Events

Taking Submissions: Dear Leader Tales

Deadline: July 31st, 2020 Payment: 3.0 cents per word, contributors copy, $150 advance maximum on longer stories Theme: Fiction short stories and poetry in support of an election year theme “Dear Leader Tales” (DLT) anthology. We want stories of a humorous or satirical bent which illustrate or lampoon an emperor’s hubris (and lack of clothing). Note: Reprints allowed Theme:  We’re looking for original fiction short stories and poetry in support of an election year theme “Dear Leader Tales” (DLT) anthology. We want stories of a humorous or satirical bent which illustrate or lampoon an emperor’s hubris (and lack of clothing). In that spirit, we don’t want any real life current or past Dear Leaders named directly, but their known foibles are fair game. If you’re one of the oppressed, regardless of who’s in charge, this is your chance to deploy devastating humor, satire, wit, and sarcasm to bring them down a few notches. If nothing else, we can amuse ourselves in a trying time. Examples beyond the political include CEOs who constantly quote Sun Tzu or Machiavelli incorrectly, cats plotting to overthrow their human overlords, in short anywhere clueless oppressors operate. Rules: The stories can range from 1,000 to 5,000 words. First world rights are preferred. Reprint rights will be accepted if the story is good enough. Simultaneous submissions are acceptable as well, provided prompt notice is given should the story be picked up elsewhere. Stories may exceed the 5K word count limit, if it merits, however the advances are limited to a maximum of $150 per story. Schedule: Submission period is July 1, 2020 through July 31, 2020, after which no further submittals will be accepted.The email address for submissions will only be active during that period. We plan to release the anthology in mid-September 2020. Team: The evaluation team will consist...

Taking Submissions: Lethal Impact

Deadline: June 30th, 2020 Payment: Royalties Lethal Impact (Rated R) Deadline – June 30th, 2020 Publication – September 2020 Word Count – 5,000-15,000 Theme – In this post-apocalyptic anthology, nothing matters except survival. In a world full of humans pitted against each other, how can there be anyone left to trust? After receiving edits back, the author has two weeks to return the submission for formatting. View our blog post on the topic of how to submit to a publisher.   Rating – Check each anthologies‘ rating. Word count – Check each anthologies‘ word count requirements. E-mail address to submit to – [email protected]   NOTICE –  Failure to submit correctly will result in refusal of submission. Via: Dragon Soul Press.

Taking Submissions: Untitled Edgar Alan Poe Anthology

Deadline June 30th,2020 Payment: 80/20 split. 80% will go to the contributing authors to be paid within 10 days of Amazon payments for the book. Are you an Edgar Alan Poe fan? Would you like to be in an Anthology dedicated to his style of writing? Stories are to be in the fashion of Poe's writing. 5k can be a little bit over. Completed stories must be edited, but not formatted. Deadline June 30,2020 Release: July 2020 No buy-in. Published by Heart's On Fire Publishing, LLC https://www.facebook.com/groups/1172927172906061/ Payment will be an 80/20 split. 80% will go to the contributing authors to be paid within 10 days of Amazon payments for the book. 20% goes to the publisher for the cost of the cover, formatting, and an extra round of edits on all stories. Each author will receive a .mobi copy of the anthology to use specifically for giveaways. Paperbacks will be able to be bought from the publisher at cost. Stories should be submitted to [email protected]. Please put Poe in the comments of the email. Thank you!!  

Taking Submissions: Sonorous Silence

Deadline: June 30th, 2020 Payment: $40 and a contributors copy Theme: Silence is the theme of this anthology. From tales of what lurks in a world without sound to characters whose voice are taken or go unheard, we want them all. Open for Submissions until June 30th 2020 Sonorous silence Silence is the theme of this anthology. From tales of what lurks in a world without sound to characters whose voice are taken or go unheard, we want them all. ​ We hope to keep the theme loose to allow the author creative freedom. If you think an idea fits, let us have it. ​ The word count for short stories should be between 2k and 10k. Formatting When submitting, please format your works using the industry standard. You can find a lovely guide here. ​ Basically:        -Courier or Times New Roman (The former is preferred)        -12pt font        -Double Spaced        -Include a header with your legal name, address, and e-mail        -Give us a word count on the first page        -Subsequent pages should be numbered and labelled with the author's last name ​ ​ ​ ​ Submissions should be made to:       [email protected] ​        -In the subject line tell us the submission type and title.         (ex. "Anthology- Book Title") ​ ​ ​ ​ Pay Since we are new and will be paying for expenses out of our own pocket for the time being, pay isn't going to be as great as we'd like. In time, we hope to be able to offer our authors more. For now, rates are as follows. ​ ​ Short Stories:        A flat rate of $40 + contributor copy Via: Pavor Press.

