Taking Submissions: Judicial Homicide: Tales from the Execution Chamber
Undertaker BooksDeadline: July 15th, 2024 Payment: $10 Theme: horror stories of all subgenres about executions, public or private, ancient or modern (Charity Anthology benefiting Witness to Innocence) Word Count: 2,000-5,000 Call Open: June 1-July 15, 2024 Publication: September 2024 Call: We’re looking for horror stories of all subgenres about executions, public or private, ancient or modern. The execution does not have to be completed, nor does it have to be government sanctioned. An execution for our purposes is a willful decision to end a life as a consequence for the condemned’s actions. Undertaker Books is a royalty-paying, full-service publisher. This means we do not charge fees to the author at any time. We pay a royalty rate of 50% of distribution payouts. This can mean you will earn different rates for books sold through different outlets. Our contracts are for digital and print worldwide English rights. At this stage, we do not provide advance payments unless specified for anthology calls. SUBMISSIONS ARE TO BE SENT TO: [email protected] Modern Shunn Format is preferred. Please review this website if you are unsure how to proceed. Submit the first 20 pages of your manuscript as a single .doc(x) file attachment. If submitting for general consideration, please include a one page synopsis of the plot (including the ending) with working title, category or subgenre, and word count. In the body of your email, please include a cover letter containing: a short author bio,your legal name, pen name (if applicable), social media links, and website. WHAT WE WILL NOT ACCEPT No AI-generated content. If an author’s work is discovered to be generated by AI, the work will be rejected (or unpublished). View our AI Use Policy. No depictions of sexual assault against children. No animal abuse. No reprints or previously published works. No unfinished stories or rough drafts. At Undertaker Books, we tend to...
Taking Submissions: Twisted Laughs An Anthology of Dark Humor
Exploding Head FictionDeadline: July 15th, 2024 Payment: $15 and a contributors copy Theme: Dark Humor WHAT WE ARE LOOKING FOR We're summoning the darkest, most devilishly witty scribes for our upcoming anthology of dark humor. Unleash your ink and submit your darkest chuckles. We're searching for tales that tickle the funny bone while sending shivers down the spine. Dare to delve into the abyss of laughter with us? Submit your morbidly hilarious masterpieces today! SUBMISSION INFO Submissions must be no longer than 2,500 words (Word counts are firm) Title, submitter's name, pen name (if different), story word count and author email address must be at the top of your submission. Submissions must be sent to [email protected] Please include TWISTED LAUGHS SUBMISSION in the subject of the email. AI cannot write submissions (Artificial Intelligence.) I will disqualify any author that submits work that is not written by them from submitting to Exploding Head Fiction in the future and all future anthologies. Submissions must be written in 12 pt. Times New Roman font, 1" margins, double spaced. All scene breaks must be three asterisks, centered on the page, with no spaces in between (***) Submissions must be in .Docx or .Doc format. Submissions should be clean and edited to the best of the author's ability. Submissions must contain elements of horror and dark humor. Everything else is up to you. Submissions must not have been published elsewhere before in any form. Authors may submit as many stories as they want for review, however, there will be a limit of one published story per author. Please include in the email's body any content warnings (if you chose to use them). Simultaneous submissions are allowed; however, we ask that you inform us immediately if another publisher picks up your story. Twisted Laughs will be released October...
