Deadline: June 15th 2013
Payment: Eighty percent of royalties from the profits of book sales will be paid to the authors. We will calculate each author’s payment by the number of words they contribute to the anthology. Payments will be made once an author’s royalties have reached $50+, and then for every $50 accumulated after that. Authors will also receive a contributor copy of the physical book.

We are now accepting submissions for our upcoming horror anthology, Darkness ad Infinitum (working title).
Stories and inquiries can be sent to [email protected].

Our motto: We are humble. We are dedicated. We are Villipede. What we don’t have in
extravagant funds we make up for with the highest respect for art and literature. Our goal is to
create publications that are of exceptional quality and to simultaneously promote our company
and the authors we collaborate with. We are not focused on making a fortune; we will never take
advantage of our clients just to make a profit. We will, however, dedicate ourselves to creating
unique, beautiful, and professional books.

STORY GUIDELINES

SUBGENRES

There is no specific subgenre that stories must comply with so long as they are rooted in horror
or dark fantasy. We prefer our horror to have a sophisticated taste, so unless they are cleverly
portrayed and the violence be intrinsic to their stories, ultra-gore and splatter stories will
probably not find homes here. While we appreciate the strange and the weird, this is not a
bizarro collection, and stories without coherent structure will probably not be considered.
We are not opposed to consider alternative literature for this anthology, such as comics, ballads,
poems and epics.

WORD COUNT

Our target goal is ten short stories composed of four- to seven-thousand words each. We may
accept slightly longer or shorter stories if they appeal to us, so don’t feel that you need to
drastically shred your story or add unnecessary material to fit the specs.

MANUSCRIPT FORMATTING

We prefer standard manuscript formatting (good example: http://www.shunn.net/format/story.html), but
we are not adamant about it so long as the file is legible and coherent. Please use fonts that are
easy to read and double spacing between lines. No fancy characters or graphics. Scene breaks
should be denoted using “#” with a blank line above and below.
We can read almost all file types but recommend sending a DOC, TXT, or RTF for this stage of
reviews. In the future we may ask for a different file type or formatting if your story is selected
for the anthology.

PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED MATERIAL

(UPDATED 04/16/13: SEE “First Printing Rights” SECTION FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION)
Previously unpublished stories are preferred for this anthology. Please specify the current
publishing status of your submission. If your story is accepted, we ask that you do not submit
your story elsewhere until this anthology has been published. Villipede Publications will not
require exclusive rights to the stories.

EDITING

Stories selected for the anthology will go through the editing process before publication. We
intend to keep stories as true to the author’s original as possible, but in the event we see need for
changes, big or small, we will consult the author first and not change the story without their full
consent.

PAYMENT

Eighty percent of royalties from the profits of book sales will be paid to the authors. We will
calculate each author’s payment by the number of words they contribute to the anthology.
Payments will be made once an author’s royalties have reached $50+, and then for every $50
accumulated after that. Authors will also receive a contributor copy of the physical book.

ILLUSTRATIONS

Each story in this anthology will have an illustration. Either Villipede will provide the artwork or
authors can submit illustrations of their own for review. Please make it clear to outside sources,
if choosing to provide your own illustrations, that we cannot pay for artwork at this time.
Villipede will not own the rights to any of the artwork that we do not provide. There will be a list
of illustrations in the book where artists and their contact information will be stated.

COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL

By submitting a manuscript to us the writer assumes all responsibility that the file is original and
free of copyright infringement or plagiarism. If you search the web for what qualifies as
copyright infringement you will certainly find conflicting ideas, but our stance is that you must
have permission to use ANY portion (except mentioning of titles) of a song, movie, or other
media that doesn’t clearly fall into the public domain category.

FIRST PRINTING RIGHTS (ADDED 04/16/13)

We feel it is important to expand on what it means to have a story published for this anthology.
We are requesting a One-Time, First Printing of a story (if we do accept a previously published
story, “First Printing” will not apply). If an author agrees have their story published in this
anthology they are agreeing to give us publishing rights for this edition (including eBook) only.
We will not own exclusive rights to any story.

Please understand that First Prints are more desirable by publishers. In most cases, once a story
has been published in any form, eBook, web, or hard copy, the chances of selling it afterwards
begin to significantly decrease. If a previously published story is accepted or bought as a reprint,
the pay-rate is usually quite lower as well. Of course, we do not want to discourage anyone from
submitting their story for this anthology, but we do place the well-being and artistic integrity of
our contributors above any monetary gain for ourselves or the collective.

Basically: The payments made to contributors from this anthology are solely reliant on the
book’s success and its ability to bring in profits. While we are dedicated to making it as
successful as possible, we cannot speculate what kind of profits the book will generate, and,
therefore, we cannot make any promise as to what an author’s royalties will amount to. The hard
truth is that it is a possibility the book will not generate enough sales to warrant significant
royalty payments.

Please research these aspects of First Printing fully, and feel free to ask any questions of us that
you may have. Above all else, be true to your work and yourselves, and make sure this is the
right publishing category for your submission.

Authors may submit their files and inquiries to: [email protected]
Please allow reasonable time during and after the submission window for us to review stories
and contact authors. We will do our best to respond quickly to inquiries and keep all participants
frequently updated on the anthology’s status.