Category: Pay

Flat Amount / Magazine / Ongoing Submissions

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Ongoing Submissions: Tough

Payment: $35, $20 for reprints
Theme: Crime fiction
Note: Reprints accepted but not preferred

Tough is a crime fiction journal publishing short stories and self-contained novel excerpts of between 1500 words and 7500 words, and occasional book reviews and essays of 1500 words or fewer. We are particularly interested in stories with rural settings. We are a crime journal. We ask for first world and electronic rights. We do consider reprints on a case-by-case basis with the following caveats: first, the story must not appear anywhere else online; second,  we pay a flat fee of $20 for reprints.

Tough publishes three times per month on Mondays, for which we pay a flat rate per story, book review or essay (as of contract date June 15th, 2019, that rate is $35) –we don’t take poems–in exchange for first world serial rights to publish the submission on the website and one-time anthology rights. Payment comes via check mailed on acceptance or via Paypal by special arrangement. Query [email protected] for details or to pitch reviews, essays and reprints. Fiction need not be queried.

As of 8/26/18 submissions should be formatted in .rtf and sent using our submission manager. WE NO LONGER READ MS IN OTHER FORMATS. This means we are, damn it, rejecting .doc, and .docx, .txt, and especially, with vigor and specificity and near-rancor, .pdf. Without reading them. For nearly two years I’ve put up with it. No more. This is not my editorial whim. I use some off-brand officesuite and occasionally LibreOffice on a Linux laptop and and Android tablet with a cheap Bluetooth keyboard, which don’t translate punctuation back and forth well. Especially quotation marks. I’m not rich, and I don’t have a laptop with all the latest bells and whistles nor any desire to have such a thing. Though I would love a tablet with more memory, someday  But not right now. So please send in .rtf.

submit

MOBI or PDF book review copies–our preferred methods–can be sent to the same address.

Via: Tough Crime.

Flat Amount / Magazine / Ongoing Submissions / Online

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Ongoing Submissions: The Future Fire

Payment: $20 for each original story over 1000 words accepted, or $10 per flash piece (up to 1000 words)

The Future Fire welcomes submissions of speculative fiction with progressive, inclusive and socially aware disposition. We are particularly interested in feminist, queer, postcolonial and ecological themes, and we actively seek out submissions by under-represented voices, including but not limited to women, people of color, LGBTQ+, people with disabilities and writers from outside the English-speaking world.

If you are thinking of submitting a piece of writing for consideration by The Future Fire, please read some recent issues to get a feel for the sorts of speculative fiction we are looking for. When submitting, read the following guidelines carefully:

  1. We are reasonably flexible with regard to format and length, but are extremely unlikely to publish any story over 10 000 words. (We have in the past occasionally taken longer stories, up to 20 000 words, to be serialised; this will probably be less likely in the future, and obviously would require a story to be of better than excellent quality and value. We must in any case have the whole story before we make any decision.)
  2. All submissions are read anonymously and judged on their merits and fit to TFF‘s goals. We actively encourage the submission of stories by women, people of colour, LGBTQ+, differently abled/neuroatypical, and other groups under-represented in genre fiction.
  3. Please send your story to the fiction editor ( [ ] ) as an attachment. We prefer .doc, .docx, .rtf or .odt files (query first for any other format). Please use a common, easy-to-read font such as Times New Roman/Palatino and use no other formatting than italics. Do not include your name anywhere in the document. We read and make all decisions based upon anonymised submissions.
  4. Use the email subject line: TFF submission: Surname, ‘Title’ (word count). Give your prefered name or pen name/byline in full in the accompanying email. Please do not send us your full address or other contact details.
  5. No multiple submissions: please only submit one story at a time. No simultaneous submissions: please do not send work that is under consideration elsewhere. If you need to withdraw a story for whatever reason, please do so as early as possible.
  6. We prefer to publish original material. Previously published stories are not out of the question, but you must let us know if a story has appeared elsewhere when you submit. This includes stories posted to blogs, open access writing groups or other public fora, even if they are no longer available there. We are more likely to reprint a story if its previous appearance was in a venue not readily accessible to our main audience, either because of medium, date, genre, or other factors.
  7. A decision is usually made within one month but sometimes life gets in the way of efficiency, for which we apologise. Important: emails sometimes go astray, so please do query if you feel we are taking an unreasonable time to get back to you.
  8. The Future Fire is offering payment of $20 for each original story over 1000 words accepted, or $10 per flash piece (up to 1000 words) (to be paid via Paypal on publication).
  9. Upon acceptance of a story, we shall ask authors to agree to this electronic contract: “You [LEGAL NAME*] of [ADDRESS] grant us, The Future Fire, the non-exclusive right to publish your work [TITLE] by [PEN NAME BYLINE OR PSEUDONYM] on the pages of our website and in the downloadable e-book versions; all other rights to this work belong to you. We shall upon publication make payment of [$20/$10] ([twenty/ten] US dollars) by Paypal to the account [EMAIL ADDRESS]. If we have not published your story within one calendar year of this contract, all rights shall revert to you. You guarantee that this work is your own and that you have the right to grant us the use of it, and that the work contains nothing that breaks copyright or other laws. Any actions breaking such laws will be your sole responsibility. We will print a copyright notice in your name, but we will not register the work with any copyright office on your behalf. You may reprint or adapt the work anywhere in the world, but we would ask as a courtesy that you wait three months after publication and credit us for first appearance.” (*For the contract we shall need a legal name and mailing address, even if you wish your work to be published under a pseudonym. If for safety or other reasons you have a name you are commonly known by that can be used to identify you in official contexts, please feel free to give us this rather than a “dead” name or other sensitive information. We will in any case never ever share this information with anyone else.)

