Category: Pay

Artwork / Contributor's Copy / Flat Amount / Magazine / Ongoing Submissions / Poetry

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Ongoing Submissions: Dreams & Nightmares

Payment: Payment in US is $12 on acceptance + 2 contributor’s copies, outside of US is 3-issue subscription plus 2 copies.

I print primarily poetry, but also publish a small amount of short short fiction. The genres of fantasy and SF are preferred. I am interested in experimental formats and content, and prefer fantastic horror a la Lovecraft or Blackwood to the blood and gore type. Any SF or fantasy is appropriate if it isn’t sappy or trite. If your poem rhymes, be sure that the rhymes are not forced, and that the meter is consistent.

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Artwork / Contributor's Copy / Magazine / Ongoing Submissions / Poetry / Token Payment

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Ongoing Submissions: Not One Of Us

Payment: ¼¢ per word ($5 minimum) and a contributor’s copy. For poems, $5 and a contributor’s copy

Not One of Us is about people (or things) out of place in their surroundings, outsiders, social misfits, aliens in the SF sense—anyone excluded from society for whatever the reason. We’d like Not One of Us to consider the problem of “otherness” from every possible fictional angle: horror, SF, fantasy, noir, slipstream, Western, mainstream, whatever.
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Closed Markets / Flat Amount / Online

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Closed Market: With Candlelight

UPDATE: This is now a closed market.
Payment: $15.00 each story. $30.00 for stories that are featured on the Front Page.
Note: Audio and print rights also wanted so be sure to check that out.

Welcome to With Candlelight, a literary magazine created for and by authors. We aim to deliver creative and worthwhile content that both our writers and readers crave. Really, what we want to do is create a community where those who crave a good story, and those who strive to produce one, can come together-hopefully in a state of wonder.

Don’t worry about the genre, we’re all inclusive. We want your lit-fiction, your horror and science fiction, your LGBT story, your creative non-fiction, and we love flash fiction too. Do you have a story that doesn’t fall into these categories? Send it anyway. We will read every story sent our way. If it’s good enough, and we want great pieces, we will publish it on the site. There are also no word limits or expectations. If it’s great, we want it. 

We pay $15.00 each story. $30.00 for stories that are featured on the Front Page. We ask for the publishing rights of your story, as well as electronic rights, which include: PDF, HTML, plain text, print and MP3 (audio) formats. Stories are distributed through this website and some may appear in audio form, via podcast, etc. The payment also includes the right to publish the story as a non-exclusive, one-time right to include your stories in an anthology.

If you’re unsure of our rights policy, but want to publicize your work, you can submit to us anyway. This will be without pay but we will be able to promote your work and hopefully bring more attention to it. Just inform us in the email that your story is attached in that you do NOT want to sell the rights to your story. You can also send us links to your website, twitter, or Amazon page to go along with your story.

Send submissions to [email protected].

Via: With Candlelight.

Magazine / Ongoing Submissions / Semipro

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Ongoing Submissions: Shoreline of Infinity

Payment: £10/1000 word

What we are looking for

First, we strongly suggest you read a copy of Shoreline of Infinity to see the kind of stories our readers like. You can download a copy or order a print copy over there on the right.

We are looking for a good science fiction story. Something that gives reality a tweak on the nose. An idea that makes us stop and think.

But more than that, we want your story to be populated with characters we want to meet and have a drink with or from whom we want to run screaming away; we want characters to hug to ease the pain; we want to read the stories of heroes; we want to be your character.

Make us want to nudge our sleeping partners at 3am in the morning and say: “you should read this!”

Broaden our horizons – look beyond the Shoreline.

We told you, we’re looking for a good story.

If you can include all that in one tale as seen through the powerful lens of science fiction, so much the better.

 Length

From Issue 8 onwards we will be publishing one story of up to 10,000 words, otherwise it’s a maximum of 5,000 words.

What we Offer and Rights

We offer £10/1000 word at the moment.

We retain the right to continue selling back issues of Shoreline of Infinity and Shoreline anthologies containing your story (royalties are paid for republishing in collections).

We buy first digital and print world rights in English, but your rights are returned to you after 6 months of original publication (digital or print), and you are free to publish how or wherever you like. However, it would be splendid if you could acknowledge first publication in Shoreline of Infinity.

What to Submit

We accept simultaneous submissions, but do tell us immediately if you want to withdraw a submission. Submit a neatly formatted manuscript set in Times 12 point and double spaced in Word format ( doc/docx). Please use the submission process here – emailed manuscripts will be ignored.

