Events

Deadline: December 31st Payment: We pay first-time authors a royalty rate of 45% of the net sale from books sold on the Torquere Books site, and 35% of monies received from our distributors' sites, paid quarterly. Distributor sales are not paid until we receive payment from that seller. Print books pay 25% royalties on net monies received from our distributors. Once an author has a proven sales record with us, incentives may be offered on further contracts Our anthology calls are a great place to get your feet wet with a short story, or to explore a theme without committing to a full novella or novel. For all anthology calls, we’re looking for fully realized, romantic LGBT stories about the chosen monthly theme. Make us laugh, make us cry, or surprise us and make us glow with happy endings! Please send your submissions following the below specified word count to [email protected] with the title of the theme (ie: Torqued Tales) and your story title in the subject field. Please see our general submissions guidelines for formatting etc. Each theme has a title and due date listed on the individual call. If the completed anthology reaches a minimum word count of 60K, the book may go to print. In that case, payment is a $35 flat fee for first time electronic and print rights for three years, as well as an electronic and print copy of the book. Print rights are reserved for six months. If the print rights are not optioned, all print rights revert to the author. We'll also be releasing the story on its own in ebook format. Royalties for the single title electronic version will be 45% net on books sold through Torquere Books and 35% net on books sold through our distributors, again for a period...

Deadline: December 31 2015 Payment: $0.06 per word Note: These will initially be printed online with the possibility though not guarantee of an ebook and physical anthology at a later date. Book Smugglers Publishing is currently open for submissions for short stories to be published between June and August 2016. General information and theme: We’re looking for original short stories from all around the world as long as they are written in English. Our goal is to publish at least three short stories, unified by a central theme. Each short story will be accompanied by one original piece of artwork from an artist commissioned by us separately. For the publication period between June and August 2016, the theme is: The Year Of The Superhero Recently, we announced that 2016 is going to be the Year of the Superhero and we have quite a few things in the pipeline. To supplement the awesome projects we have in the works, we are also looking to add short stories to our Superhero calendar! When it comes to superheroes, we think of sweeping themes that deal with the central issues of heroismand, of course, superpowers. As usual, we welcome authors to subvert these sample themes, to expand upon what “superhero” means, and adapt the prompt to other possible connotations and genres under the Speculative Fiction umbrella. What We’re Looking For: DIVERSITY. We want to read and publish short stories that reflect the diverse world we live in, about and from traditionally underrepresented perspectives. We more than welcome stories featuring LGBTQIA characters: PLEASE SEND THEM TO US. It should go without saying that we’d hope for a respectful and responsible approach to creating diverse worlds and characters. Middle Grade, Young Adult, and Adult audience submissions are welcome.Good speculative fiction is ageless! We are VERY keen...

Deadline: December 31st 2015 Payment: £10 and contributor's copy Oh, another bloody slasher. Oh, more extreme horror. Oh, it must be Tuesday. BORED! Whilst sipping a martini clarity arrives: one hungers for a change of pace, dash it all: So we would like tales of civilised, gentle(wo)manly horror, cold, calculating and bloodless; spinechillers rather than slashers, enervating instead of eviscerating. Though a wee bit of the red stuff will not make us blanch, focus more on unshakeable dread. Make us afraid to investigate that noise downstairs. Cause us to shudder when we glimpse something move out of the corner of our eyes. Think Ann Radcliffe and the Gothics, Mary Shelley, Elizabeth Gaskell, Wilkie Collins, M.R. James and even those modern folks like Shirley Jackson and Fritz Leiber. It’s all about the style. Mashups are the Fox Spirit specialty, so mix and match to your little heart’s content (Lovecraftian Wodehouse has been done). Just be sure to keep the theme uppermost. Humorous attempts at horror are acceptable, but be warned that your editor’s sense of humour like her taste in martinis is most peculiar and exacting. You would be strongly advised to inform yourself of her tastes. THE PARTICULARS for Respectable Horror Follow our house style and submit via Word document attachment to katelaity at gmail dot com by December 31st, 2015. Selection of stories will happen in the spring; the publication itself will appear later in 2016. You will be expected to join in the publicity efforts as much as you are capable (social media mostly). Word count: ~4-8K Payment: £10 upon publication + digital and print copy of the volume What ho! Ask any questions you have in advance of the closing date. Via: Fox Spirit.