It is the intention of The Future Fire to keep an indefinite archive of stories published in HTML; if an author has a pressing (e.g. legal) need to have a story removed, however, we shall of course help them to comply. We may not be able to remove the story from the copy of the PDF issue that is deposited with national libraries, archived by the Internet Archive, and other places outside of our control (just as a paper periodical archived in a national library would remain available permanently).

Via: The Future Fire.

Flat Amount / Magazine / Ongoing Submissions

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Ongoing Submissions: SmokeLong Quarterly

Deadline: $50
Theme: Original Narrative Work

What You Need to Know

SUBMIT NOW

SmokeLong publishes flash fiction up to 1000 words. We do not consider poetry or non-fiction.

Include a print-ready, third-person bio with your cover letter.

Please include no identifying information on your story’s document.

Please send ONE previously unpublished story at a time and wait until you hear our decision before sending another.

Please allow us up to four weeks to inform you if we have accepted your work for publication. You will usually hear from us much sooner.

Simultaneous submissions are accepted. Please inform us immediately if your work has been accepted somewhere else for publication.

We pay $50/story, upon publication in the quarterly issue. Payment will be issued via PayPal, and the writer may be responsible for any associated fees if applicable.

Info to Help Increase Your Chances of Publication

The SLQ aesthetic remains an ever-changing, ever-elusive set of principles, but it most likely has to do with these kinds of things:

  • language that surprises
  • narratives that strive toward something other than a final punch line or twist
  • pieces that add up to something, oftentimes (but not necessarily always) meaning or emotional resonance
  • honest work that feels as if it has far more purpose than a writer wanting to write a story

We are not interested in works previously published in online magazines. We do not consider pieces published only on your personal web site or blog to have been previously published, so we will consider those, but inform us of this in your cover letter and know we may ask you to temporarily take the story down if we accept it. We are interested in pieces that have only previously appeared in print, but only by solicitation.

We have a special place in our hearts, more often than not, for narratives we haven’t seen before. For the more familiar stories—such as relationship break-ups, bar scenarios, terminal illnesses—we tend to need something original and urgent in the writer’s presentation.

We are all writers at SLQ, and we try to be sensitive to the nature of submitting your work—which we realize is often your very private and important selves—to strangers. We so appreciate your entrusting us with your submissions, and although author names and bios are available to us, the staff rarely, if ever, accesses this information before reading each piece.

We want what all readers want from you—something sincerely and uniquely yours, something that stands up to rereading and lingers in our consciousness long after.

Our intent is to respond as quickly as possible. (Note: Our emails sometimes get caught by spam filters, so please add “smokelong.com” to your allow list. We also can’t respond to any third-party spam filter programs, so please don’t submit to us with an email address that has that kind of security set up.)