Submit only one story.

Response Time

We will reply as soon as we can after your submission, but do contact us if you have not heard within 3 months. We know what it’s like to be kept waiting, but we are only human (mostly).

submit

Via: Shoreline Of Infinity.

Ongoing Submissions / Online / Pro

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Ongoing Submissions: Strange Horizons

Payment: 8¢/word

To make sure that the volume of submissions doesn’t get out of hand while we’re still getting up to speed with our new submissions system, we’re trying out a weekly schedule:

  • We’ll always reopen every Monday when the new issue is published.
  • When we’re open, there will be no daily cap.
  • During the week, if and when the queue begins to significantly outstrip the reading, we’ll close for the week to give ourselves room to catch up.
  • This page will always clearly indicate whether we’re closed and if so, when we’ll be reopening.

Fiction Editors

  • Vajra Chandrasekera
  • Lila Garrott
  • Catherine Krahe
  • An Owomoyela

Guidelines at a Glance

We want:

  • Speculative fiction, broadly defined.
  • Up to 10,000 words (under 5000 preferred).
  • Previously unpublished in English—we buy first English rights, including audio.
  • Submitted through our Moksha submission gateway—no email or postal submissions.
  • No simultaneous or multiple submissions; no re-submissions.
  • Please send only RTF, DOC or DOCX files and try to stick to standard manuscript format as much as possible.

We offer:

  • Payment of 8¢/word USD, within 60 days of contract.

If you have any questions, write to [email protected] with the word QUERY: at the beginning of your subject line.

Everything else on this page is intended to clarify, explain, or provide insight into the above guidelines. If you’ve submitted to us before or feel confident that your story meets our guidelines, feel free to skip the rest of this page. If you’re uncertain on any point, you’ll find more detailed discussion below.

What We Want and What We Don’t Want

We want good speculative fiction. If your story doesn’t have a speculative element, or strong speculative-fiction sensibilities, it’s probably not for us.

Some particular things we love, or are interested in:

  • Fiction from or about diverse perspectives and traditionally under-represented groups, settings, and cultures, written from a non-exoticizing and well-researched position.
  • Unusual yet readable styles and inventive structures and narratives.
  • Stories that address political issues in complex and nuanced ways, resisting oversimplification.
  • Hypertext fiction. If you have a work of hyperfiction you think might be a good fit for Strange Horizons, please query us to discuss how to submit it.

Things which are fine:

  • Profanity is fine. Use whatever words are appropriate for your story.
  • Sex or violence in a story should be artistically justified; no excessive gore.
  • We welcome submissions from anywhere in the world, and British spellings are fine.
  • We will consider stories which have previously appeared in another language, but have never been published in English.
  • We welcome all subgenres and forms of speculative fiction.

Things we won’t consider:

  • Stories above 10,000 words, including serialized novels or novellas.
  • Partial or incomplete stories. Please don’t send us part of a story and ask us to request the rest of it if we’re interested.
  • Unsolicited reprints of works previously published in English.
  • Stories previously submitted to Strange Horizons, even if they have been revised.
  • Multiple stories at once from the same author.
  • Submissions sent to us and another venue simultaneously.
  • Poetry or nonfiction; we’re the wrong department for those.

Pay Rates and Lengths

We prefer stories under 5,000 words, but we consider stories up to 10,000 words. Note, however, that the longer the story is, the less likely we are to be interested. Our wordcount limit is not absolutely inflexible, but we can’t consider stories much over the limit, not even as serials. However, we have no minimum wordcount requirement; we consider short-short stories. We determine story length by taking the word-processor wordcount and rounding up to the next highest 100 words.

We pay 8¢/word (USD), with a minimum payment of $60. SFWA officially considers us a professional market. We pay by check or PayPal, according to the author’s preference.

We buy first-printing world exclusive English-language rights (including audio rights) for six (6) months. After that period, you are free to republish the story elsewhere. We hope you’ll allow us to leave the story in our archives indefinitely after it’s rotated off the main table of contents, but you have the right to remove your story from the archives at any time after one (1) year.

How to Submit

Check the top of this page to see if we’re open to submissions, and if we’re open, upload a file using our submission gateway. In order to track stories correctly, we can only consider stories submitted through that form—no email or paper mail submissions.