Deadline: December 31st, 2015 Payment Breakdown: Reprint Flash Fiction - one E-book. Reprint Short Fiction - one E-book and 1 share of royalties. New Flash Fiction - a half cent a word paid on publication as well as one E-book and 1 share of royalties. New Short Fiction - one cent a word paid on publication as well as one E-book and 2 shares of royalties. Note: Reprints Accepted Strange Musings Press is looking for short funny paranormal stories of life after death for our new anthology, Alternate Hilarities 5: One Star Reviews of the Afterlife. I don't want to lock anyone down as to what I am looking for, but you need to have two things for sure. It needs to deal with the afterlife and it needs to be funny. I'm looking for administrative mistakes in heaven, weird deals with the devil, strange stories of hauntings and odd interpretations of eternity. I will consider Fantasy, Science Fiction or Horror if you make some connection to the afterlife. Remember, your story needs to be funny all the way through. If it is just a lead up to a punch line, make it short (500 words). We will consider reprints if your story has been out of print for more than two years. We are looking for: Flash Fiction between 500 and 1500 words. Short Fiction between 1501 and 6000 words. We are paying: Reprint Flash Fiction - one E-book. Reprint Short Fiction - one E-book and 1 share of royalties. New Flash Fiction - a half cent a word paid on publication as well as one E-book and 1 share of royalties. New Short Fiction - one cent a word paid on publication as well as one E-book and 2 shares of royalties. We will be running a Kickstarter to fund a print edition and our first set of stretch goals will be to increase...

Deadline: December 31st, 2015 Payment: 4% royalties after cost and a contributor's copy Chocolate. Some people crave it, some people hate it. It is given and used for many occasions, for celebratory reasons and for some as comfort in bad times and sad times. We’ve all heard the phrase ‘death by chocolate’, and I want you to think about exactly what that could mean. We could go literal with the eventual cholesterol induced cardiac arrest of an over-indulging chocoholic, to someone being drowned in a chocolate fountain, maybe even encasing someone inside a chocolate filled sarcophagus. Maybe opening that Terry’s Chocolate Orange will open more than just orange-flavoured chocolate segments, what if Willy Wonka was the devil and had lured the children with delicious temptation that would end in their sticky demises? I want soft centres, hard centres, maybe even a few fruity centres to get my teeth into, but I want chocolate horror. Works around 5,000 words are most likely to meet with the editor’s approval, although slightly longer/shorter pieces will also be considered. Aim for 3,000 – 6,000. Please follow standard manuscript format and under no circumstances use the Tab key or the Space Bar to indent your paragraphs. Either do not indent at all or use MS Word’s built in features to do so. Submissions must be .doc, .docx, or .rtf format, typed in Courier, Garamond or Times New Roman, 12 point, double spaced. Please include your full name, address, email address and telephone number at the beginning of the manuscript. Submissions should be sent to [email protected] with the email subject header “SURNAME/CHOCOLATE/WORDCOUNT”. Authors will retain copyright. Multiple submissions up to a maximum of two stories per author may be submitted. We will write to you within three to four weeks of the submission deadline to let...

