to the final cut.
Give me tales of Sirens, Harpies, Bunyips, goblins, djinns, Mesopotamian demons, deposed gods…characters that spill from mythology and into modern suburbia.
Any stories involving cultural borrowing from indigenous cultures should be respectful of the beliefs of the traditional owners.
Romantic elements are acceptable, as long as the story is dark and has horrific themes/elements.
The story must be set on contemporary Earth, but it can take place in a fictional city.
The anthology will be published by Ticonderoga Publications in late 2012.
Submission Guidelines:
Send me your best dark urban fantasy story.
== Story length 1,000 to 7,500 words. (Longer stories may be accepted, although payment is capped at 7,500).
== Original stories only: no reprints, multiple, or simultaneous submissions.
== Stories may be submitted via email at bloodstones@ticonderogapublications.com
== Manuscript format: double spaced, large margins, Times New Roman font, Australian English spelling.
== The editor reserve the right to use their discretion in selecting stories.
== Submission period: 1 February to 15 May, 2012
== Payment: 2 copies of anthology and Aus 2 cents/word (GST inc., maximum payment $150) on publication.
***
30 May 2012 -- Classical Horror -- ed. DF Lewis, Megazanthus Press
DF Lewis is intending to publish a Horror anthology book with the above title in 2012. (Horror stories, Weird Literature or Ghost Fiction.)
Each story must feature in some way Classical Music, i.e. from Bach to Britten.
Stories between 2000 and 10,000 words.
One-off payment upon publication: 1p (£0.01) per word
Submissions (not simultaneous or multiple) as a Word attachment to dflewis48@hotmail.com. (Please expect a simple acknowledgement within a few days of your submission. Otherwise please send it again.)
Stories must be previously unpublished.
As with the HA of HA, DF Lewis will edit, publish, design, typeset and print (via Lulu) this book. It will be distributed under an ISBN system.
NOTES:
I may need to keep your story for the whole reading-period but may not be able eventually to accept it depending on the timing of other acceptable stories being submitted to me over the period.
Some of my favourite composers: Brahms, Mahler, Beethoven, Shostakovich, Sibelius, Schubert…. And particularly interested in Chamber Music. Having said that, whatever the particular Classical Music chosen to feature in the story will not weigh in the balance as much as HOW it features.
Please see the HA of HA, for the type of story I favour.
As a paying market for writers, MEGAZANTHUS PRESS / NEMONYMOUS (2001 – 2011) has previously published 184 original stories by various authors. 'Classical Horror' follows in this tradition.
…Wagner (Parsifal), Glass (Akhnaten), Mozart (Requiem), Faure, Franck, Debussy, Ravel, Szymanowski, Penderecki, Anton Webern, Alban Berg, Schmidt, Ades, Null Immortalis etc etc
PS: I am keen to get horror stories about characters interacting in some way with classical music. Not necessarily horror stories about the plots of operas or the lives of composers.
PPS: IF THERE IS SOME OBSCURE PIECE OF CLASSICAL MUSIC YOU WOULD LIKE TO REQUEST AS INSPIRATION FOR A STORY, I MAY BE ABLE TO SEND IT TO YOU AS AN ADDRESS TO AN ON-LINE FILE.
***
31 May 2012 -- Professor Challenger Anthology -- ed. J.R. Campbell and Charles Prepolec, Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing
WHAT WE'RE AFTER:
A broad range of new and original stories built around Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's LOST WORLD character Professor George Edward Challenger. Stories derived from the aftermath of events in the Lost World are welcome however simply revisiting or rehashing the Lost World without good cause is not. Challenger is a man of science first and foremost, not an explorer. Mash-ups or crossovers with public domain literary characters are welcome.
For inspiration think X-files, Quartermass, DR. Who, cryptozoology, aliens among us, supernatural occurrences, science gone awry in a Dr. Moreau, Invisible Man, Dr Jekyll vein, nature run amuck, monsters large and small, world threatening cataclysm, Lovecraft mythos, think H.G. Wells, Jules Verne, E.R. Burroghs, John Wyndham, Nigel Kneale, alternate history, new lost places, steampunk, whatever -- Be creative.
Mine the potential for all it's worth! Push it out there, get weird, play, have fun!
SUBMISSION DETAILS:
== The anthology is part invitation and part open submission. Priority will be given to invited authors but an invitation to submit is not a guarantee of acceptance. A minimum of two slots will be held for open submissions. Acceptance is based entirely on suitability of story and quality of writing.