Taking Submissions: The Last Elven War

Deadline: June 30th, 2020 Payment: Contributor's Copy Theme: How did the elves vanish? A Collection of Short Tales Zimbell House is holding open submissions for short tales about how the elves vanished. Let your imagination roam and put our readers in the middle of the action. We want complete stories that explain the last war of the elven race. Who was it between? How did it start? Where did the elves go after the war ended? What realm was the war fought on? What was life like before the war, and then show us the after-effects. Please keep foul language to a minimum-it loses its punch if over-used. Dialogue needs to be believable, and please keep dialects/slang to a bare minimum if you must use them. No head-hopping or POV changes. Pick one point of view and stick with it. Please show more of the action than just telling the reader what happens. Submissions of both short stories and novellas to this anthology are welcome, please keep in mind the minimum word count is 4,500 and the maximum word count is 19,500. This anthology is a great opportunity to showcase emerging writers and allow them to build their professional platforms. Submission Deadline: June 30, 2020, with a targeted release date of late August 2020. Submit your best work. Poorly formatted and unedited work will be turned down. Please use Americanized English spellings. We will be doing light editing as necessary to fit the standards we strive to maintain. Submission Guidelines: Any work under 4,500 words will be automatically disqualified for this anthology. The work must not have appeared in print or online anywhere before. All submissions must be in English. Each author may submit up to three (3) unique works—please submit them separately. Work must be in Microsoft Word or RTF, double-spaced, 12-point font-no headers/footers....

Taking Submissions: If I Die Before I Wake: Volume 3

Deadline June 30th, 2020 Payment: $25 and a contributors copy Theme: A strong female Main Character who will do whatever it takes to protect/avenge those she loves and must be written in the horror genre Do you want your story to appear in the next volume? IF I DIE BEFORE I WAKE: Volume 3 Submission Guidelines Below ​ Please read carefully. Submissions that don't meet the guidelines will be automatically rejected. All submissions will be reviewed after the submission deadline and chosen stories will be published in IF I DIE BEFORE I WAKE- TALES OF DEADLY WOMEN AND RETRIBUTION - The Better Off Dead Series Volume 3, which will be released in the fall of 2020 Submissions must be between 5,000 and 10,000 words Title, submitter's name, pen name (if different), word count and email address must be centered at the top of your submission Submissions must be 12 pt. Times New Roman font, double spaced with special first-line indentation of 0.5" Submissions must be in .Docx format with 1" margins all around Submissions should be clean and edited Submissions must be have a strong female Main Character who will do whatever it takes to protect/avenge those she loves and must be written in the horror genre Submissions cannot contain graphic sexual or rape scenes Submissions must not have been published elsewhere before in any medium The number of stories published will depend on word count of the chosen stories, but will be no less than ten stories and no more than twenty Authors may submit as many stories as they want for review, however, there will be a limit of one published story per author The deadline for submission is June 30th, 2020 Authors will be notified by July 31st, 2020 if their story was selected Authors That Are Selected For Inclusion...

Taking Submissions: And Lately, The Sun

Deadline: June 30th, 2020 Payment: AUD$80 per accepted story as our standard rate Theme: Climate Change Bushland is burning. Forecasts say the Arctic will be ice-free in the summers to come. Oceans are swelling with the run-off, and heaving with plastics and endocrine disruptors. Coral is dying, and the knock-on effects have barely begun. Climate change is here. Now what are we going to do about it? Do we need to help the environment change as fast as the climate? Release chemical mutagens into the ecosystem to drive natural selection at a hundred miles an hour so we can see what survives on the other side? Is it time to reinvent our social, political, and economic systems from the top down – or the bottom up? Our current lifestyles could become as alien to the next generation as the Aztec civilisation now is to us. In a world of guerrilla-style eco warriors, or digitised barter economies, or robot socialism, or ageographical nation states, what will we preserve? Which threads will we weave forward? Or could it be that a more gradual transformation of our destructive policies is the way to safety, taking each set of problems one box at a time? Our future could look much like our present, but with supercharged carbon sequestration, genetically modified bacteria safely breaking down plastics, and next-generation smart phones. How does it start? What drives it onward? Or do we need to move backwards? Our answers may not lie in the new, but in the old. Perhaps our best future is a radical rebuilding of history, and all we need to decide on is whose. And Lately, The Sun explores such ideas in a short story anthology slated for publication in November 2020. We are currently calling for submissions until midnight (GMT) on the 30th of...

