Taking Submissions: D.O.A. II: Extreme Horror Collection

Deadline: August 1st 2012
Payment: 1 cent a word plus a contributors copy

You were warned…but you just didn’t listen! So after the horrific success of D.O.A., we have decided to please the masses by releasing a second volume.

Volume II will be a more disturbing anthology (if that’s even possible), unsuitable for the easily offended, disgusted, or those prone to vomiting. We want stories, 750 – 5,000 words, that push the limits. The stranger and gorier the better. If you read the first installment, than you know that no subject is too taboo. However, we’re looking for you to exploit a lesser know taboo.

Keep in mind that we are not simply looking for torture porn or scenes of gratuitous violence lacking a point or direction. Blood and guts only work if there is a great story and creative twists to back it up. Imagine that the band Cannibal Corpse got together with Richard Matheson and penned a story. The result would be D.O.A. Think Edward Lee, think Bizarro, think…well, you get the picture. So if you ever had a story idea that you felt was too extreme or offensive for a sane publisher, send it our way. We want your worst!

Accepted stories will be paid a rate of 1 cent a word plus a contributors copy.

Stories will be accepted from May 1, 2012 until August 1, 2012. We will not make final selections until the end of the submission period. Please do not query about the status of your submission until September 1, 2012.

Send submissions to submissions@bloodboundbooks.net.

Subject should read: “D.O.A. II: story title/author last name”

[via: Blood Bound Books.]

Taking Submissions: Fires and Phantoms

Deadline: August 31st 2012
Payment: $10

We are currently seeking submissions for our
2012 anthology!
Our 2012 anthology is a return to the classic ghost story… with a
twist! We are looking for gay-themed ghost stories in the Gothic
tradition. Avoid the ghost and Mr. Muir thing here and get creative!

Requirements:

1000-3000 words
RTF format
Double-space/ Times New Roman
There must some gay element to the story (and a ghost!)

We do not want:
excessive gore/ violence/ splatter
rape/ torture/ abuse
Reprints

No simultaneous submissions

We’re looking for stories in the Poe, James, Le Fanu, Polidori vein
here!

Contact: editor@firbogpublishing.com

Payment: $10

Deadline: 31 August for an October publication

Ebook and paperback format

Taking Submissions: Wily Writers Podcast SciFi Horror

Deadline: July 31, 2012
Payment: 5 cents per word.
Theme: SciFi – Horror

The Wily Writers site publishes two short stories per month in both audio and text formats. We host a celebrity editor for each of them, and they choose the stories along with the producer (Angel Leigh McCoy).

We publish only short fiction that falls under the genre umbrella of speculative fiction: horror, fantasy, science fiction, and paranormal romance/mystery/adventure. We have specific themes that we’re asking you to follow. See below:

Submission Requirements

Submissions need to follow the guidelines listed below.

IMPORTANT:
Name your file so that it makes sense. An impressive filename for a fiction submission is: (lastname)-(word from title).RTF
[like this: mccoy-darkness.rtf]
Word count: 1000 – 4000 (Firm. Do not query).
Use standard manuscript formatting. (more info)
No simultaneous submissions to other publishers.
Multiple submissions okay, but only one story per theme.
Story must have a speculative fiction element.
Gore, sex, and adult language okay, but make sure it improves the story.
We do not edit, so make sure you use good grammar, have double-checked the punctuation, and have done a spell-check. We prefer Chicago Manual of Style rules, and we will reject it if it’s a mess, even if it’s an amazing story.
We may request revisions, so if you’re not open to the idea, then let us know in your cover letter. It will save us all some time by communicating that up-front.
We will accept reprints. Make double sure that the rights have reverted to you. By submitting it to us, you affirm that it has been freed from all other commitments that conflict with the rights you give us.
We reserve the right to change these guidelines without notice.
Response Time: We will respond within 90 days after the appropriate issue’s deadline.

Pay: Starting with the themes listed above, we pay 5 cents per word. We pay via Paypal or check.

Rights: With this payment, we’re buying the exclusive right to publish an audio version (exclusive for twelve [12] months) and non-exclusive rights to publish a digital text (RTF) version. You will be asked to sign a contract.

Your story will automatically be a candidate for a “Best of Wily Writers” anthology at a later date.

Submit to Wily Writers via our online submission form.
We’re looking forward to reading your story!

[via: Wily Writers.]

Taking Submissions: Rigorous Mortis: A Collection of Morticians Tales

Deadline: July 31st 2012
Payment: Exposure Only

We are seeking submissions for Rigorous Mortis: A Collection of Mortician’s Tales, edited by Allen Jacoby and Jo-Anne Russell.

