Deadline: January 31st, 2023
Payment: 3 cents a word and a contributors copy
Theme: All horror, ideally cross-genre with fantasy or science fiction

Nightmares Before Bed is exactly what you think it is.  This will be our first horror anthology and we want to be clear, no sexual violence, abuse of children, overly disturbing images and ideas, or gore will be published.  We want horror, we want to be scared, but let’s do it in a way that is respectful.  We’d love to see fantasy horror or sci-fi horror here.  Closes 11:59 pm 01/31/2024.

How you incorporate the quarterly theme in your story is up to you.  We do ask that you make sure the theme idea is not an afterthought, but an integral part of the story.  We want truly want stories depicting underdogs rising to the occasion when it seems all hope is lost.

We are looking for polished manuscripts of about 3,500 – 12,000 words (not hard cut-offs, but not too much under/over please) in standard Shunn format. Please include your contact information, including full name and email address and any social media links you may have as well as any prior publications.

If your story is nobledark, noblebright, grimdark, or grimbright or something in the middle of all of those that’s okay.  Let us take a look.

Submissions should be sent to [email protected] as an attached Word doc or docx.

Please format the email subject line and your submitted file name as “The Underdogs Rise – [Story Title] by [Author Name] for [Anthology Name]”.

Accepted authors will be paid $.03/word and receive a contributor copy of the standard mass market paperback.

We are purchasing first world-wide print rights for three years from publication (reprints in “best of” yearly anthologies will be allowed).

We plan to notify all authors on the outcome of submissions by mid-December.

Reprints are not accepted for this anthology. Simultaneous submissions are not accepted. Multiple submissions are accepted, but limited to three per author.

Nightmares Before Bed  will be published in October, 2025

Via: The Underdog Press.