Category: Semipro

Semi-Pro Rates

Taking Submissions: Dracula Beyond Stoker Issue 8

Submission Window: November 1st – December 31st, 2025
Payment: 5 cents per word and contributor’s copies
Theme: Van Helsing

Issue 8: Van Helsing(To Be Published May, 2026)

The one everybody has been waiting for. What adventures did he have before the novel? Where did he go after? Are more monster battles in store? Tell us your tale of the world’s most famous vampire hunter.

Submissions open November 1, 2025-December 31, 2025. Submissions received earlier will be read and considered but will not be responded to until the window opens

(more…)

Taking Submissions: Cosmic Roots And Eldritch Shores June 2025 Window

Submission Window: June 1st – 2nd, 2025
Payment: 8 cents per word for original, 2 cents for reprints, For artwork: $10 for the non-exclusive right to use each image, for as long as the site is online.  If we publish a print collection we will pay a pro-rata share for each image used.
Theme: Well written original work in science fiction, fantasy, myth, legend, fairy tales, and eldritch, in written, podcast, video, and/or graphic story form, and from around the world.
Note: Reprints welcome

 

 

Submissions Schedule

The first and second day of every month, 12 am of the 1st to 12 am of the 3rd, E.S.T.

For reading impaired individuals, our submissions manager and ‘forget password’ have a captcha compatible with screen readers.

We pay 8¢ per word for new fiction, 2¢ per word for fiction reprints, 2 – 8¢ per word for new fact-based work, 1- 4¢ per word for reprinted fact articles.
For new poetry, we pay $1 per line, and for reprints we pay 50¢ a line  We’re looking for poems up to 40 lines. We’ll consider longer poems but that would be a hard sell, and words over 40 lines would be paid at 8¢ per word.

We sponsor The Kepler Award to recognize and encourage writers of excellent science fiction and fantasy stories that creatively extrapolate on known science in constructive and exciting ways. You can learn aboutThe Kepler Award here.

You can read a copy of our standard contract here.   It can be varied as needed to include the rights of translators, voice actors, etc.

(more…)

Taking Submissions: The Cafe Irreal Summer 2025 Issue

Deadline: July 1st, 2025
Payment: One cent U.S. per word ($2 minimum)
Theme: Fantastic Fiction You really NEED to read the description below.

The Cafe Irreal is a quarterly webzine that presents a kind of fantastic fiction infrequently published in English. This fiction, which we would describe as irreal, resembles the work of writers such as Franz Kafka, Kobo Abe, Clarice Lispector and Jorge Luis Borges. As a type of fiction it rejects the tendency to portray people and places realistically and the need for a full resolution to the story; instead, it shows us a reality constantly being undermined. Therefore, we’re interested in stories by writers who write about what they don’t know, take us places we couldn’t possibly go, and don’t try to make us care about the characters. We would also suggest you take a look at the current issue, archives, and theory (especially the essay, “What is irrealism?”) pages on this web site.

(more…)

Taking Submissions: Behind the Revolving Door, an Anthology of Choices

Deadline: June 1st, 2025
Payment: 1 cent per word or a flat $10 for reprints
Theme: A story with a choice being made is central to the entire plot of the tale
Note: Reprints welcome

Behind the Revolving Door, an Anthology of Choices is the fifth anthology from Celestial Echo Press. The theme is the choices we make.

Each of us makes a multitude of choices daily, some minor and some with major consequences. Do you or don’t you wear your lucky shirt to the sports event? What do you think the consequences would be if you didn’t wear your lucky shirt?

This anthology will be a collection of stories that take the reader on a journey with the author’s protagonist as they go through a trial and are forced to take an action, to make a choice. For example, does the character find a wallet on the ground? Do they open it? Return it to the owner, or keep it? What are the consequences? Do they encounter a second choice, thus going back through the revolving door? Do they find classified information, implicating a family member in a coup? What do they do with it? Is the character hiking through the woods only to find a portal, not knowing where it will take them if they enter? What happens? Is it so bad that they try to return, hence going through the revolving door? There are many, many ways this theme can be interpreted.