Your cover letter can be minimal: generally, these should be short and list just a few of your most recent or most relevant publications or workshops. If you’ve got life experience relevant to your story (e.g. your story takes place on a submarine, and you served on a submarine), please do mention that. Cover letters shouldn’t include plot synopses or pitches. If you are still concerned, please take a look at our sample cover letters page.

Don’t worry about how your story is formatted, in terms of font, font size, line spacing or indentation. Our system automatically reformats submissions the way we like them.

If you’re having trouble submitting, or have any other questions, please send an e-mail with a subject line of “QUERY: Your Question Topic” to [email protected].

Response Time and Response Status

We usually respond within a few weeks, but if you haven’t heard from us within 40 days, please query immediately. You won’t be rushing us along—most likely, we have responded, but the email’s gone astray.

We send an autoresponder message in response to every submission we receive. If you haven’t received an autoresponse within 24 hours after submitting, please query immediately. Missing an autoresponse usually means we have an incorrect email address for you, and won’t be able to contact you when we make a decision on your fiction.

Withdrawal policy

After you submit a story, we strongly prefer you don’t withdraw it. If you withdraw a story, we won’t consider any version of that story in the future. However, if you do need to withdraw a story, please send an e-mail telling us that you need to withdraw, and let us know why.

How to Contact Us

To contact us for any reason, write to [email protected] with the word QUERY: at the beginning of your subject line. Add a few words to the subject line to indicate what you’re querying about.

Strange and Interesting Miscellany

None of this is required reading, but if you’re curious about how we do things, you may find the following links interesting:

  • Stories we see too often: This list was made by the previous editing team, and has since been reposted and referenced by various people who’ve found it useful. Though there is some good advice here, we offer it as a curio rather than as a prescription.
  • Why we don’t want authors to withdraw stories: This is a post by previous senior fiction editor, Jed Hartman. We agree with his reasoning.

Via: Strange Horizons.

Audio / Ongoing Submissions / Reprints Allowed / Token Payment

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Ongoing Submissions: The Centropic Oracle

the-centropic-oracle

Payment: 0.01 per word, CAD
Note: Non-released in audio reprints allowed

The Centropic Oracle is looking for science fiction and fantasy stories that make you feel and think. In our opinion good fiction – particularly SF and Fantasy – should challenge us to examine our own lives and beliefs. It should force us to reflect on how we fit into the world and what it takes to make the world a better place by our being in it. We aren’t looking for things that will give us answers to those questions, but that doesn’t mean your story shouldn’t have a resolution (good, bad, or indifferent!) to its conflict.

What we do not accept:

    • – erotica of any description;
    • – gratuitous graphic violence;
    • – profanity – we need to maintain our non-explicite rating on iTunes, so keep it PG
    • – anything to do with zombies;
    • – pieces that are nothing but proselytization of a religious or political perspective;
    • – racist, homophobic, misogynistic, or misandrist works;
    • – fan fiction – it must be an original story that you own all the rights to.

 
What’s a tough, tough sell and makes us shudder at the thought of having to read it yet again:

  • – vampires;
  • – werewolves;
  • – any supernatural being in a romance with a human.

 

Basics

The prose must be readable and easily spoken aloud. This means that it must flow naturally and not distract the reader from the story. Lyricism is fine (we quite enjoy it) but pointless repetition is distracting. This is flash and short fiction so every word counts. Make those verbs active and incorporate your adjectives well to set mood! A single well-placed word in a sentence can change it entirely. Word usage frequency is something we notice. Take a break from your piece and read it again. Do you notice one word that pops up again and again? If you notice it, it’s guaranteed we will – it’s a pet peeve. Rhythm and cadence matter too, we don’t want to read pieces that sound like they were written by a robot who is only capable of crafting sentences five words long.

Characterization is integral. If you don’t know your character, your reader won’t either. It’s distracting when a character behaves in ways that don’t make sense, or outbursts feel like they came out of nowhere.

Continuity errors are a sure way to get a rejection. If your antagonist changes hair colour part way through the story, you will get a rejection. Continuity is one of the key basics in editing and is an indicator that you haven’t proofread your piece, let alone given your best effort to it.

Grammar matters. Know the difference between your, you’re, and yore, and between to, too, and two. Know when to use a comma. The occasional typo is one thing (even those of us who are proficient in grammar can miss a single typo despite reviewing a manuscript a dozen times) but poor grammar won’t get you past the first read, and if it’s bad enough we won’t even finish the read.

