WE WILL BE OPEN FOR NOVEL SUBMISSIONS OCTOBER 1 – 31st, 2016. When open for novel submissions, we prefer works that are 65,000-90,000 in length, and we prefer mysteries. Send us a query email first with a one-page synopsis of your novel. Yes, we know writing the synopsis is harder than writing the novel itself, but you need to learn to present your book in a nutshell to people besides us anyway.

Go to our Submissions page to find out what’s open and what’s not. Please send all submissions (short stories or novels) to [email protected] . To avoid confusion on our part, please put the name of the anthology you are submitting to in the subject line, or “Novel submission: (Your Title)”.

Mystery and Horror is a market that welcomes LBGTQ, multiethnic, multinational, nontraditional, and unusual fiction. We are concerned with well-written stories involving well-developed characters.

PLEASE FOLLOW THE FORMATTING GUIDELINES BELOW:

We only accept e-submissions – nothing in print. Our formatting requests are below. Note that 5 and 6 are highlighted for promoting formatting ease if we accept your story.

1) Your submission should be an attachment to your email in RTF or DOC format, .JPG for artwork (black and white only, except for book covers).

2) Submission text should be black in color and only use one font and one size print – preferably 12-point Times New Roman.

3) The text should be single spaced. The SFWA guidelines are excellent for paper submissions, but this is an electronic document and I have to undo most of their suggested formatting to prepare stories for publication.

4) An extra line should only be inserted between scenes – not individual paragraphs.

5) Indents should be a single tab – no hitting the spacebar. Spacing doesn’t work with our formatting process, and Sarah will send it back to YOU to fix if she likes the story.

6) Double quote marks (”  “) for speech, not single.

7) One space only between sentences.

8) Please, no headers or footers. Yeah, I can strip them from the document, but we get a lot of subs and you should be following the guidelines. Call me lazy behind my back and send me a clean copy.

For novels, we ask for exclusive first world print rights in English for three years and first world electronic publication rights in English for 5 years after the date of publication. All rights revert back to the author after that time.

For published pieces in anthologies, we ask for exclusive first world print and electronic publication rights in English, lasting for 12 months after the date of publication. All rights revert back to the author after that time. Some authors republish their stories after that time, and that’s fine – although we would appreciate it if you mentioned us in passing.

Please note that most publications will not publish pieces that have already been published once in print, eBook, or on the web, so for all intents and purposes after your work is published by us it can only be marketed as a reprint. This will severely limit the number of markets that will accept it, and drastically reduces the pay rate it can receive. It is up to you, the author, to decide if publishing your work in print and/or eBook formats and/or on the web, giving up your First Publishing Right for a token payment, is really what you want to do.

Novels (when we open for those), group anthologies, and single-author collections: We offer our authors a 50% discount on print books they order from us. We do not pay royalties on books the authors order at discount. On the books sold through bookstores and online, we pay a royalty rate on net profits. Contributors to group anthologies (anthologies organized by a club or group, rather than Mystery and Horror, LLC) can purchase print books at the 50% discount, but all royalties go to the group.

Anthologies: Royalties for anthologies will be paid on a pro rata basis among its contributors. We pay an advance royalty of $5.00 USD to anthology authors for their trouble. We will not send another check until the advance is paid and the new royalties add up to $3.00 USD minimum.

Royalty rate:

35% – to the author, or split between the contributors

Hard covers and trade paperbacks are considered two different books for accounting.