Ongoing Submissions: Monster Corral

Payment: We pay 1 cent/word for fiction and .5 cent/word for non-fiction (articles, reviews, etc.) We pay $1 to $5 (US) for original graphics (any photo, modified photo, scanned artwork, or other digitized graphic that represents a scene or character or otherwise acts as a companion to your short story.) All fiction submissions should be 1,000 words or less, non-fiction should be 500 words or less.

BLUF (Bottom Line Up Front): We pay 1 cent/word for fiction and .5 cent/word for non-fiction (articles, reviews, etc.) We pay $1 to $5 (US) for original graphics (any photo, modified photo, scanned artwork, or other digitized graphic that represents a scene or character or otherwise acts as a companion to your short story.) All fiction submissions should be 1,000 words or less, non-fiction should be 500 words or less. DO NOT SEND UNSOLICITED ATTACHEMENTS. (For instructions on how to submit graphics, read the submission section below.) We hope to increase our rates to pro level in the near future, but for now, this gets our feet in the proverbial door as a paying market.

MONSTERS: For the first year (2013) the fiction on this site will explore the subject of extreme antagonists – monsters. Monsters should be interesting. A monster might be the POV character. It may even be the “hero” of the story (that’s a tough sell, if it’s really a monster – but if you can pull it off, you’re likely to win the big bucks!) The best monsters are complex and conflicted. They are most interesting if they are as appealing as they are dangerous or disgusting. They can be wholly human characters, a la Hannibal Lecter, or even an historical figure such as Adolph Hitler. Note: to avoid lawsuits, if characters are based on real-life persons, those persons should be both public figures and dead (or at least assumed dead: if you’ve got a story about an undead Amelia Earhart or Jimmy Hoffa, for instance, we might be interested.) We are also interested in monsters based on mythology, folklore, or anything fresh from the seething depths of your own fevered nightmares. The only real requirement is that they be INTERESTING. The more unique your monster, the more interesting it is likely to be. For instance, we tend to be bored by zombies, but have recently read some zombie stories that put a new spin on the genre, and therefore interested us. Note: without a good story, even the most unusual monster becomes boring rather quickly. Your monster needs a plot to play from, a world to play in, and other characters to play off (or prey on.) Also, it bears mentioning that when we read your story, we need to be interested in the first 40 words and hooked in the first minute, or we’ll put it away and move on to something else. A 1,000 word story typically takes us less than two minutes on the first read-through, so if you haven’t fascinated us by the midway point, we aren’t likely to hang around for the ending.

GENRE: We are willing to look at nearly any genre, as long as it has monsters, but we are particularly fond of science fiction, horror/gothic, classic or contemporary/urban fantasy, and hard-boiled “noir” mystery. Note: If you want to write about real-world religion or politics, we suggest you try other markets, even though there are, arguably, plenty of monsters in those fields. If you want to write about an imaginary cult leader, it’s going to be tough to make the story unique, interesting, and top the real-world stuff that’s already been done. Humor is always a plus, but if you get cheesy, you’ll probably turn us off.

FORMAT: An example of a properly formatted submission follows at the end of this document. Short fiction, articles, and reviews all follow the same format. Your submission must be in the body of an email. We will not open any attachments. Use a standard font, with or without serif, 10-12 point. Do not use color (unless you consider black a color.) In other words, use an ordinary font in an ordinary size, black on white, with no visual distinctives. Let your story speak for itself. If you try to catch our attention with a visual gimmick, we will assume that you did not read this document and we probably will not read your submission. The submission should consist of:

1. Title

2. Author’s name

3. Author’s email address

4. Length (exact count as given in MS Word or similar word processor, if possible)

5. Date of SUBMISSION

6. Body of the story

7. Description of graphic, if applicable

8. Author’s biography

9. Graphic creator’s biography, if applicable

10. Where did you hear about Mustang’s Monster Corral?

PROOFREADING: This is a paying market. If your work is not properly formatted and grammatically correct (including spelling) we will not consider it. If we really like your story and it needs some very minor editing, we may respond, but don’t hold your breath.

WE ARE ACCEPTING SIMULTANEOUS SUBMISSIONS: We know how hard it is to put a story on the sidelines and wait for a reply, so we will begin accepting simultaneous submission, effective immediately. Our official turn-around is fourteen days or less. We will usually know whether we want to publish your piece within a few days, and will let you know immediately after we decide to buy it. At this point, we are planning on notifying you if your story is no longer being considered for publication, but if you have not heard from us in fourteen days, you may assume that we will not be publishing your story. If we do want to publish your submission, we will respond within fourteen days with a proposed date of publication, or a request to hold your piece for further consideration.

SUBMIT: Submit via email to: mustang11b35d@gmail.com using the format described above and following the example at the end of this document. If you have an original graphic (digital photo, drawing, or other digital visual construction) to accompany your story, include a brief description at the end of your submission, just before your biography. If you have so noted and your piece is accepted, we will request it as an attachment to a separate email. REMEMBER – messages with unsolicited attachments will not be opened. If selected, we will pay you $1 to $5 (US) for the use of your graphic. If you would like to associate a public domain (previously published and not original to you) graphic with your piece, follow the procedure for an original graphic. We cannot pay for non-original work, but if it is public domain, we are happy to include it if it enhances your piece. The graphic and story/review/article do not need to be created by the same person (separate credits will be given for each, if appropriate) however, only one payment will be made for both the story/review/article and the graphic. It’s up to you to figure out how to split the dough. All payments are in U.S. Dollars, and all fractions of a cent are rounded up (we’re cheap, but not THAT cheap.)

ACCEPTANCE: If we accept your story for publication, we will send your contract as an email attachment. Sign, scan, and return the contract as an email attachment. (At that point, we will be looking for your reply, and we promise not to trash your message.) We will make the appropriate payment to your PayPal account as soon as we receive your signed contract. Our contract says that you will be paid within 10 working days of publication, but that’s just legal stuff. We expect to pay you prior to the day your story first appears on MonsterCorral.com. In our own work as writers, we have been burned by publishers who promised payment and didn’t deliver. We will NOT be “one of those guys.” Note: We cannot publish your story without a signed contract on file. PayPal is the only means of payment we are using at this time. If you do not already have an account, you can sign up here: https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_registration-run

RATES:

Original Fiction: 1 cent/word. All fiction submissions should be 1,000 words or less, unless we have specifically asked for a longer submission from you.

Reviews, articles, and other: One-half cent/word. You can review movies, books, beer, almost anything, as long as it interests us. Read MonsterCorral.com to see what interests us. Non-fiction submissions should be 500 words or less.

Original Graphics: $1 to $5 per submission, to be published with a story, article, review, etc. The graphics and story do not need to be from the same creator, but the graphics must be original to receive payment. If you are using non-original graphics, you must demonstrate that the graphic is in the public domain. Graphics depicting the monster in your story are especially appreciated. We will consider original graphics that are not associated with a story. The payment for such products will be individually negotiated, but is likely to be considerably higher than the payment for graphics accompanying a story.

ANTHOLOGY: Our goal is to publish 52 fiction stories online and produce an anthology at the end of the year. The anthology will be published as an e-book, and possibly also as a print-on-demand book. Authors will receive royalties on each book sold after the first 100.

More details and an example submission can be found at Monster Corral.

Category: Ongoing Submissions