Online Rights: If we publish your work, we require exclusive electronic rights to it for 3 months and non-exclusive rights indefinitely so we can include it in our online archives.

Print Rights: We require non-exclusive print rights, for potential annual anthologies and promotional materials. All other rights remain yours.

About Our Guest Editing Process

We publish one story each week as a SmokeLong Weekly, chosen by guest editors. We also publish spring, summer, fall and winter quarterly issues. The quarterly issue includes the weekly stories as well as bonus stories and interviews.

Even though our weekly stories are chosen by different editors, you may NOT submit the same story with each new week. Our staff does manage the submission process, and we will — unfortunately — have to disqualify these stories from consideration.

Our staff reviews all stories, including those not chosen by the guest editor of the week. We try to respond with personal comments as time permits and especially if the story and/or writer show promise or advanced far into our reading process, but even if you receive a form rejection from us (or several!) know that we value your time and work and are cheering you on for success.

 

Via: SmokeLong Quarterly.

Magazine / Ongoing Submissions / Pro

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Ongoing Submissions: Asimov’s Science Fiction

Payment: 8-10 cents per word for short stories up to 7,500 words, and 8 cents for each word over 7,500.

Payment & Rights

Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine is an established market for science fiction stories. Asimov’s pays 8-10 cents per word for short stories up to 7,500 words, and 8 cents for each word over 7,500. We seldom buy stories shorter than 1,000 words or longer than 20,000 words, and we don’t serialize novels. We pay $1 a line for poetry, which should not exceed 40 lines. We buy First English Language serial rights plus certain non-exclusive rights explained in our contract. We do not publish reprints, and we do not accept “simultaneous submissions” (stories sent at the same time to a publication other than Asimov’s). Asimov’s will consider material submitted by any writer, previously published or not. We’ve bought some of our best stories from people who have never sold a story before.

Story Content

In general, we’re looking for “character oriented” stories, those in which the characters, rather than the science, provide the main focus for the reader’s interest. Serious, thoughtful, yet accessible fiction will constitute the majority of our purchases, but there’s always room for the humorous as well. SF dominates the fiction published in the magazine, but we also publish borderline fantasy, slipstream, and surreal fiction. No sword & Sorcery, please. Neither are we interested in explicit sex or violence. A good overview would be to consider that all fiction is written to examine or illuminate some aspect of human existence, but that in science fiction the backdrop you work against is the size of the Universe.

Electronic Submission and Manuscript Format

Asimov’s now uses an Online Submissions System that has been designed to streamline our process and improve communication with authors. We do not accept email submissions. Please see Manual Submission Guidelines for information about paper submissions.

Our online submissions form for fiction asks for your name, email address, cover letter, story title, and story. Cover letter is optional. If you choose to include it, it should contain the length of your story and your publishing history. Story word count can, and should, also be indicated in the upper right corner of the first page of the manuscript. We ask for the same information for poetry. Please fill out a separate form for each poem submitted for consideration. All stories and poems should be in standard manuscript format and can be submitted in .RTF or .DOC format. For information about standard formatting, see William Shunn’s guide to Proper Manuscript Format. After you have submitted your work, a tracking number will be displayed and an automated email confirmation containing this information will be sent to you. If you have not received this email within twenty-four hours, please notify us by email. Your tracking number will allow you to monitor the status of your submission through our website, so please don’t lose it.

NOTE: Yahoo.com occasionally treats our email as spam, please keep an eye on your spam folder.

Reply Process

Our average response time runs about five weeks. If you have not heard from us in three months, you can query us about the submission at [email protected]. Thanks for your interest in Asimov’s and good luck!

Manual Submission and Manuscript Format

Manuscripts submitted to Asimov’s must be neatly typed, double-spaced on one side of the sheet only, on bond paper (no erasable paper, please). Any manuscript longer than 5 pages should be mailed to us flat. Dot matrix printouts are acceptable only if they are easily readable. Please do NOT send us submissions on disk. When using a word processor, please do not justify the right margin. If sending a printout, separate the sheets first. The manuscript should include the title, your name and address, and the number of words in your story. Enclose a cover letter if you like. All manuscripts must be accompanied by a self-addressed stamped envelope (if manuscript is over 5 pages, use a 9” x 12” envelope) carrying enough postage to return the manuscript If you wish to save on postage, you may submit a clear copy of your story along with a standard (#10) envelope, also self-addressed and stamped. Mark your manuscript “DISPOSABLE,” and you will receive our reply only. We do not suggest that you have us dispose of your original typescript. If you live overseas or in Canada, use International Reply Coupons for postage, along with a self-addressed envelope.

