Deadline: November 30th, 2015
Payment: $.04/word (maximum $300) for First English Language Serial Rights, and $.02 for reprints.

Bad Dream Entertainment is currently accepting dark speculative fiction submissions for short fiction, novellas, and novels. Make sure to thoroughly read through our submission guidelines before sending us your story, we are more than happy to check out your newest creation but we do have a general vision of what we want to publish and your story might be better served elsewhere if it does not fall into our purview.

We will try to review your submission in as timely a manner as possible, but this is a very small operation so expect an average response time of between 6-8 weeks for short stories (query after 9 weeks), and 4-6 months for novels (query after 7). Regardless of when we get around to reading your short story or book, every submission will get a response.

Content Guidelines:
The following content guidelines apply to submissions for short stories, novellas, novels, and articles.​

What we want to see: The dark side of imaginative storytelling. Worlds that convince us are real, characters who enthrall us just as completely as they disturb, and stories that we could never suspect (or perhaps even want to). We want to be taken on a journey that twists boundaries, minds, and guts. While you will see the words ‘horror’, ‘contemporary fantasy’, or ‘science fiction’ thrown around here a lot, these are far from being strict genres that we look for. We want anything that is willing to stretch beyond those conventions and explores new territory. From mind-bendingly surreal, to darkly comedic, we want something we haven’t seen before!

What we do not want to see: Genre conventions. Ie. sparkly vampires, zombie hoards, lovesick werewolves, first or third person serial killer stories, or people going crazy for the hell of it. Show us something new, something that makes us sink into the story or sit back and think for a second. Gimmicks are a dime a dozen and while Nazi zombies from mars stories have their place, we are just not interested in them, so if your story can be summed up in a tagline we may not be interested in it, unless you are doing something really unique. Story is everything, and if you’ve got one that features any of the stereotypes listed above that doesn’t simply rely on their own campiness then we will take a look at it, just remember: story, story, story!

Graphic content: We are not at all afraid of showing grit, blood, and sex, but it does have to have a point to it. We are not interested in splatterfests that wallow in violence or sexuality simply for the sake of itself or for the shock value. If your story features extreme content, make sure it serves a purpose, and no, ‘sounding cool’ is not a purpose.

For Short Fiction:
Length: We will consider anything from 500-16,000 words in length for publication online. However, stories that are over 8-9k words are not very conducive to web-reading, so if your story is in the longer range, we may instead offer it a spot in our annual anthology (or another themed antho if it fits) at a rate of $.02 plus the regular royalty rate for the anthology rather than publishing it online.

Simultaneous​​ Submissions – Please no simultaneous submissions (sending a story to multiple publishers at the same time). We have a large volume of submissions to keep track of and we’d rather not have to pull out stories we haven’t even gotten to yet, or even worse, stories we’ve already fallen in love with.

Multiple Submissions – We do not accept multiple submissions, please wait for a story to receive a response before submitting another.

Reprints – We accept submissions for stories that have been previously published, as long as they are not under exclusive license to the original publisher.

BDE Selects: Dark Fiction Anthology – Acceptance of a story also includes an option for us to include it in an annual print anthology of dark fiction selected from the site. Compensation for this opportunity will be a royalty percentage split between the authors involved. Having a story published on the site does not guarantee inclusion in the anthology.
Format – While we are not overly picky as far as manuscript formatting, submissions should generally follow Standard Manuscript Format. Send manuscript files as either DOC, ODT, or RTF formats. Do Not submit a manuscript as a PDF! If we receive a PDF, we will ask you to resubmit in one of the accepted file types. You can include a cover letter if you really, really want to, but chances are we won’t read it; we care about the story you have to offer, not your publishing history.

Payment – For original short fiction BDE pays $.04/word (maximum $300) for First English Language Serial Rights, and $.02 for reprints.

Send Submissions, with the subject of “Submission” and specify whether it is a short story, novella, or novel to:

submissions [at] baddreamentertainment [dot] com

Make sure to include your contact info and wordcount in your email so we can get it put into the appropriate reading queue. Send submission only to this address; any email with an attachment sent to our main contact address will be auto-deleted and therefore will go unread and not responded to.

Important Note: By submitting content to Bad Dream Entertainment, you agree that you are the rightful owner and original creator of said content and that it in no way infringes upon the ownership or copyrights of existing properties. Bad Dream Entertainment does not seek ownership of submitted material; any submission , accepted or rejected, remains the sole property of the original creators.

Via: Bad Dreams Entertainment.