Deadline: May 1, 2012.
Payment: 1 cent/word plus a copy of the print book when it is available

To all authors:

We have dozens of projects going on at any given time. These guidelines are designed to help us facilitate processing your submission as quickly as possible. Please make sure you read and follow all guidelines. Failure to follow the submission guidelines may result in your submission getting lost or accidentally deleted.

Project Title: Return of the Dead Men (and Women) Walking

Project Scope: For purposes of this anthology, we are limiting consideration to those stories that feature corporeal undead. These include, but are not limited to, ghouls, liches, mummies, revenants, vampires, wights, and of course zombies. We are not interested in stories featuring incorporeal undead such as ghosts and poltergeists.

Genre Considerations: Despite the subject matter, stories need not be firmly rooted in the horror genre to be considered. We will consider a wide range of stories, including fantasy, weird west, steampunk, post-apocalyptic, urban fantasy, and others. This anthology will target adult readers, and therefore young adult stories will not be considered. We will also not consider paranormal romances or erotica.

General Guidelines: Our normal general submission guidelines apply. We strongly encourage authors to read our general guidelines first before submitting to this anthology. In particular, we judge both first person and present tense narratives much more critically than we do other works. We will consider such stories and have published them in the past, but they must truly be exceptional for us to publish such styles.

When submitting stories for this project, you must use the subject line DEAD MEN STORY SUBMISSION. Submit stories as attachments as per the instructions of our general guidelines. Do not submit bios or a list of publishing credits with your submission, as we don’t generally ready them and they have no bearing on our decision process.

If you want a critique of your story if it is rejected, please specify such when you submit the story. If you do not request a critique, you will get a form reply if the story is not accepted for the anthology.

Submissions should be sent to fiction(at)bardsandsages(dot)com. We will respond within 45 days to your submission.

Submission Period: The submission period will open December 1, 2011. Do NOT submit any stories before December 1. We will delete the submission unread. The tentative deadline for submissions is May 1, 2012.

Word Count: We will consider stories up to 5,000 words.

Reprints: We will give preference to previously unpublished stories, but will consider reprints as explained below.

Payment: We pay via Paypal upon publication, usually a week or two before the official release date.

Original content: For previously unpublished stories, we pay 1 cent/word plus a copy of the print book when it is available. We ask for first time print and electronic rights for previously unpublished stories. Afterwords, you grant us a non-exclusive, perpetual right to include the story in the Return of the Dead Men (And Women) Walking anthology for as long as we make the anthology available for sale. All other rights revert to the author upon publication.

Reprints: ½ cent/word plus a copy of the print book when it is available or print book only. See the section involving reprint considerations for clarification and explanation. We are buying non-exclusive, perpetual print and electronic reprint rights to include the story in the Return of the Dead Men (And Women) Walking anthology for as long as we make the anthology available for sale. All other rights revert to the author upon publication.

Reprint considerations: If your story has appeared in either print or digital format anywhere, even on your own blog, it is considered published for purposes of determining which rights we are buying and what we will pay. We do employ special programs to validate stories submitted to us as original content.

Reprints from paying print or electronic periodical markets: If your work has been previously published in a paying market, you must make sure that you retained reprint rights in order to submit the story to us. Some publications require an exclusive period when they purchase a story. If your story was sold to a publication that requires an exclusive period, you should not submit the story until that time period has passed.

You must specify the publication the story appeared in, including the issue number and release date as applicable.

Reprints from paying anthologies and full length books: If your work has been published by another publisher in an anthology or a short story collection, you must make sure that you retained reprint rights in order to submit the story to us. If your story is accepted, you will be required to provide us with a copy of your publishing agreement or other documentation that proves you have retained the power to sell the reprint rights for individual stories.

Reprints from unpaid markets: There are a variety of markets that do not pay authors to publish. Most are free webzines that make content available for free to visitors. While such sites may offer exposure, we are not inclined to pay for something that has been given away for free and is still available for free. Stories originally published on free sites or in non-paying publications may still be submitted for consideration, but if they are selected for inclusion the author will receive no monetary payment. Author will still receive a print copy of the final book.

Reprints from self-published books: Many authors now self-publish their short story collections. We are huge fans of indie books, however we are not inclined to pay for a story and then compete with you in the marketplace over it, particularly when so many authors make their books available for free or 99 cents. We also realize, however, that many authors like to continue to have their short stories included in larger anthologies as a marketing tool to promote their books. As such, we will consider short stories that are currently published in self-published books, but if they are selected for inclusion the author will receive no monetary payment. Author will still receive a print copy of the final book. We will give the author a free half page display ad in an upcoming issue of the Bards and Sages Quarterly as a courtesy.

[via: Gather.]