Via: Asimov’s Science Fiction.

Magazine / Ongoing Submissions / Pro

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Ongoing Submissions: Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine

Payment: 5 to 8¢ a word
Theme: Every kind of mystery short story

EQMM uses an online submission system that was designed to streamline our process and improve communication with authors. We ask that all submissions be made electronically, using this system, rather than on paper. Our online submissions form for fiction asks for your name, e-mail address, cover letter, story title, and story. Your cover letter should state the length of your story, your publishing history (briefly!), and any other relevant information. If you have not been previously published, let us know that your story should be considered for our Department of First Stories. We ask for the same information for poetry. Please fill out a separate form for each poem submitted for consideration. All stories and poems should be in standard manuscript format and submitted in .DOC format. At this time, our system does not support .DOCX, .RTF, or .TXT files. For information about standard formatting, see William Shunn’s guide to Proper Manuscript Format.

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Magazine / Ongoing Submissions / Pro

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Ongoing Submissions: Amazing Stories

Payment: Six cents per word

Introduction

So. We’re all geeks here, so we probably don’t have to tell you that Amazing Stories was started in 1926 by Hugo Gernsback, giving it the distinction of being the first science fiction magazine. You already know that Amazing Stories published many of the early greats in the field, including Jules Verne, H. G. Wells, E. E. “Doc” Smith, Ursula Le Guin, Isaac Asimov, John Campbell Jack Williamson and Claire Winger Harris.

But what has Amazing Stories done lately?

The field of science fiction (or scientifiction as Gernsback liked to call it) has changed substantially in the ninety years since Amazing Stories was first published. For one thing, science has progressed substantially, giving us men on the moon, a map of the human genome, virtual reality, the Internet of things, and real robots and artificial intelligence; never before have science fiction writers had so many toys to play with, and new ones seem to be appearing every day. For another thing, science fiction readers are more sophisticated than they were an almost century ago; they’ve been there and done that with the formulae of the genre, and they’re looking for what’s next.

Amazing Stories plans to be what’s next.

What We’re Looking For

Amazing Stories is looking for short stories that are fresh and new. We want to be surprised. We want to be delighted. We want your stories to be amazing. It’s not enough to be technically proficient and have a sort of, somewhat semi-original idea; we want to be dazzled by your original style and substance.

Remember when science fiction was optimistic, when the future was something to be embraced as a bold adventure instead of a place of dystopias, seemingly endless wars and mutant monstrosities to be feared? Amazing Stories will not shy away from stories that explore the negative impacts of technologies on individuals and society, but we have a strong preference for stories that take a bright view of human ingenuity and the possible futures we can make with it. Have you ever read a short story or novel and thought to yourself, “I want to take part in making that future a reality?” That is what we would like to see.

We intend to have a balance of relatively known and relatively new writers. Don’t be reluctant to submit stories just because you aren’t a famous writer – if you have an original idea and style, submitting to Amazing Stories could be your first step to becoming one.

We are happy to consider stories with a strong point of view, especially in light of the fact that one of the strengths of science fiction is its exploration of how science and technology can change interpersonal relationships and politics. However, we do not want stories that are basically political screeds or other kinds of preaching. Point of view needs to arise naturally out of the workings of the plot and the interactions of the characters.

We will not reject stories solely because of “adult” content. Keep in mind, however, that such content is not in keeping with our optimistic approach, which will make stories with graphic content (of a sexual or violent nature) a hard sell.

Amazing Stories encourages visible minorities, QUILTBAG writers and members of other minority or marginalized groups to submit to the magazine. The future will be diverse; we would like to see that reflected in the stories we tell and the writers who tell them.

We speak humor here. Well written humorous stories are always welcome.

