Deadline: April 30th, 2023
Payment: 8 cents per word
Theme: Science fiction drabbles

General Submissions are open April 1st – 30th!

What we want more of:

• Cyberpunk
• Sci-fi horror
• Stories with Tech
• Starships
• Holograms
• Stories involving other planets
• Dark sci-fi
• Characters making a decision

What we want less of:

• *GASP* we were really talking about humans, Earth, etc.
• Twist stories where the twist doesn’t change the way we view the story.
• We caused the apocalypse because humanity sucks.
• We accidentally called the aliens who are invading us because of some silly reason.

General Guidelines

• Martian magazine publishes drabbles, stories of exactly 100 words (excluding title). Stories submitted of greater than or less than 100 words will be rejected. We use Google Docs to determine word count.
• We publish science fiction. Every subgenre of science fiction is acceptable but the science fiction element must be present.
• Submitted works must be stories. They must have a beginning, middle, and at least hint at the end. They may be 100 words, but we are not interested in thoughts or feelings without action or characters that don’t do anything.
• We will have set reading periods each year. Submissions will only be read in those reading periods. Stories sent outside of the reading periods will not be read unless they were specifically solicited by the editor.
• We pay .08 per word for original fiction, paid on publication of the selected work.
• Reprints are accepted and paid at .04 per word, half that of original fiction.
• We accept simultaneous submissions. Just please let us know if your work was selected elsewhere if we have not yet gotten back to you.
• We accept multiple submissions-up to three at a time, sent as separate emails.
• We will respond within two weeks with either a rejection or hold request.
• The rights we ask for are first-time world electronic rights for original fiction and non-exclusive reprint rights for reprints. We do not have an exclusivity period, you are free to sell your work as a reprint upon publication in Martian. We publish a yearly anthology gathering the work from the previous year. This anthology will be published in digital ebook and print. We also ask for the right to non-exclusively archive your story on our website for the magazine’s life, unless requested otherwise by the author.
• Submissions must be sent in standard manuscript format and attached as a .doc, .docx, or .rtf file and sent by email to [email protected]. Please include in the body of the email a short cover letter as well as a short (50 words or less!) bio and social links.
• Any further questions please query the submission email or the contact form on this website.

Via: Martian.