If we have rejected your story, do not resubmit it. We do not ask for rewrites. Ever. If it’s almost there, we will accept the piece contingent on specific edits. If you refuse the suggested edits and we feel strongly enough about the necessity of those edits, we will release your piece unpublished and without payment.

If we accept your story we will require a bio and a photo from you for promotional purposes on our website. In addition, be prepared to be called to interview with the reader and/or a small panel for a group discussion of your story. Talking points will be sent out prior to the voice-only interview so that you can have anecdotes or comments prepared. If you do not wish to have your photo posted, or appear on the show, do not submit.

Word Count

Flash fiction submissions should be between 200 and 1500 words. We accept vignettes in the flash fiction category as long as they make us feel and think. We aren’t of the belief that they don’t have value and we actually enjoy them when the prose is beautiful.

Short story submissions should be between 1500 and 6500 words. The upper limit is absolute and longer stories will be rejected without being read. This is an audio podcast, and we aim to keep our ‘casts to a maximum of 40 minutes.

Query us about serial works (not novels, serials in the fashion of the original Sherlock Holmes stories). It’s a tough sell, but we may go there for the right worlds and characters. Our criteria for those are more extensive and our automated system does not handle our process.

Multiple Submissions

We do not accept multiple submissions. We do our best to keep our response times as short as possible, which means keeping the pending list as short as possible. Once you have received a response to your submitted story you are welcome to submit again.

Simultaneous Submissions

We do not accept simultaneous submissions. We try hard not to keep you waiting long for a response.

Reprints

We do not accept pieces that already have audio recordings published but we do not consider your story a reprint if it has appeared elsewhere in print (hardcopy or electronic) only. Be sure to tell us when submitting if it has been published in print and we will promote it before the ‘cast so our audience may read along if they wish.

Payment

Currently we pay CAD$0.01 per word, but that will increase as we grow. If we publish your story we do ask that you help us promote it on your social media platforms. The faster we grow our audience, the faster we can increase our word rate. Payment will be made within 30 days of publication.

As part of the compensation you will be actively promoted on our website, so please keep us updated with any new credits you accumulate. We will provide an affiliate link to anything you have listed under your byline on Amazon – or any other online retailer – and a direct link to any electronic free-to-read publication. You will receive periodic email requests from us to review your Contributor page and provide us with any relevant updates. Your Contributor page will appear on our Featured Author page in rotation and we will give you notice of when you will be featured so that you can share it on your social media platforms.

Paypal support payments made directly on your page will be forwarded to you less Paypal’s fees and a 10% commission. Payments made from the story’s feature page will be split 50/50 between the author and the actor less Paypal’s and our fees.

In the future, we may ask to include your piece in an audio anthology compensated a on pro-rata royalty basis with 33% to the author and 33% to the actor.

Rights

We require a one year exclusive and five years non-exclusive to audio rights from the date of publication. If you make a print (hardcopy or electronic) or video performance sale, let us know – we want to promote that!

Formatting

Please submit in the Shunn format. If you aren’t familiar with it, you can see it here. Submissions that do not follow this format will be rejected unread.

File Format

Please submit rtf files only as our readers use a variety of devices.

How to Submit

We accept submissions through our electronic submissions manager only. Emailed submissions, or submissions sent via the contact form, will be deleted unread. We do not accept hardcopy submissions.

Our Process

Once you have created an account in our Submission Manager and have submitted your story you will be redirected to a page that shows your Submission ID number and a confirmation email will be sent out. If you don’t get a submission ID, please contact our site support ([email protected]) to report the error. If you don’t receive the email, check your spam folder before contacting us. You can check back often to see your submission progress through the various reading stages. We take pride in our writer friendly submission manager, and hope that it helps your stress level to know where exactly your piece is at in the process, and how long you should expect it to get through that step. Please do not send us an email query unless your submission disappears from the manager (open or closed) and you have not received an email. We do not keep copies of rejected stories, only the submission activity.

Via: The Centropic Oracle.

Flat Amount / Magazine / Ongoing Submissions / Poetry / Reprints Allowed

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Ongoing Submissions: Mithila Review

mithila-review

Payment: $10 for original poetry, essays, flash stories (under 2.5K words), and reprints; $50 for original stories between 4-8K words or longer.
Note: Reprints Allowed

Mithila Review is a speculative arts and culture magazine. We are open to original submissions as well as translations from around the world.

