Category: Semipro

Semi-Pro Rates

Taking Submissions: Hidden Villains: Betrayed

Deadline: August 31st, 2023
Payment: 2 cents per word and royalties and a paperback for US authors
Theme: Bold, imaginative fantasy, horror, and sci-fi sculpted to thrill and entertain readers with the bizarre or delve into the shadows. Finish it off with a twist of betrayal!

Our 2024 edition. Submissions open on June 1, 2023.

Theme: Hidden Villains: Betrayed– Bold, imaginative fantasy, horror, and sci-fi sculpted to thrill and entertain readers with the bizarre or delve into the shadows. Finish it off with a twist of betrayal!
Betrayed- double-cross, fail, deceive, cheat, sell-out, let down, stitch up, rat out, turn traitor, rat on, expose, reveal, lay bare, stab in the back.

There is no restriction as to how you incorporate the theme into your story as long as the genre falls within Speculative Fiction, including Sci-Fi or Fantasy. We encourage you to weave the theme into an engaging story with well-developed characters and deep emotion. Suspense and thrillers are encouraged over horror for this anthology, but a great horror story will rise to the top.
Stories that contain infanticide, rape, or gratuitous gore will not be accepted.

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Taking Submissions: Thank You For Joining The Algorithm

Deadline: June 20th, 2023
Payment: 3c/word (USD) originals; $25 (USD) reprints. $25 per poem, $70 per page for comics, $50 per piece of artwork
Theme: (including but not limited to) humanism, machine-generation dangers, encroaching machine rule, algorithm overload, the chaotic crash point between the human mind and machine limitations, anticapitalism, advertising overload, self-destruction, the violence and humanity of creation, philosophy.

THANK YOU FOR JOINING THE ALGORITHM is a special edition dark speculative fiction magazine concerning humanity’s rage against the devaluing of the light. All proceeds from the sale of this publication—every cent remaining after printing, shipping, and taxes—will be donated to organizations that fight for the rights of human artists and pursue the regulation and limitation of machine-generation in the arts.

We are looking for dark speculative fiction stories, poetry, comics, illustrations, haikus, etc. at the meeting point between humanity and technology.

GENERAL SUBMISSION INFO

Submissions Window: May 17th to June 20th

Themes: (including but not limited to) humanism, machine-generation dangers, encroaching machine rule, algorithm overload, the chaotic crash point between the human mind and machine limitations, anticapitalism, advertising overload, self-destruction, the violence and humanity of creation, philosophy.

Genres: Weird Horror, Dark SF, Tech-Horror, Post-Apoc, Eco, Cosmic, Slipstream, Dark Lit.

Reprints: Yes

Simultaneous Submissions: Yes

Multiple submissions: Yes, try to keep it to a reasonable number

Target Age Group: Mature Audiences

Rights: World English first rights in print, electronic, and ebook, including a six-month exclusivity period. All copyright belongs to the author.

Response times: 1-2 months. All submissions will be responded to.

Diversity: Marginalized and first-time authors and artists are emphatically welcomed.

AI Disclaimer: Machine/AI-generated content is explicitly forbidden. Authors and artists should anticipate contracts declaring that no part of their submission was machine/AI-generated. Those who submit machine/AI-generated content will be permanently blacklisted from Tenebrous Press and our network.

HOW TO SUBMIT: VIA THE GOOGLE FORM PROVIDED FOR EACH SECTION BELOW.

WORD COUNT, FORMAT, AND PAYMENT INFO CAN BE FOUND IN THE RESPECTIVE SECTIONS BELOW.

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Contest: Shallow Waters’ May Flash Fiction Window

Deadline: May 31st, 2023
Payment: 3 cents per word for the winner, 2 cents per word for second place, and 1 cent per word for third place
Theme: Red

The theme for next month’s flash contest is…

“RED! The colour of blood, and love, and danger. Flashing lights, glowing eyes, cooking flesh; the blinding hue of rage, the windswept locks of a Celtic warrior princess. Give us something red – serve us something raw and dripping, a fresh cut that only you can deliver.” This theme is courtesy of last month’s winner, Matthew R. Davis, who will also read all the submissions and pick the finalists.

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Taking Submissions: Tasavvur 2023 Window

Deadline: June 6th, 2023
Payment: 2.5 cents per word
Theme: Dreamscapes and nightmares, your soaring fantasies, your futuristic miasmas.
Note: Authors of South Asian origin and other BIPOC authors

Fiction

Submissions are open for fiction from May 06th 2023 to June 06th 2023. Please submit using the form at the end of this page.

Non-fiction

Submissions for pitches are open on a rolling basis. You can submit you pitch via email; please send us your pitch at [email protected], but please go through this page for information on format and what we’re looking for first!

Word Limits

Fiction

Minimum 1,000 words, maximum 5,000 words.

Non-fiction Pitches

Minimum 250 words to maximum 500 words. Commissioned pieces are usually around 2,000 words depending on the topic.

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Taking Submissions: Year of the Tarot: Pentacles

Submission Window: June 1st – 30th, 2023
Payment: 1 cent CAD per word
Theme: Horror inspired by the Tarot: Pentacles

Welcome to our four-book series, dedicated to horror inspired by the Tarot. 

Does the story have to be about Tarot Cards… NO. Think cups, knives, wands, and pentacles. We are looking for the theme to be the element, not necessarily the card itself, although we would love to read that as well. 

Chalice – Pentacles – Blades – Wands

**Patron Members get an extended submission window**

March 1- 31: Chalice  (Patron dates Feb 21 – April 7)

June 1- 30: Pentacles (Patron dates May 23 – July 7)

Sept 1- 30: Blades/Swords  (Patron dates August 24 – October 7)

Dec 1- 31: Wands (Patron dates November 23 – January 7)

Each book will have an overriding theme of a Tarot suit and be between 50k – 60k words in length. They will be stand-alone books but will make up a four-book series.

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Taking Submissions: It Was All A Dream: Vol. 2 (Early Listing)

Submission Window: July 1st-15th, 2023
Payment: $0.03 per word
Theme: An Anthology of Bad Horror Tropes Done Right with a focus on “It Was All A Dream”

What is your least favorite horror trope? Why? Has it been overdone? Is it predictable? Is it unrealistic?
Here’s your chance to fix it.

Open call submission window open July 1 – July 15, 2023.

Extended submission window exclusively for LGBTQIA+, BIPOC, and marginalized writers open July 16 – July 22, 2023.

The anthology will be a mix of solicited stories and stories selected from the open call submission period.

What are we looking for?

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Taking Submissions: The Cafe Irreal August 2023 Issue

Deadline: July 1st, 2023
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.

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Taking Submissions: Haven Speculative 2023 General Submissions Call #3 (Early)

Submission Window: June 1st – 30th, 2023
Payment: 1 cent per word for fiction, $5 for poetry, 1 cent per word for non-fiction, $35 for cover art
Theme: Speculative fiction

It’s our goal to publish diverse voices from around the world, and to do that, we are actively seeking stories, poems, and non-fiction pieces by authors from backgrounds that have been historically underrepresented in the science fiction and fantasy canon. Our submission cycle is therefore split into two categories, where every other month is explicitly reserved for submissions by authors of color, members of the LGBTQIA+ community, and other underrepresented groups. The interposing six months remain open to everyone.

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