Deadline: June 30th 2013
Payment: We will pay 4¢(US)/word, with a minimum payment of $50 for original unpublished content, (posted on websites count as published,) We will pay 2¢(US)/word, with a minimum payment of $20 for previously posted content.

PREMISE
Daylight Dims will be an anthology of terrifying short stories. We are looking for unique and interesting settings and situations. The most important thing is this: We’re looking for chilling tales of what just might come once Daylight Dims…

What We Are Looking For

Typically we want unique, strange, and compelling fiction. Some of our favorite stories begin with a sense that the story is based in reality, and then slowly leads the protagonist into bizarre, or terrifying territory. It’s a bonus if the reader is left feeling like the story might have been real. We also enjoy stories with fantasy, science fiction, or horror elements.

We want to see styles that are unusual, but readable. We want characters that readers will care about. We like to see settings and cultures that outside of the norm, and if your character is in another world, then that setting should be well thought out, so the reader can join you there.

We want your story to trigger an emotion. If the reader laughs, cries, or throws the book (hopefully not a computer or kindle) across the room in anger, well then, that’s awesome.

DO NOT submit unsolicited revisions of stories we’ve rejected. It doesn’t matter how much you’ve revised. If we think a revision will work, we’ll request one. If we didn’t request one, we’re unlikely to be interested. DO NOT submit multiple stories at once. We can consider only one story at a given time by a given author.

THE FOLLOWING ITEMS ARE ACCEPTABLE.

Sex or violence should be artistically justified.
Gore, but it shouldn’t be excessive.
Profanity is fine. Use what is appropriate for the story.
We welcome submissions from anywhere in the world as long as it’s in some form of english. Sorry, our swahili isn’t all that great.
All subgenres and forms are welcome.

THE FOLLOWING TROPES SHOULD BE AVOIDED.

Serial killer, evil creature, or supernatural force stalks and slays victim.
Person is insane, and kills a lot of people because of it.
Protagonist doesn’t do anything and then be dead.
Evil creature or alien kills lots of people.
Person sees mysterious things that nobody else can see.
A place is *gasp* haunted or scary.
Alien creature lays eggs in a person which burst out of body part.

LENGTHS

We prefer stories under 5,000 words. We will consider stories up to 10,000 words. The best stories are those that aren’t longer than they need to be. While the word count requirements will be project specific, if a story can be told in 3,000 words, making it longer doesn’t necessarily make it better.
We don’t consider 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.
We have no minimum word count.
We determine story length by taking the word-processor word count.

PAY RATES (EXCLUDING ANTHOLOGIES AND CONTESTS)

We determine story length by taking the word-processor word count.
We will pay 4¢(US)/word, with a minimum payment of $50 for original unpublished content, (posted on websites count as published,)
We will pay 2¢(US)/word, with a minimum payment of $20 for previously posted content.
We pay by PayPal.
For original content we buy first-printing world exclusive English-language rights (text and audio) for two months after the anthology is released. After that period, you are free to republish the story elsewhere.

How to Submit

To submit a story to us, upload a file in MS Word or Rich Text Format on our submission page.

There’s a lot of confusion among authors about what to include in a cover letter when submitting short fiction. You don’t need to include a cover letter, but you can if you wish to. Most of the time, a cover letter is useful only if you have relevant credits to briefly mention.

Don’t worry too much about how your story is formatted. However, Standard Manuscript Format is preferable. Note: This is one of the reasons we love the Scrivener application.

We won’t consider submissions sent by mail or email.

Please wait until we accept or reject a story before sending us another story, even if the stories are short.

If your story conforms to our guidelines, don’t query about whether you can submit it; just submit it.

Don’t send us your story until you have thoroughly proofread it. Accepted submissions may be edited for clarity or to correct minor errors, but submissions that do not meet minimum standards for correct spelling and grammar will be rejected, except in cases of obvious artistic license. Spellcheckers can be useful, but in many cases they merely compound spelling errors. If you’re uncertain about your spelling or grammar, then ask a human to proofread your story before you submit.

Response Time and Response Status

Our average response time is a little under two weeks, but that’s an average; sometimes we take longer.

We always respond in less than 60 days. After you receive an autoresponse, please wait 70 days to contact us if you haven’t heard back.

You will receive an autoresponder message to let you know that we received it. If you haven’t received an autoresponse within 24 hours after submitting, please contact us.

Withdrawal policy

After you submit a story, if there is a situation in which withdrawing a story becomes necessary, contact us, and explaining that you’re withdrawing the story and let us know why.

If you withdraw a story, we won’t consider any version of that story in the future. Therefore don’t withdraw your story in order to work on it some more, or to send us an improved version.

Editorial Process

You submit a story in standard manuscript form by uploading an RTF or DOCX file on our submission page.
We glance at the submission.
If there’s an obvious problem with it then we send an explanation, and we delete it unread.
If it’s a valid submission, then we send an auto-response, and the process continues.
An editor reads the stories.
The editor rates it.
A No or Reject rating indicates that the other editors don’t need to read it. If that’s the case, we’ll contact you.
A Consider rating means the other editors will read it.
Bi-weekly, all of the editors read all of the stories that the other editors rated Consider.
The editors meet once a week to discuss. Decisions are made by consensus.
If we decide to accept a story we send an acceptance reply. Later, we send out a contract and then the PayPal payment.
If we decide we don’t want the story after all, we mark it to be rejected; see below.

[via: Stealth Fiction.]