Along with original speculative fiction and poetry, we will host reviews, discussions and appreciations of stories, books, movies, television series, arts, comics, etc that explore interstitial spaces and marginal experience in the world we live today.

What are speculative arts?

Speculative arts and culture encompass literary and artistic works in the broad genre with supernatural, fantastical or futuristic elements i.e. science fiction, fantasy, science fantasy, horror, alternative history, magic realism, uncanny and weird. Learn more.

You’re welcome to join our Science Fiction and Fantasy group on Facebook for reading recommendations, academic resources and occasional call for submissions.


SUBMISSIONS GUIDELINES

POETRY

We welcome literary and speculative poetry from around the world. Please send us your best work. Our favorite poets include Arvind Krishna Mehrotra, Amal El-Mohtar, Arundhathi Subramaniam, Gwendolyn Brooks, Kabir, Li-Young Lee, Shweta Narayan, Sofia Samatar, W.B. Yeats, among others.

FICTION

We are looking for speculative fiction that explores the interstitial spaces and marginal experience. We are also open to excellent literary fiction with speculative elements.

Stories that we love regularly appear in leading SF magazines including Strange Horizons, Clarkesworld, Tor,Uncanny, Apex, Lightspeed, Nightmare, Futures (Nature), Interfictions, Daily Science Fiction, Drabblecast, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, PodCastle, EscapePod, among others.

Important tips: 

Please send one story, essay, film or book review or up to 3 poems in a single document at a time tosubmissions[@]mithilareview.com.

Document formatting tips: Please use Times New Roman, Font Size 12. We accept .doc and .docx formats.

Response Time: 1-3 weeks. Average: 1 week.

Payment:  $10 for original poetry, essays, flash stories (under 2.5K words), and reprints; $50 for original stories between 4-8K words or longer. (Update: 10/24/16)

Rights: We need first world electronic rights (text), and non-exclusive audio and anthology rights for our planned annual anthology.  

Patrons: We need patrons to help us become a professional market for emerging and award-winning poets, authors and artists across the world.

Via: Mithila Review.

Non-Anthology Announcements / Novel / Novella / Royalties

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JournalStone Is Currently Open To Novels, Novellas, And Fiction Collections

journalstone-banner

We are currently OPEN to fiction collection, novella and novel submissions. (9-14-2016)

Guidelines for all submissions:

  • JournalStone is currently accepting manuscripts with the following genres: Horror, Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Paranormal in the Young Adult and Adult markets. We reserve the right to consider the subject matter and how best to utilize it. JournalStone does not practice censorship of any author’s work.
  • In your cover letter, tell us the word count, genre, and a brief synopsis of the plot. Submissions without this information cannot be reviewed.
  • Please attach your manuscript in your email as a .doc,. docx or .rtf file. Do not paste your text in the body of the email.
  • The title of your email subject line and file name should read: “Submission [type] – [title] – [genre] – [last name]”. For example: Submission Novel – Carrie – Horror – King.
  • For proper formatting of your manuscript, please follow the Shunn way.
  • We consider the quality of the editing in our review process. Please fully proof read and edit manuscripts prior to submission.
  • Do not submit a work-in-progress. We only accept completed works.
  • Allow two to three months for a response to your submission. We may respond more quickly, but we cannot guarantee timing.
  • Please do not send follow up e-mails. We will notify you when we place your work in the queue, and will contact you when we have completed our review.
  • Inform us if this is a previously published work. If you have self-published the same work, we would like to know the details about your effort. You may include website links in your email, to direct us.
  • Email your cover letter and completed manuscript to jess [at] journalstone.com

 

What happens when you submit to JournalStone?

JournalStone will review your submission and decide whether we can publish it. Often, authors receive comments about their text, prior to any approval, with suggestions for improvements, or clarifications in the story. While this does not guarantee a firm acceptance, it can certainly help, and can ease the next few steps.

If your work is approved for publication, our president, Christopher C. Payne, will contact you with a contract for your review. Upon acceptance of that agreement, we will begin to move your manuscript through the editing and development channels. This part of the process can take a few, to several months. You will be involved the entire way.

Once editing and development is complete, your new book will be printed in proof form, and it will be reviewed again for any additional work. You will get a chance to see it, too! When approved in that first printed form – your book is ready for the release! JournalStone will begin to distribute and promote your book, to make the world aware of it.

*These are general guidelines to the publishing benefits provided; the contract serves as the final agreement, between JournalStone (publisher) and all authors, for work undertaken.