Taking Submissions: If There’s Anyone Left Volume 5
If There's Anyone LeftDeadline: July 15th, 2024 Payment: 8 cents per word Theme: science fiction and speculative fiction GENERAL (i.e. non micro-fiction) GUIDELINES We are currently OPEN to GENERAL flash submissions. For Volume 5, we will remain open until July 15, 2024. Proceeds from Volume 5 will go toward Palestinian relief organizations. We want science fiction and speculative fiction. So long as it falls into one of these categories, we will happily read it. If other elements are present, that is fine, but it must include science or speculative fiction. NOW ACCEPTING TRANSLATIONS (MORE INFO BELOW) No more than 1000 words. This is a firm limit. Please no queries about longer pieces. NO AI-GENERATED/ASSISTED STORIES Pay rate is professional - $0.08 US/word This is for marginalized members of the sci-fi/spec community—this includes people of color, the LGBTQ2S+ community, members of marginalized genders, and disabled and neurodiverse people. If you are not a person of color, LGBTQ2S+, neurodiverse, disabled, or of a marginalized gender, please DO NOT send us your work. Authors of all accepted pieces will have the option to include a short bio in the anthology. We understand the sensitive nature of gender identity and sexual orientation, so if you wish this status to remain unwritten and/or if you prefer to be anonymous, we will print only what you wish to be printed. If you would like your piece published under a pseudonym, please indicate this on your submission. If you would like your pronouns included, please indicate those as well. DO NOT send us anything hateful. No gratuitous violence, torture, rape, or any work that promotes an ideology unbecoming of an inclusive society – no stories supporting racism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, or any other of the many forms of hate. Minutiae Please prepare your submission according to standard guidelines, which you...
Taking Submissions: Cosmic Horror Monthly July 2024 Window (Early Listing)
Cosmic Horror MonthlySubmission Window: July 1st - 17th, 2024 Payment: 3 cents per word for fiction and non-fiction, $20 for interior artwork and $100 for cover art Theme: Weird and cosmic fiction What do we want? Weird and cosmic fiction under 5,000 words When do we want it? Twice a year: January 1-7 and July 1-17 How do we want it? Submitted via email to [email protected] as a .doc or .docx file. Please also include a short cover letter with some background information about you, the word count of the story, and a brief synopsis. Other Stuff! Please only submit your work once, and please only submit one work per submission period. Please only resubmit works that have already been rejected if invited to do so. We believe that the horror genre’s diversity is its greatest strength, and we wish that viewpoint to be reflected in our story content and our submission queues. We are especially interested in hearing from those whose voices are underrepresented in the cosmic/weird. If comfortable, feel free to drop this information in your cover letter. We strongly favor stories that use contemporary narrative styles. Simultaneous submissions are allowed, but please withdraw immediately upon acceptance elsewhere. We pay 3 cents (USD) per word for original fiction. We do not take unsolicited reprints. What we don’t want: We do not take any work that used AI in its creation, work that uses established genre tropes in a standard way, and queries. Work written in an antiquated, Lovecraftian style is a hard sell. Authors we love: Mike Allen, Paula D. Ashe, Mona Awad, Laird Barron, Nadia Bulkin, Nicole Cushing, Brian Evenson, Gemma Files, John Langan, Thomas Ligotti, Preemee Mohamed, Jon Padgett, Hailey Piper Submissions (Non-Fiction) OPEN What do we want? Non-fiction essays that explore weird and cosmic horror concepts under 5,000 words When do...
Taking Submissions: Astrolabe Summer 2024 Window
AstrolabeSubmission Window: June 20th to July 20th, 2024 Payment: $50 upon publication Theme: Stories about how we seek out, discover, and grasp onto connection in all genres with a particular fondness for anything that moves beyond realism in form or content or spirit Please read below for details about our next submission window, guidelines, honorariums, and rights. At Astrolabe, we’re looking for work about how we seek out, discover, and grasp onto connection. Into the woods. Across a line. Beneath the ocean. Along a seam. Into the branches of an alternate present or the crevasse of an alternate future. Across the rifts between one another. And then, once we find one other, the myths we make. We’re excited to see as many interpretations of this broad theme as there are stars in the night sky. We’re open to work of all genres, with a particular fondness for anything that moves beyond realism in form or content or spirit. Read about Astrolabe for details on our mission and what we’re doing with the Universe. The details We pay a $50 honorarium upon publication of one or more pieces from your submission. To help fund those payments, we alternate between free and paid submission periods throughout the year. Our free periods begin the day we publish new work—on the spring equinox, summer solstice, autumnal equinox, and winter solstice—and stay open for a month. Here are the free periods for 2024: March 20th to April 20th June 20st to July 20st September 22nd to October 22nd December 21st to Jan 21, 2025 Some additional details: We currently accept three types of work: fiction, creative nonfiction, and photography & art. See below for genre-specific instructions. We’re not a market for lineated poetry at the moment. We do accept simultaneous submissions, but please let us know if your work was accepted for...