We believe authors can give us a great story by fleshing out the characters and plot. We’re asking for a minimum of 500 words, maximum 4,000 words.

The revolving door on the cover will not be required in the story. If a door and/or a revolving door is in the story, that will be a plus. All fiction (humor, horror, romance, fantasy, etc.) is welcome, except erotica. Send us well-written stories that make us think about the choice the protagonist made, that make us think about the story after we’ve closed the book. Give us new, fresh stories. Authors have free rein how to interpret this theme. We can’t wait to read your story.

Uninvited are screenplays, poetry, and nonfiction. Also uninvited are stories that are publicly available on any website, such as a Facebook page. We will not accept stories with graphic porn and yes, we’ll know bad taste when we see it. We want YA readers to enjoy the published anthology without parental balking. Also uninvited are stories over the maximum of 4000 words. They will be rejected immediately. Don’t write on the Google form that your story is 4000 words and send us one that’s 10K. We’ll know.
(more…)

Taking Submissions: Heartlines Spec Summer 2025 Issue

Deadline: May 31st, 2025
Payment: $0.08 CAD per word for short fiction (500-3,500 words) and $60 CAD flat per poem
Theme: Speculative fiction focused on long-term friendships and relationships.

We’re looking for short fiction and poetry focused on long-term relationships: platonic, romantic, or familial. We don’t want the blaze of new love or the obsession of a new friend. We want pieces that show that comfort that develops when people know each other for years.

Give us deep space, dusty frontiers, or dreamy fantasy. We want stories and poetry with strong, confident relationships amid all the sci-fi/fantasy. While we are primarily looking for stories with happy endings (yeah, yeah), we also want endings that are earned. If things get a little teary or gory, that’s ok.

We are especially interested in stories featuring queer platonic relationships, ace/aro love stories, and polycules.

(more…)

Taking Submissions Self (S)care Anthology May Window

Submission Window: May 15th-31st, 2025
Payment: 2 cents per word
Theme: Reprints of self-published horror stories

Calling all self-published horror authors! Get those short stories ready! Open submissions begin next week for this brand-new anthology geared toward spotlighting the best in indie horror!

In this unique collaboration project, Paul Carro and Candace Nola have teamed up to create a new opportunity for self-published authors! The incredibly talented Laurel Hightower is on-board to write the foreword, and the book will be published in all formats by Uncomfortably Dark Horror.

(more…)

Taking Submissions: Radon Journal October 2025 Issue

Submission Window: May 1st – August 31st
Payment: Fiction: 2¢ per word for original, 1¢ per word for reprints. Poetry: $20 per original poem and $10 for reprints. Artwork: $100 for issue cover art, $30 for back cover art, and $20 for art used on our site
Theme: Stories and poetry containing elements of science fiction, anarchism, transhumanism, or dystopia.
Note: Reprints Welcome

Radon welcomes short stories and poetry containing elements of science fiction, anarchism, transhumanism, or dystopia.

We publish quality literature the first of every February, June, and October.

  • Submissions are accepted year-round.

  • Simultaneous submissions are welcome.

  • Reprints no longer accepted as of 2025.

  • AI submissions are not allowed at Radon.

(more…)

Taking Submissions: Flashpoint Science Fiction Spring 2025 Window

Submission Window: June 1st – July 31st, 2025
Payment: $0.02 per word
Theme: Science fiction, fantasy, slipstream, and everything in between
Note: Reprints Welcome

Flash Point Science Fiction wants speculative fiction stories from 100 to 1,000 words in length. Send us your science fiction, fantasy, slipstream, and everything in between, so long as it’s short. We here at FPSF are partial to flash fiction and want to see the flash market grow. So as much as it pains us, please take your 10,000 word tour de force elsewhere. We’re not looking for the next Brandon Sanderson. (Unless you are, in fact, Brandon Sanderson, in which case we’d be delighted!)

(more…)