Deadline: September 30, 2012
Payment: 1 cent per word to a maximum of $50 (U.S.), paid prior to publication; all payments to be made via Paypal. Contributors also get 1 copy of the finished paper anthology, as the opportunity to but up to 10 more copies at cost.

Submission are open for Arcane II until September 30, 2012.

The Arcane anthologies are a showcase for weird and unsettling fantastic fiction. These are not themed anthologies; as long as there is a macabre element to the story, it is within Arcane‘s target subject matter. Quality of storytelling and confidence in using the English language are more important than any genre strictures.

Rather than try to post any sort of detailed guidelines, I refer you to the first Arcane anthology, or the 99-cent Arcane Sampler… or, if you’re really cheap, to the five free issues of Arkham Tales on this site. If your story is at least that good and would play well with that eclectic mix of fiction, send it in.

Length: Any length. I am a hard sell on short-shorts/flash-fiction, and anything of novelette-length or above will need to be super-excellent to justify the two or three other stories it would displace, but if you think your work is up to it, go for it. (Please only send one story at a time.)

Payment: 1 cent per word to a maximum of $50 (U.S.), paid prior to publication; all payments to be made via Paypal. Contributors also get 1 copy of the finished paper anthology, as the opportunity to but up to 10 more copies at cost.

Format: Please attach your story via the form below in .doc (Word) or .rtf format. Please remember that you are submitting a piece of fiction, not an HTML webpage; extra returns between paragraphs are not expected, and indented paragraphs are.

Timeframe: As submissions close at the end of September 2012, please wait until at least a couple of weeks into October before a final determination is made. Copyediting and formatting will take place during November and December; contributors should expect galley proofs for their inspection mid-December and payment at the end of December. Publication is expected January 2013.

Please don’t be offended that in most cases I can’t offer a critique of any rejected story. Apart from the time required to formulate and compose a response to each submission, often the reasons for rejection are so subjective that the only possible critique would be, “Didn’t do it for me.”

Once you press “Submit” at the bottom of this page, you will be returned to this page, where a message reading “THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUBMISSION” will appear in place of the form below.

[via: Cold Fusion Media]