Deadline: December 31st, 2015 Payment: 1 cent per word or 1 dollar per accepted drabble and a contributor's copy Guidelines A “drabble” is defined as a short story containing exactly precisely no more and no fewer than 100 words. It has a title, which can be from 1 to 15 words–but no more than 15. That’s a drabble. You have to count each word. Hyphenated words, such as tete-a-tete, count as one word. Don’t use your word count tool to count the words, because that tool will count . . . as three words, which really should be counted as one word. It will also count dashes as words, which is wrong. So count each word by sight, not by tool. Our drabble contests will have themes. For each contest, we will simply throw the theme out there. Whatever the theme inspires you to write, that’s what you write. The theme of this contest is: Confessions of a Shapeshifter. Basically, we’re looking for stories that are a bit off-beat, quirky, unusual. I mean, face it, what would happen if you went to bed with your lover and woke up next to an octopus…or a three-antennaed alien from Betelgeuse VII? And if you have a Little Green Man who somehow gets addicted to little blue pills, that could be cause for humor as well. This contest is open from 1 October 2015 through 31 December 2015. You have three months to write 100 words. Easy! NEW SUBMISSION ADDRESS: Ah, but once you have written them, where do you send them? You send them to the contest editor, Terrie Leigh Relf, at tlrelf at gmail dot com. You’ll have to combine that address–sorry, but we don’t want her to be spammed. Send your submission in the body of the e-mail, please. If...

Deadline: December 31st, 2015 Payment: We pay 2 cents per word or $20 per work, whichever is more Are you feeling inspired to write a short story but stuck for ideas? “Ember: A Journal of Luminous Things” is currently looking to purchase a themed submission entitled: “THE CARROT IS MIGHTIER THAN THE SWORD” Scheduled for the Spring 2016 issue, the chosen story will bring to life the amazing cover which has been specially designed by by artist and illustrator Sean Greenberg. Deadline: December 31, 2015 Let your imagination go wild for this one! We want your best, most creative stories using the picture as inspiration, or even telling the story of the artwork itself – it’s up to you! Our submission guidelines for this piece are the same as always and can be accessed at http://emberjournal.org/submission-guidelines/. We are really looking forward to seeing your work! Surprise us. Entertain us. Make us forget that it’s a cold, wet, November out there and brighten up our lives with your scintillating wordplay and deft descriptions. Please send in your work by the end of December in order to make the publishing deadlines. NOTES FROM THE EDITOR: There is no special submission queue for this call. Submissions are made through our online submission form. You do not need to title your manuscript “The Carrot is Mightier than the Sword” but you should give your submission this title so we know it is in response to this call. We are primarily looking for prose for this call, but metered poetry will also be considered. AUDIENCE Ember is a semiannual journal of poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction for all age groups. Submissions for and by readers aged 10 to 18 are strongly encouraged. HOW TO SUBMIT Submissions are managed through our Submission Manager, powered bySubmittable . If you submit by e-mail, we...

Deadline: December 31, 2015 Payment: 0.06 per word, to be paid out of the Kickstarter. As creators ourselves, we are planning on introducing stretch goals to further raise the word rate. Attention writers! Announcing the open call for submissions for the upcoming Upside Down: Inverted Tropes in Storytellinganthology. This collection is edited by Monica Valentinelli and Jaym Gates, and will be coming in 2016 from Apex Publications. There have been quite a few discussions in science fiction and fantasy addressing the idea of tropes and cliches, from whether they’re good or bad to how they change over time. Upside Down: Inverted Tropes in Storytelling is a collection of stories that aims to subvert many of the popular tropes and cliches to show them in a new light. Each story in our collection will be an author’s creative examination of a specific trope that is prevalent in science fiction, horror, and fantasy. Examples of tropes include some well-defined character tropes, but also storytelling tropes that lazily incorporate race, gender, religion, etc. Writers who have already been accepted to the anthology include Alyssa Wong, Nisi Shawl, Sara M. Harvey, Maurice Broaddus, Kat Richardson, Nisi Shawl, Michael Underwood, and many more wonderful authors. Hugo, Chesley, and World Fantasy Award-nominated artist Galen Dara will be providing the art for our cover. Tropes examined thus far include: Chainmaille Bikini The Magical Negro The Super Soldier Chosen One Guys Smash, Girls Shoot Love at First Sight Damsels in Distress Heroine Loves a Bad Man Yellow Peril The Black Man Dies First The Villain Had a Crappy Childhood The City Planet Prostitute with a Heart of Gold The Singularity will Cause the Apocalypse To be considered for Upside Down: Inverted Tropes in Storytelling we ask that authors a) identify the trope and b) break, bend, twist, smash...