Deadline: July 30th, 2024
Payment: $5 and royalties
Theme: The story of a hero or villain’s sidekick

Madame, Don’t Forget Your Sword
Length: the target range is between 2000-6000 words.
Time: June 1st – July 30th
Pay per story: $5 + royalties

This anthology is dedicated to all the minions, sidekicks, and henchpeople: the ones responsible for getting the takeout, picking up the kids, and making sure that the evil plan actually works. The ones dedicated to showing how the monster works before the hero comes to save the day! Give them their spotlight: What drama happens when you work HR for a mad scientist? What happens if the sidekicks unionize? What if the red shirts accidentally don’t die?

We welcome new authors, and will work with all authors to bring their stories into the vision of the book. The final draft will be sent to the author for final approval. Authors retain the right to retract their stories up until the contract is signed.

Please note that response times are likely to be slower than normal this year. Da Mama is getting her knee chopped off and reinstalled with a more workable (or at least less likely to collapse entirely) version, and has no idea how this will go.

Potential publication date will be late November, depending on how getting the other knee chopped off goes.

Guidelines (common sense guidelines, but stated as clearly as we can):

1) Submit your story as an *.rtf file attached to your cover letter. (Go to “Save As” and click on Rich Text Format or rtf.)

2) One-inch margins, double-spaced text is preferred.

3) Please do not use tabs. Please use the paragraph formatting tool to indent the paragraphs, and either use CENTER to place your section dividers, or just leave them on the left side.

4) No page numbers or other headers or footers on the pages.

5) Mark your italics with an underscore before and after the italics. Otherwise, your italics may not show up in the final draft.

6) On the first page, in the upper left hand corner, put your legal (the one you use for contracts) name, address, and email.

7) Below the title, put the name that you want the story to appear under. Use either your real name or a pen name. If you use a pen name, please, please, please note this in the cover letter, especially if it is a subtle change from your legal name.

8) On the subject line of the email, write “Madam, Don’t Forget Your Sword:(your title)(your last name)

9) In the cover letter, write your legal name, your pen name if used, your contact email, the approximate word count, your payment information (paypal address or request for paper check, etc.) and anything else you want us to know. Please note if this story is unpublished or previously published. If previously published, please give us the bibliographic information. {Name of journal, anthology, or website, journal number (if applicable) publisher, and date of publication.} We keep these cover letters and refer back to them during the publication process. Having everything in one place makes it much easier for us to concentrate on things such as getting your money to you.

10) Email to [email protected]

11) No multiple submissions – please submit only one story at a time. If we reject your story, you may send another. Stories returned for submission errors may be resubmitted when those are corrected. Stories returned with a request for a rewrite may be resubmitted.

12) Submitting to more than one market: We can’t stop you from doing that, but if the story is accepted by another market or if a market you prefer shows interest, please, please, please let us know as soon as possible so that we can take it out of consideration or make other arrangements. It’s possible that your story could still be accepted as a reprint, depending on the terms of your contract with the other market.

13) The deadline is the deadline. All submissions AND rewrites must be to us by the deadline.

14) Final decisions will be made after the deadline.

15) Editors’ decisions are FINAL. Arguing with us will not get your story published, but it will get us pissed at you.

16) Address any questions to [email protected]

17) At the bottom of your cover letter, before your signature, write, “There are no green M&Ms in this manuscript.” Put this in even if there are green M&M’s in your manuscript.

Via: Dead Fish Books.