Taking Submissions: Six Guns Straight From Hell, Volume 3

Deadline: June 30th, 2020 Payment: $25 advance, royalties, 2 contributors copies Theme: A horror wester anthology Six Guns Straight From Hell was a western horror anthology first published by Science Fiction Trails in 2010.  A second volume came out in 2014. We’re going to bring a third volume in late 2020. The project is being edited by David B. Riley and J. A. Campbell. We are looking for original western horror.  Look at the title. Scare us or shoot somebody. Better yet, do some of both.  We’re not requiring gunplay, but it would help.  The preference will be for active stories. Any type of horror is okay, including dark fantasy, although we’re not fans of excessive sex or gore.  Have some sense of danger or peril.  Unlikely heroes or villains are especially wanted.  Above all else, give us a flavor of the Wild West along with whatever supernatural elements you bring to the table. Stories should take place in the western United States between 1850 and 1900. This can include western Canada and northern Mexico. Preferred length is 1k to 5k words, although we will accept stories to 8k words. We tend to see too many sheriff stories. There were plenty of other people out west, including merchants, photographers, reporters, ranchers, Indians, miners, soldiers, telegraph operators, saloon keepers and prostitutes. We encourage stories involving these folks.  If you do feel the need for a lawman, make that person interesting—not simply a walking badge. Over the years, we’ve noticed some common mistakes a lot of writers make.  We thought we’d mention a few of them. Ships. The names of ships are italicized.  Yep, they are. A lot of folks don’t seem to realize this. Short stories: Titles of short stories are not underlined. They should be put in quotation marks.  Names...

Eraserhead Press Is Open To Novellas And Novels

Deadline: June 30th, 2020 Payment: 50% of net revenue Theme: Bizarro! WE ARE CURRENTLY OPEN TO SUBMISSIONS APRIL 1 – JUNE 30, 2020 All submissions will receive a reply on July 31, 2020. What we are looking for: Eraserhead Press is seeking original novellas and novels of 20,000 to 100,000 words in length that fit into the Bizarro Fiction category. We want surprising, unique, well-crafted weird stories with compelling plots, eccentric characters, and never-before-seen concepts. We want a balance of both plot and character – we love weird characters with weird problems in weird places. We are looking for exciting concepts that make people say “I have to read that!” and well-developed characters they can fall in love with along the way. We’re most drawn to darkly absurd tales that are addictive to read and contain a strong emotional core. We love fiction that is both heart-rending and fun. While it may or may not be funny, we are interested in more than just a joke. If you can make us both laugh and cry or creep us out and draw us in, we will love your book. We are looking for entertaining and accessible stories that speak to a specific audience. Will your book appeal to vegan punks? Riot grrls? Overworked airline pilots? Cos-players? Fans of 80s New Wave? If you’ve identified the audience for your work, please tell us in your book description. Multiple submissions are okay – during our open submission period we are open to reading as many manuscripts as you feel would meet our criteria but we are only interested in your best work. Bring it on! We are interested in writers from underrepresented populations. This includes, but is not limited to, writers of any race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, class and physical or mental ability. We want to work with open-minded, creative people who are interested in connecting...

Taking Submissions: Coffin Blossoms

Deadline: June 30th, 2020 Payment: $.005 per word Theme: Horror and humor mixed together Horror. Comedy. Two totally different genres. Yet something amazing happens when they are able to combine in a way that keeps both the horror, and the humor. In Coffin Blossoms, we seek those rare stories that make us chuckle while giving us goosebumps. They are usually full of one-line zingers, and absurd situations. The ability to combine humor with horror in a respectable work of fiction is rare, but at Jolly Horror Press, we know these stories exist. That’s why WE exist, to give them their proper home. Bring us your funny horror, the ridiculous situations that are both scary and make you roll on the floor. You can write about whatever you want, there is no theme for this one. The only requirement is that it is horror, and hilarity. Your story must include elements of both horror and comedy. We wanna chuckle when we read it, in between sh*tting our pants. Specific guidlines are below: Coffin Blossoms Guidelines Here are a couple of tips to put your story in better position to be accepted. 1. Fit the theme. Horror/Comedy. Scare us and make us laugh. If we don't laugh a few times, we're not going to accept your story. If all we do is laugh, same thing. 2. Be within our word count guidelines (for Coffin Blossoms, 2000 to 6000) or query us for shorter/longer. 3. No matter how good your story is, if it hasn't been edited, there is a big chance we won't accept it. In the past, we've accepted stories that needed a lot of editing work, but it took so much effort to make them presentable. We aren't doing that anymore. If within a page or two of reading the story we...