Publication will be one year after reading period.

Anything sent to us outside these reading periods will be deleted unread.

We here at Bete Noire are looking for stories that are well written, character driven and have a dark bent to them.  We are open to most genres as long as they have a dark side.  This includes horror, dark sci-fi, dark fantasy, crime, mystery or dark humor.  However, vampires plus sparkle equals rejection.

Please don’t send us sword & sorcery or space operas.  Tolkien and Lucas have their place, but not here.  Also, we don’t and can’t accept “fan fiction” which includes anything based on a video game, book, movie or any other creator’s work or conception unless you have written permission from the creator.  If you don’t own the copyright to the characters in your story, we cannot publish your work.  By submitting to us, you, as the author of the work, accept responsibility for any possible copyright infringement.

Please don’t send us “Slash” or “Fem-Slash” or anything graphically describing sex.  Sex is okay as long as it’s integral to the story but don’t overdo it.  Please don’t use gore for gore’s sake.  Again gore is okay as long as it’s integral to the story.  Though we cringe at the thought of violence toward children or pets, we understand that this type of violence does occur in real life, but we just don’t want it in our magazine. Stories with acts of violence toward animals or children will not have a chance with us.  Any story that insinuates an act of sex or sexual violence between an adult and a child will be rejected.  This includes ALL children, alien, robotic or otherwise. If you think your twist will be an exception, think again.  NO STORIES WITH SEX, VIOLENCE  OR SEXUAL VIOLENCE TOWARD CHILDREN, PERIOD.

Please use spell check and proof your work before sending it to us.  As writers, you should be doing this already, but it surprises us on how often this isn’t done.

Multiple submissions are okay, but please send them under a separate email (this includes poetry) and only three submissions per author per reading period.  Please note: If you send us multiple submissions, only one will be accepted if any. For example, if you send us three, we MAY or MAY NOT except one, but we will not accept more than one. Simultaneous submissions are also okay as long as you let us know if you sell your work elsewhere.

Please Note:  We don’t care if you name is Stephen Janovski or Stephen King.  We don’t care if you’re friends with the editors at The New Yorker or Cemetery Dance.  What counts with us, is the merit of your story, so please don’t expect us to accept your work simply because of who you are or who you know.

Stories should be between 100 and 5,000 words.  This word count is firm, if your story is within 100 words of the upper limit, we’ll read it, but if it’s over we won’t, there is no need to query, our answer will be no.  That means if your story is 5,101 it’s too long and we will not read it.  If you send it anyway, you will be rejected.

Please follow proper manuscript format.  If you don’t know what that is, please follow this link.http://www.shunn.net/format/story.html If your story doesn’t look the same as what is posted in this link, it is WRONG and will be sent back to you unread.  Please save us all time and submit your stories correctly.

Specifically what we are looking for is as follows:

• Use Courier New or Times New Roman fonts only.
• Double space between lines.
• Indent paragraphs.
• No extra space between paragraphs.
• All words meant to be italicized, bolded, or underlined in the final print, please make sure they are italicized, bolded or underlined in your manuscript.
• All stories must be submitted as an attachment in .doc, .docx, or .rtf

Stories submitted in the body of an email will be deleted unread.

Poetry submissions are welcome and can be of any style.  You can submit up to threepoems per reading period.  Please submit them in separate emails and attached to the email in either .doc, .docx, or .rtf files. Poems sent in the body of an email will be deleted unread.  Poems can be up to seventy-five lines each. This is firm. We will not accept anything longer.

If you send more than one poem in a single submission, we will read only the first poem.  The others will go unread.  Please, for your own benifit, follow the guidelines.

Poetry does not need to follow story formatting but please use Courier Newor Times New Roman fonts only.

Please be aware that we reserve the right to reformat your story or poem as necessary to fit the specific format for our magazine.  We will not rewrite your story or poem without first sending you a proof, but on occasion, we may have to alter line placement to eliminate blank space. If you have a problem with this, please don’t submit to us.

At this time, we are only accepting interior artwork.  It must be your original work and in black and white only, no color artwork will be accepted for the interior of the magazine. And it should go without saying that the artwork should be dark in nature.  However, we cannot accept anything with graphic nudity or sex.  Dark humor is always an interest to us, so if you have a comic of dark humor send it along as long as it’s no more than six frames.  All artwork needs to be in JPEG format and attached to the email. 

We are also accepting black and white photographs for the interior of the magazine.  All photos must be original and dark, but again, just like the artwork we cannot accept anything with graphic nudity or sex.  Photographs need to be in JPEG format and attached to the email.

We are asking for First English Language Print Rights or Reprint Rights if your story is a reprint.  Also, we are asking for World Electronic Rights exclusive for six months (ebook version)

We are planning to run “Best of” anthologies.  Please keep this in mind as we could be asking for reprint rights in the future.  Remember, just because you are accepted into the magazine does not guarantee a spot in the “Best of” anthology.

We do accept reprints for inclusion in our magazine, but with the limited space in our magazine we prefer original works.  Please let us know at the time of your submission when and where your work first appeared.

$10 US flat for each accepted work plus free ebook version of the issue in which your work appears.

All payments are made via Paypal.  If you do not have a Paypal account, sign up for one, it’s free.  We do not send payment in any other form.

Please give us one month to review your story.  If you have not heard back from us after two months, feel free to send us an email.

 Send submissions to:  [email protected]

In the subject line put: submission and the title of your story.

Send inquiries to:  [email protected]

Please be advised:  If you require a form to be filled out by us in order for you to get our emails, we willNOT fill them out.  We are too busy to take the time to do this.  Please approve our email address before hand.  If we get an auto response from you, it will just be deleted and we will move on to the next submission.

We look forward to reading your work.