The Deets

LENGTH: 1,000 to 10,000 words

PAYMENT: Six cents per word. Payment is upon final acceptance.

RIGHTS: Amazing Stories buys first world publication rights. In addition, we are buying non-exclusive electronic archival rights, in perpetuity, and the right for non-exclusive publication in the quarterly issue (ebook and print on demand, as well as a print “collector’s edition”). We also ask for non-exclusive rights to republish the story in an anthology for a separate fee.

REPRINTS: Although Amazing Stories publishes reprints, they will be limited in number and solicited by the publisher, so please do not submit them (although suggestions are appreciated). The reprint rate is $100 regardless of story length.

SUBMISSIONS: We do not accept emailed or print submissions. Stories must be submitted using our online submission system, which will be open starting on a date which we will announce. This will require setting up an account. Under LogIn on the top right corner of this page, you will be asked to create a username and supply your email address. When you have submitted this information, you will receive an email asking you to activate your account. Click on the link in the email and you will now have an Amazing Stories submissions account.

When you next log onto the submissions page, you will see more options, including “Submit a Story” and “Stories.” When you click on “Submit a Story,” you will be asked for information about the story and to upload a digital copy. If you want to see a list of stories you have submitted and what their current status is, click on the “Stories” button.

Amazing Stories uses a randomized submission system, so please make sure that your name does not appear anywhere on the manuscript; if any identifying information appears anywhere in your submission, it will be rejected unread. We could repeat this instruction five times to show you just how serious we are about it, but we’d hate to waste the bandwidth, so let’s assume that you are paying attention and will follow it.

SIMULTANEOUS SUBMISSION: No. Just…no.

MULTIPLE SUBMISSION: Also no.

MANUSCRIPT FORMAT: Do we have to tell you to use standard manuscript format? Really? Double spaced? Bold and italics in bold and italics? If you’re in doubt, you can find the standard guidelines here: www.sfwa.org/2008/11/manuscript-preparation/. But Remember: DO NOT include your name on the ms.

Via: Amazing Stories.

Magazine / Ongoing Submissions / Poetry / Pro

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Ongoing Submissions: Analog’s Science Fiction and Fact

Payment: 8-10 cents per word for short fiction (up to approximately 20,000 words), 6 cents per word for serials (40,000-80,000 words), 9 cents per word for fact articles, and $1 per line for poetry.

Payment & Rights

Analog’s Science Fiction and Fact magazine is an established market for science fiction stories. Analog pays 8-10 cents per word for short fiction (up to approximately 20,000 words), 6 cents per word for serials (40,000-80,000 words), 9 cents per word for fact articles, and $1 per line for poetry. We buy First English Language serial rights plus certain non-exclusive rights explained in our contract.

Story Content

Analog will consider material submitted by any writer solely on the basis of merit. We are eager to find and develop new, capable writers.

We have no hard-and-fast editorial guidelines, because science fiction is such a broad field that I don’t want to inhibit a new writer’s thinking by imposing Thou Shalt Nots. Besides, a great story can make an editor swallow his preconceived taboos.

We publish science fiction stories in which some aspect of future science or technology is so integral to the plot that, if that aspect were removed, the story would collapse. Try to picture Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein without the science and you’ll see what I mean. No story!

The science can be physical, sociological, psychological. The technology can be anything from electronic engineering to biogenetic engineering. But the stories must be strong and realistic, with believable people (who needn’t be human) doing believable things–no matter how fantastic the background might be.

Fact Articles

Fact articles should be about 4,000 words in length and should deal with subjects of not only current but also future interest, i.e., topics at the present frontiers of research whose likely future developments have implications of wide interest. Necessary images should be provided by the author in camera-ready form.

Our readers are very intelligent and technically knowledgeable but represent a very wide diversity of backgrounds. Thus specialized jargon and mathematical detail should be kept to a necessary minimum. Our audience largely reads us for entertainment, and a suitable style for our articles is considerably more informal than many professional journals.

Electronic Submission and Manuscript Format

Analog uses an online submissions system—we do not accept email submissions. Please see Manuscript Guidelines for information about paper submissions.