== The maximum length for stories is 10,000 words, with shorter works preferred.
== Do not query before submitting.
== Email submissions to: Charles@bakerstreetdozen.com
== Emails MUST contain the word "submission" in the subject line, or they will be deleted automatically by the server. Please also include the story title in the subject line.
== Submissions MUST come in an attachment: Rich Text Format (.rtf) or Microsoft Word (.doc) are the only acceptable formats.
== Emails MUST contain a cover letter in the body of the email; for security reasons, email attachments with no cover letter will be deleted unread and unanswered.
== Cover letter: include your name, the title of your story, your full contact information (address, phone, email), and a brief bio. Do not describe or summarize the story.
== Reprints (stories having previously appeared in English in any format, print or electronic, including but not limited to any form of web publication) will NOT be considered.
== Submission format: no strange formatting, colour fonts, changing fonts, borders, backgrounds, etc. Leave italics in italics, NOT underlined. Put your full contact information on the first page (name, address, email address, phone). No headers, no footers, no page numbering. DO NOT leave a blank line between paragraphs. Indent paragraphs. ALWAYS put a # to indicate scene breaks (a blank line is NOT enough).
== ALWAYS include your full contact information (name/address/email/phone number) on the first page of the attached submission.
== This is a professional market paying up to 5 cents per word plus a single copy of the book. Full rate to 7,500 words, half rate for balance to 10,000 words.
== Rights: for original fiction, first World English publication, with a two-month exclusive from publication date; for all, non-exclusive anthology rights; all other rights remain with the author.
== Spelling: the editors will consider stories using British, Canadian and American spellings.
== Response time: initial responses (no / rewrite request / hold for further consideration) will be prompt, usually within fifteen days. Please query if you've not heard back within 30 days.
== We do not advise that you submit more than one story.
== Simultaneous submissions are not encouraged but are acceptable. Should you receive a "rewrite request" or "hold for further consideration" response, please indicate immediately whether your story is under consideration anywhere else.
Email submissions to: Charles@bakerstreetdozen.com
***
1 June 2012 -- Weird Science -- Torquere Press
Who doesn’t love the idea of the mad scientist, working away in his lab, his sexy creature or lab assistant just waiting for him to notice them? Or what about the grad student who discovers just the potion that will make him the stud his oblivious roommate has always wanted...
That’s the idea behind the Weird Science anthology. We’re looking for sexy, romantic male/male stories about what happens when science gets wild and wonderful in the name of love. Make us laugh, make us fall in love, and make us happy at the end! We’re not looking for hard science fiction or horror for this anthology, but we do want fully realized stories with strong characters.
Stories should be between 5000 and 12000 words long, and should be submitted in full and include a synopsis and author biography in the cover letter. Please put your name or pseudonym in the manuscript as well as in your submission email.
Send submissions to submissions@torquerepress.com with Weird Science in the subject line. Payment is a $50.00 flat fee for first time electronic and print rights for three years, and a print copy of the book. No reprints, please. Deadline for submissions is June 1 2012 for an October 2012 publication.
***
1 June 2012 -- Dark Trails -- ed. Michael Knost
Payment: Pro rate, plus percentage of shared royalties.
No reprints and no trunk stories
Story length: Up to 7,500 words.
No multiple or simultaneous subs
Deadline: Friday, June 1, 2012 (Do not inquire on story status until after September 1, 2012)
Mail submissions, queries, or questions to:
Michael Knost
Dark Trails Anthology
PO Box 12
Logan, WV 25601
NO EMAIL SUBMISSIONS ACCEPTED.
Stories should be set as a weird western or dark western. Regardless of your use of “weird” or “dark" in the story, the main focus must be with the fact that is it a western FIRST.
I AM NOT INTERESTED IN MODERN WESTERNS.
Format your manuscript according to: http://www.shunn.net/format/story.html
Be sure to include your name, address, and email on the manuscript. If this information is not on the manuscript, I will reject it without reading.
***
UNTIL FILLED -- Mortis Operandi -- ed. Kfir Luzzatto and Dru Pagliassotti, The Harrow Press ** Over a year old -- updated by the editor Jan 2012
MORTIS OPERANDI is looking for stories that revolve around the investigation of a crime and in which the supernatural plays a central role. While we’re expecting a fair share of murders, we strongly encourage stories that revolve around OTHER kinds of crime — for example, arson, assault, blackmail, bullying, burglary, dowry death, embezzlement, fraud, kidnapping, larceny, libel, piracy, product liability, slavery, smuggling, terrorism, treason, and toxic pollution are all fair game.
