Deadline: February 28th, 2018
Payment: $25 and a contributor’s copy

The basics

• Payment is $25 + 1 contributor copy, additional copies at discount.

• Genre is crime. But there’s more to it.

• Word count is 2000-5000 words.

• Simultaneous submissions are welcome. Reprints and multiple submissions are not.

• Submissions close end of day February 28, 2018.

• Diverse is good.

• Submit it.

Pay rate

Well, we aren’t the majors, so we offer a flat pay rate of $25 and one contributor copy of the published anthology.

Payment will be sent within 30 days of publication.

You will also be able to purchase additional copies at a discounted rate.

Genre

This time around, it’s crime. Now having said that, we want to put our twist on it.

First off, if you don’t write crime, that’s great — it goes toward our tagline of “Try something different.” So, we are actually encouraging non-crime writers to give it a shot. Need some guidance? Check out the articles here and here.

Now, for those of you that actually do write crime, we’re still going to ask you to try something different as well. Break the conventions. Shake up the tropes.

Want some examples? Well, hey, have you tried layering a different genre on top of it? Science fiction? Horror? Western? Mystery? War? Historical? Diverse stories and characters are always something that we look for.

Don’t limit yourself. Don’t play it safe. Surprise us. Surprise yourself.

Word count

The sweet spot is between 2000 and 5000 words. Got something that’s outside that range? Fair enough. We’ll still take a look at it, but bear in mind, if you’re going to bend the rules, you have to ensure it’s a mind-blowing read.

Reprint/Multiple/Simultaneous submissions

Let’s take these one at a time, shall we?

• Reprints: No. We want to ensure that we can market the anthology as all-new stories. Sorry.

• Multiple: Again, no. Send us one story. If you have more than one, we’re looking for the one that’s the most different, the most rule and genre-bending.

• Simultaneous: Sure. We get it. There’s lots of competition out there, so the first one to say yes probably wins, right? All we ask is, if someone else says yes first, let us know. If you want to pull it from consideration at that time, no problem. If you’d prefer to go with us, we can do a quick determination and get back to you asap.

Timeframe

Submissions are open from when you got your invite until 11:59 pm, February 28, 2018. And we’re going to be very firm on that. Anything received from 12:00:01 am March 1, 2018 will be declined. Politely, but yeah. Clock’s ticking, people!

Specifics

Diversity is a good thing. Your characters don’t all need to be white and straight. But, like in any good story, don’t just throw diverse characters in to mix it up like Grandma’s Cajun Gumbo. They really should have a place there. Work them in, don’t toss them in.

Some sex is also completely okay. But unless it’s serving an extremely important plot point, it probably doesn’t need to be in there.

Gratuitous violence? We know this is crime fiction however, if it doesn’t serve a purpose, or is over the top, we don’t want it.

Rape, incest, and anything involving the sexualization of children has no place at ID Press, thank you very much.

Formatting guidelines (Don’t follow the guidelines, we won’t consider your story.)

• 12 pt font –  Times New Roman

• Double-spaced

• 1″ (2.5 cm) margins on all sides

• Scene breaks broken with a single asterisk – “*”

• Name, contact information (mailing address, phone number, email), word count, title, pseudonym (if applicable) on first page

• No indents (or tab in) on paragraphs (set formatting to auto-indent)

• No headers or footers

• DOC, DOCX, or RTF file types only

Submitting (or, how the heck do I get it to you?)

Send your submission to us here. In the subject line, please enter

Story submission – TITLE – AUTHOR NAME

Attach your DOC, DOCX, or RTF file and hit send!

We will respond no later than March 30, 2018.

Via: ID Press.