Morticians are, by all accounts, pretty damned interesting people. They possess the dexterity of doctors, the talent of artists, and just a drop (or maybe a gallon) of the macabre fascination with death that any good horror writer (or reader!) knows all too well. So, we thought, why not write about THEM? After all, we’ve all read our fair share of stories about the dead, why they died, and who killed them…but what about the people who deal with the aftermath?

So that’s what we want. Give us your tales of undertakers, morticians, coroners, either as heroes, villains, or just good hard working individuals trying to get a job done.

Obviously, the theme is Morticians: We’re expecting a good deal of slasher-tales, dead-rising, etc etc., But if you can manage to chill us to the bone and heat up our formaldehyde with a good romance or drama at the same time? Well then, more power to you.

Just give us your best.

Reprints okay, but they have to knock off our toe tags!

Format

1. 12 point font, prefer Times.

2. Single line spacing, with an indent of .2”, special first line only.

3. No tabbing or spacebar indents please!

4. Attach submission to email, and include a cover letter in the body of the email with standard contact information: Name, address, email, etc.

5. We will accept attachments in the following formats: .doc, .docx. .rtf. If these formats are not possible for you, query with the format you are able to use.

Payments and Deadlines

As we are just starting out, monetary payment is not possible at this time. We hope in the near future we can change our pay scale.

As stated in our standard contract the following paragraph applies to all anthologies.

“For the rights granted to the Publisher above, the Author will receive exposure, one contributor’s copy in electronic format, and when possible, author’s discount codes for personal use only; for print and electronic formats. These codes may not be given or sold to anyone. Persons found to be guilty of this will have their codes forfeited.”

Deadline for Rigorous Mortis: Collection of Mortician’s Tales, is July 31st 2012.

Where to send your subs

Send all subs to: ScarlettRiverPress@reborn.com

To: Jo-Anne Russell or Allen Jacoby

Thank you for your interest in Scarlett River Press.

[via: Scarlet River Press.]

Taking Submissions: Cthulhurotica Volume 2

Deadline: July 31, 2012
Payment: 2 cents per word, paid within 90 days after publication. Contributor copy of print and ebook (can choose between .epub or .mobi/Kindle versions)

What is Erotica?
Erotica [ih-rot-i-kuh] is literature or art intended to arouse sexual desire. It is not pornography, which is understood to have sexual arousal as its main purpose. Erotica includes a sexual aspect but it is only one part of the larger aesthetic. In other words, writing erotica is not about graphic descriptions of people having sex, it’s about making your reader want to have sex. It’s a tease, a flirt, a seduction …
Who is Cthulhu?
H.P. Lovecraft wrote smart, surreal, supernatural horror stories in the early 20th century. Cthulhu is one of several fictional creatures created by Lovecraft in the early 20th century. Lovecraft’s stories, and some of the works of his followers, outline what we now call the “Cthulhu Mythos”. Mythos characters include both the monsters and the men who discovered them.
Cthulhurotica is the place where sex and madness meet.
What are we hoping to get from Volume 2?
We want to expand on the first book, without discarding any of it. The stories from Cthulhurotica are bold, sexy, creepy, empowering and frightening. What we’re looking for now is more … We want stories which use more of Lovecraft’s settings and characters. We’ve got Innsmouth and Arkham, but what about the mountains, the Artic, aboard the Emma? We met Nyarlathotep, the Mi Go, and the King in Yellow, but what about Ithaqua, or the Hounds of Tindalos? Tell us about Charles Dexter Ward’s neighbor, or the secretary in Professor Peaslee’s office.
What if Richard Upton Pickman painted pinup girls too?
There is so much, both in Lovecraft’s work and in the associated Mythos stories by other authors, which hasn’t yet been explored. If you do want to revisit a location or monster from the first book, make sure you do so in a completely new way.
More importantly, we want to see more variations on the human theme. Female main characters, people of color, queer folk, polyamorous families, people with disabilities – if they exist in the real world, they should exist in Lovecraft’s world as well. (Yes, you can still send us a story with a straight, white, upper-middle class male as your main character if you want to.)
Some references which might help:
http://www.hplovecraft.com/creation/whoswho.asp – A Who’s Who of Lovecraft’s characters.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cthulhu_Mythos – The Cthulhu Mythos
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lovecraftian_horror – The Style of Lovecraft
What do we want to avoid:
Non-consensual sex, underage characters, slash fiction which features actual people (you can’t use August Derleth as a character in your story if he’s participating in any sex acts), poetry.
Seriously. NO POETRY.
What we’re buying:
Stories of up to 4,500 words. Must be original; no reprints, no simultaneous submissions. Worldwide print and ebook rights (exclusive for 6 months, non-exclusive for an additional 30 months).
What we’re paying:

2 cents per word, paid within 90 days after publication. Contributor copy of print and ebook (can choose between .epub or .mobi/Kindle versions).
Submissions open May 1, 2012, and will close at 11:59 EST on July 31, 2012. Please submit your story as a .doc or .odt file. Use 12 pt font, do not insert two spaces at the end of each sentence (one is sufficient), and your story must include your name, address, telephone number, email address, and approximate word count on the first page.