Taking Submissions: Witch House #4
Witch House MagazineDeadline: July 21st, 2024 Payment: $10 Theme: Horror with a focus on pulp fiction tradition of a modern gothic literature called "cosmic horror. WITCH HOUSE is an amateur magazine that seeks to discover, inspire, and publish emerging horror authors who are enthusiastic about the pulp fiction tradition of a modern gothic literature called "cosmic horror." Writers in this tradition include (but are not limited to) the following: Edgar Allan Poe, M.R. James, Arthur Machen, H.P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, Robert Bloch, August Derleth, Shirley Jackson, Karl Edward Wagner, Thomas Ligotti, Stephen King, and many more. "Cosmic horror" emphasizes helpless protagonists, unexplainable monstrous menaces, and fictional occult themes such as forbidden lore and evil conspiracy. Some "cosmic horror" blurs the lines separating mystery/noir, crime fiction, and horror, but it is distinguished by a dramatic deviation from the reality principle. At Witch House, we prefer lyrical, literary, and artful terror of the sublime that unsettles subtly rather than gross-out gore. Published by Spiral Tower Press. Read previous issues of Witch House here! • Submission deadline for our 4th issue: Sunday, 21 July 2024 by 11:59 PM EDT. • Editorial decisions: Sunday, 8 September 2024. • Publication of issue: Sunday, 27 October 2024. Fiction Guidelines: We seek short, compressed stories that are nevertheless complete and cohesive narratives spanning 1500 to 2500 words (entirety of entry excluding title and author / byline). No more, no less. Stories over or under the limit will not be read. We mean it, friends! This limit serves two functions: (1) the limit is an artistic challenge. It takes skill to tell a compressed, punchy story. (2) We are an amateur publication and only pay a token honorarium, so save your longer works for better paying markets. At this time, only a single submission (either prose or poetry) per author can be considered for a given issue...
Taking Submissions: Diabolical Plots July 2024 Window
Diabolical PlotsDeadline: July 22nd, 2024 Payment: 10 cents per word Theme: Speculative Fiction Next window: July 8-22, 2024 David Steffen is the editor, who you may also know from reading The Long List Anthology series or from the Submission Grinder, which you can use to find markets for your writing and track your submissions. Diabolical Plots is a SFWA-qualifying market, so if you have a personal goal to join SFWA, making a sale here would help you toward that goal. If you have already read our guidelines and are ready to submit, you can SUBMIT HERE. FICTION Accessibility Note: We recognize our submission form may not be accessible to all users. Please send us a message at our contact form or email editordiabolicalplotscom and we will make sure you can submit your story. Genres: science fiction, fantasy, horror (everything must have a speculative element, even horror). Word count: 3500 words or less. This is a firm limit. If you submit a longer story, it will be rejected unread and that will count as a submission. Do not query to ask permission to submit something longer–the answer will be no. Pay rate: 10 cents per word. Paying by PayPal is preferred by us, but we can mail a US bank check if you live in the US, and if you live somewhere where neither of these things are options, we are exploring other options. We don’t want unavailability of payment apps for you to be a deterrent to you submitting! Multiple submissions: No. In the past, Diabolical Plots accepted two submissions per author per window, but now we ask that you only send one submission per window. Even if you receive a rejection before the window has ended, we ask that you wait until our next window to submit a new story. Simultaneous submissions: Yes! We strive to respond in a timely fashion anyway, but you can...