Our online submissions form for fiction asks for your name, email address, cover letter, story title, and story. Your cover letter should contain the length of your story, your publishing history, and any other relevant information (e.g., if you send us a story about a medical disaster and you happen to be an emergency room nurse, mention that). We ask for the same information for poetry. Please include up to six poems in one submission for poetry, and wait until you have heard back on those before sending us more.

All stories and poems should be in standard manuscript format and can be submitted in .DOC format. For information about standard formatting, see William Shunn’s guide to Proper Manuscript Format. After you have submitted your work, a tracking number will be displayed and an automated email confirmation containing this information will be sent to you. If you have not received this email within twenty-four hours, please notify us by email.  Your tracking number will allow you to monitor the status of your submission through our website, so please don’t lose it. NOTE: Email providers occasionally treat our email as spam.

Manual Submission and Manuscript Format

We strongly prefer that submissions be made through our electronic submission system at analog.magazinesubmissions.com.

If you must submit hardcopy, manuscripts must be computer-printed, double-spaced, on white paper, one side of the sheet only. Please avoid unusual or very small typefaces. Indent paragraphs but do not leave extra space between them. Please do not put manuscripts in binders or folders. We do not accept e-mail or fax submissions.

Author’s name and address should be on the first page of the manuscript. No material submitted can be returned or acknowledged unless accompanied by a stamped and addressed envelope (not a postcard). No simultaneous submissions, please.

Other Information

For serials, include a detailed synopsis and any prior publishing commitments with your submission. A complete manuscript is strongly preferred for all shorter lengths.

Payment is on acceptance.

Reply Process

Our average response time runs about two to three months. If you have not heard from us in four months, you can query us about the submission at [email protected]. Thanks for your interest in Analog and good luck!

Our Editorial Address

Dell Magazines
Trevor Quachri, Editor
44 Wall Street, Suite 904
New York, NY 10005-2401
E-mail: [email protected]

Art Guidelines

What We’re Looking For

We are interested in professional-level, mostly realistic work. Photographs are not normally used, but artists illustrating for us have worked with photos, using surreal effects.

The illustration must be able to visually interpret the story in such a way that it accurately represents the story, hooks the reader, and doesn’t give away the ending. Our stories contain a wide range of subject matter that that you must have the ability to draw. We like to see the capacity to illustrate an entire scene: one that not only has a character or characters, but also has a detailed background. You must know anatomy, perspective, balance, and figure proportions. We are not a comic book company, so please don’t send samples of comics pages.

What to Send

Send four to six samples of your best work. Do not send us your originals. Send only copies. They can be photocopies, stats, slides, transparencies, or tearsheets.

For either black and white interiors or color covers, you can use any medium. Many of our artists use pencil, pen & ink, airbrush, watercolor, scratchboard, etc. Electronic files are acceptable as long as it is in Mac format, eps or tiff, but please send a disk – DO NOT E-MAIL THE FILES!

Please include a self-addressed stamped, business-sized envelope for a response, or a large one if you want your samples returned to you.

Payment

$1,200.00 for color cover art.
$125.00 for black and white interiors.

Our Address

Dell Magazines
c/o Victoria Green
Analog Science Fiction and Fact,
44 Wall Street, Suite 904
New York, NY 10005-2401

For sample copies, send a SASE and a check or money order in the amount of $5.00 for each copy to the editorial department at the same address

Via: Analog.

Magazine / Ongoing Submissions / Pro

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Ongoing Submissions: Nature’s ‘Futures’

Payment: SFWA approves though rate isn’t specified.

Futures

Futures is the award-winning science-fiction section of Nature and it accepts unsolicited articles. Each Futures piece should be an entirely fictional, self-contained story of around 850–950 words in length, and the genre should, broadly speaking, be ‘hard’ (that is, ‘scientific’) SF rather than, say, outright fantasy, slipstream or horror. Each item should be sent as a Word document attachment to [email protected], including full contact details and a 30-word autobiographical note to be appended to the story if published.

We ask contributors not to send presubmission enquiries but to send the whole story. Unsolicited artwork is not considered. Before submitting, prospective authors are advised to read earlier Futures stories at nature.com/futures; selected examples are also available here. More detailed guidelines can be found at http://blogs.nature.com/futureconditional/2015/04/19/how-to-write-for-nature-futures/.

Via: Nature.