[via: Dagan Books.]

Taking Submissions: Kiss Me At Midnight

Deadline: August 30th 2012
Payment: 2 Contributor’s copies

KISS ME AT MIDNIGHT – COLLECTION
A clean slate. A fresh start. A chance to throw out the old and begin anew. There’s nothing as revitalizing as the start of a new year, and what better way to begin than with a kiss.

Less Than Three Press is seeking stories for a collection revolving around the theme of a new year, a new start, a propitious beginning.

THE DETAILS:

Deadline is AUGUST 30TH, 2012 11:59 EST (GMT -5) (give or take, we won’t kill you for sending it off the following morning)
Ideally stories should be 5,000-10,000 words in length, but anything a little longer or shorter is acceptable.
Stories must be m/m or f/f (threesomes etc are acceptable, but all parties must be the same gender).
Stories should have a happy end—either HEA or HFN is acceptable.
Any genre is acceptable: contemporary, fantasy, steampunk, sci-fi, horror, mystery, western, etc. We adore variety.
All usual LT3 submission guidelines apply.
This collection is centered around the theme of a new year and all the potential that comes with it. All stories must have a strong tie to this theme. We are looking for creative stories that bring in this theme, not simply dozens of stories about a New Year’s Eve party (though if you can do that creatively, we welcome it gladly).

Kiss Me at Midnight is a collection of ebooks, meaning each story will be sold as an individual ebook, and readers will also have the option to purchase “bundles” or the entire collection for a reduced rate. Standard ebook royalty rates will apply.

Stories should be complete before submitting, and as edited as possible. They can be submitted in any format (doc, docx, rtf, odt, etc), preferably single spaced with a space between paragraphs, in an easy to read font (Times, Calibri, Arial, etc) with no special formatting (no elaborate section separation, special fonts, etc). Additional formatting guidelines can be found here.

Stories will also be collected into a print book (or books, depending on total length), and each contributing author will receive two copies of the book containing their story.

[via: Less Than Three Press.]

Taking Submissions: Wily Writers Podcast Urban Horror

Deadline: May 31st 2012
Payment: 5 cents/word

MAY TOPIC: URBAN HORROR

The Wily Writers site publishes two short stories per month in both audio and text formats. We host a celebrity editor for each of them, and they choose the stories along with the producer (Angel Leigh McCoy).

We publish only short fiction that falls under the genre umbrella of speculative fiction: horror, fantasy, science fiction, and paranormal romance/mystery/adventure. We have specific themes that we’re asking you to follow. See below:

Submissions need to follow the guidelines listed below.

IMPORTANT:
Name your file so that it makes sense. An impressive filename for a fiction submission is: (lastname)-(word from title).RTF
[like this: mccoy-darkness.rtf]
Word count: 1000 – 4000 (Firm. Do not query).
Use standard manuscript formatting. (more info)
No simultaneous submissions to other publishers.
Multiple submissions okay, but only one story per theme.
Story must have a speculative fiction element.
Gore, sex, and adult language okay, but make sure it improves the story.
We do not edit, so make sure you use good grammar, have double-checked the punctuation, and have done a spell-check. We prefer Chicago Manual of Style rules, and we will reject it if it’s a mess, even if it’s an amazing story.
We may request revisions, so if you’re not open to the idea, then let us know in your cover letter. It will save us all some time by communicating that up-front.
We will accept reprints. Make double sure that the rights have reverted to you. By submitting it to us, you affirm that it has been freed from all other commitments that conflict with the rights you give us.
We reserve the right to change these guidelines without notice.
Response Time: We will respond within 90 days after the appropriate issue’s deadline.

Pay: Starting with the themes listed above, we pay 5 cents per word. We pay via Paypal or check.

Rights: With this payment, we’re buying the exclusive right to publish an audio version (exclusive for twelve [12] months) and non-exclusive rights to publish a digital text (RTF) version. You will be asked to sign a contract.

Your story will automatically be a candidate for a “Best of Wily Writers” anthology at a later date.

Submit to Wily Writers via our online submission form.

[via: Wily Writers Podcast.]