Taking Submissions: The Big Ones: Stories of an Alternate WWII
Raconteur PressDeadline: July 26th, 2024 Payment: Royalties Theme: Alternate histories of WWII that are also realistic to the time period The Big Ones: Stories of an Alternate WWII With Guest Editor Dr. James Young The short story must involve some aspect of World War II. Think “What if Force Z had fighter escort?” to “Trinity ends with a ‘click’…then silence.” The only stipulation is the point of deviation has to be realistic to the technology of the time. If you’re giving the U.S.S. Nevada rail guns at Pearl Harbor, this is the wrong anthology for you. Opens: 5/26/24 Closes: 7/26/24 Contracts: 8/10/24 Publication: 9/6/24 5,000 to 8,000 words. Length and genre are negotiable, as long as the story fits the concept, and is entertaining. Any submission must be in Times New Roman, 12PT, double spaced, with your name, title of the story, and your email on it. Please name the file as -— Send in a .docx format. Please attach the file to your email, no links. Please see the submission guideline graphic on the Raconteur Press Facebook page. Raconteur Press will hold the rights for one year after publication, after one year the rights will revert to the author, but we continue to pay you as long as the anthology is selling. Authors receive an equal percentage share of the proceeds from the anthology, along with the Press, our editors, and administration. Yes, you read that right. We don’t take 80% off the top and split the 20% left over between all the authors. We’re all in this together. This is why our anthologies are limited to ten stories. IMPORTANT: PLEASE do NOT submit stories until the date the call opens. We don’t want to hang on to your piece for longer than necessary. You might find another market for it, or it decides...
Taking Submissions: Astral 2024 Second Window
Astral Alien FictionSubmission Window: July 7th – 28th, 2024 Payment: $20 per accepted story Theme: Stories that are told from an alien perspective Here you will find all you need to send us your stories. We look forward to reading them. As a reminder: we only publish five stories per issue. Magazines like ours generally receive submissions numbering in the hundreds. Don't be too hard on yourself if we do not take yours. There is a lot of competition and it mostly comes down to individual editor opinion (which is unpredictable and not a reflection of quality of writing necessarily). We know the submission process is hard and we wish you the very best in your writing. When to Submit Submissions are currently closed Submissions are open: January 7th–28th (closing at 10pm PST on the 28th) July 7th–28th (closing at 10pm PST on the 28th) What to Submit Astral publishes short stories ranging from 1,000–7,000 words. We want stories that are told from an alien perspective. By alien we usually mean extraterrestrial... but other perspectives can also qualify, such as Lovecraftian horrors, plants, bacteria, etc. Send us weird and surreal stories that challenge our notions about ourselves and the universe. We are, broadly, wanting to read stories from non-humanoid points of view. Submitted stories can feature humans, but the main perspective should be alien or should have a narrative focus that interacts with alien consciousness as much as possible. We imagine most of the stories we will be sent will fall into the science fiction category, but we also welcome horror and fantasy stories (particularly if they are "other world" fantasy stories). If you are unsure if your story fits: send it. Don't self-censor (so long as you believe there is some legitimate possiblity that we would be interested in the piece given the above...
Taking Submissions: Astral Alien Fiction Second 2024 Window
Astral Alien FictionSubmission Window: July 7th – 28th, 2024 Theme: Stories that are told from an alien perspective (See below for more details.) Payment: $20 per story Here you will find all you need to send us your stories. We look forward to reading them. As a reminder: we only publish five stories per issue. Magazines like ours generally receive submissions numbering in the hundreds. Don't be too hard on yourself if we do not take yours. There is a lot of competition and it mostly comes down to individual editor opinion (which is unpredictable and not a reflection of quality of writing necessarily). We know the submission process is hard and we wish you the very best in your writing. When to Submit Submissions are open: January 7th–28th (closing at 10pm PST on the 28th) July 7th–28th (closing at 10pm PST on the 28th) What to Submit Astral publishes short stories ranging from 1,000–7,000 words. We want stories that are told from an alien perspective. By alien we usually mean extraterrestrial... but other perspectives can also qualify, such as Lovecraftian horrors, plants, bacteria, etc. Send us weird and surreal stories that challenge our notions about ourselves and the universe. We are, broadly, wanting to read stories from non-humanoid points of view. Submitted stories can feature humans, but the main perspective should be alien or should have a narrative focus that interacts with alien consciousness as much as possible. We imagine most of the stories we will be sent will fall into the science fiction category, but we also welcome horror and fantasy stories (particularly if they are "other world" fantasy stories). If you are unsure if your story fits: send it. Don't self-censor (so long as you believe there is some legitimate possiblity that we would be interested in the piece given the above...