By "supernatural" we mean magic, monsters, and/or miracles, but we don’t consider psychic abilities (although the inclusion of a minor character possessing them will not in itself disqualify a story), extraterrestrial life, or UFOs to be supernatural.
Types of stories may include whodunits, police procedurals, hardboiled fiction, and courtroom dramas. All genres and treatments are welcome, including ecclesiastic, fantasy, humor, horror, historical, military, romance, and parody. Settings outside the U.S. and U.K. are welcome. Settings on other worlds aren’t.
We want well-written stories that demonstrate originality of concept and plot. Zombies, vampires, and werewolves will be a hard sell, and romantically inclined vampires will be staked on sight. Think outside of the coffin.
Stories will be judged exclusively on the basis of their literary merit; a history of prior publication is not necessary.
Get more information about our thoughts on this antho at Market Scoop.
Submissions & Queries: anthology [[ at ]] theharrowpress.com
==No simultaneous submissions. One submission at a time.
==Please attach your stories to your email in Microsoft Word, RTF, or text-only format. Stories pasted in the body of an email will not be read.
==Please include the words “Submission: Mortis Operandi” in the Subject line of your e-mail.
Length: 3,000-6,000 words. Please include an approximate word count in your e-mail submission.
Reprints: No
Language: English
Payment: US $50/story, upon publication, and a free copy of the book
Rights: Exclusive English anthology print and electronic (e-book) rights. Please read our Sample Contract (pdf) for full details.
Submission period: Opens 1.1.11 -- Closes when filled.
Publication Date: 2012
***
UNTIL FILLED -- All Access Pass -- ed. Amelia G, Blue Blood Books ** First Posted July 2011
Short version of what I’m looking for is: well-crafted fiction or memoir, cool erotica with music and/or music culture as a central theme, $50 first run + reprint rights, $25 reprints. More formal version below.
Call for Submissions: All Access Pass
Backstage Passes editor Amelia G is reading for a sequel to her anthology of rock and roll erotica, called All Access Pass. Below are general fiction guidelines for Blue Blood fiction projects. For this book in specific, music must play a central role in the story. Events could take place at a punk club or an outdoor festival, characters may be musicians, music may just really speak to a particular character, but it needs to be important. Stories ranging from balls-out memoir or entirely fantastical vampire sex are all fine, within the appropriate theme and quality standards.
When submitting electronically, please make the subject of your email ALL ACCESS PASS SUBMISSION.
Before sending anything over, please ask yourself if your work passes the Blue Blood litmus test: Is it intelligent? Is it sexy? Is it edgy/counterculture? Is it cool? Email electronic submissions to submit@blueblood.net For submissions of fiction or nonfiction text, please have your writing in a Word document with a .doc suffix (not .docx), RTF, TXT, InDesign, or Open Office format. It is preferred if you include an author bio or link to your website or online profiles.
The All Access Pass anthology is seeking erotic stories with a counterculture feel — Gothic, industrial, techno, rave, punk, metal, dyke, mystery, gangster, hard-boiled, science fiction, cyberpunk, steampunk, vampire, werewolf, medieval etc. At the moment, our needs are for stories primarily from a male or female heterosexual viewpoint, lesbian viewpoint, or female bisexual viewpoint. Often, we can also place male homosexual and gender bender stories in anthologies. We look for work between 2,000 and 7,500 words. Most accepted fiction is shorter than 4,000 words. Death and horror elements are acceptable so long as they do not prevent the piece from being sex-positive. Characters may die but not as part of the sexuality. Kinky is great — leathersex, bondage, vampirism etc. are all fine. Negative attitudes about sexuality are not fine. All sex must be consensual and arousing. PLEASE DO NOT SEND US STORIES PROMOTING NAZIS, RAPE, INCEST, OR THE SEXUALIZATION OF MURDER. NO SNUFF, RACISM, OR HOMOPHOBIA. If you can write genuinely arousing fiction which still works as a story, do contact us. Payment is net 60 on on-sale date and we generally purchase first worldwide rights (exclusive from acceptance to one year after publication) along with nonexclusive reprint rights.
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