Taking Submissions: Skull X Bones
Deadline: June 30th, 2025
Payment: 0.08 USD / word and royalties
Theme: Science Fiction or Fantasy pirate stories
Avast, ye scurvy dogs! It’s time to plunder! Pirates have enchanted and haunted readers for generations, from Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island to the ill-fated Firefly. Whether it’s Blackbeard, Mal, or Han Solo, we love our swashbucklers, our One-Eyed Willies, and our scruffy-looking nerfherders. In SKULL X BONES, we want writers to give us their best science fiction or fantasy pirates, whether they be on the sailing ships of the deep wide ocean or the spaceships of the black void!
The Zombies Need Brains Kickstarter for an SF&F pirate themed anthology called SKULL X BONES has funded! You can check out the Kickstarter here: tinyurl.com/ZNBSkullXBones . This means that the anthology is now open to submissions!!! Submission guidelines are below. If you’ve got an SF&F idea involving pirates, either on land, at sea, or in space, then writer it up, revise it, polish it, and send it on in! Deadline is June 30th, 2025. Zombies Need Brains is a SFWA Professional market.
SKULL X BONES: Submission Guidelines
Zombies Need Brains LLC will accept submissions to its anthology, SKULL X BONES, from the moment the Kickstarter funds until June 30th, 2025. This is a one-time open call; there will be no follow-up open calls. Follow us on BlueSky (https://bsky.app/profile/joshuapalmatier.bsky.social) or Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/zombiesneedbrainsllc) to keep track of the Kickstarter and the open call. Stories must be submitted in electronic format through the submissions management system Moksha here: https://zombiesneedbrains.moksha.io/.
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Word count: up to 7500 words. No exceptions.
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Pay rate: 0.08 USD / word (SFWA professional rate), plus royalties for anthologies (see below)
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Simultaneous submissions: No.
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Multiple submissions: Up to three per open call period; please submit each separately. You do not need to wait for one to be rejected before submitting another. “Bonus” submissions will be deleted unread.
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Reprints: No.
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If a story has been previously rejected by the online magazine ZNB Presents, it is permitted to submit that story to a ZNB Anthology call, like SKULL X BONES (if the story is on theme).
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If a story has been previously rejected for one (or several) ZNB Anthologies, it is permitted to submit that story to SKULL X BONES (if the story is on theme).
FORMATTING AND CONTENT GUIDELINES:
Manuscripts should be in Modern Shunn format [https://www.shunn.net/format/story/], meaning: double-spaced, 12pt font, standard margins on top, bottom, and sides, and pages numbered. Please use Times New Roman font. The first page should include the Title of the story, Author’s name, email, word count, and byline, if different from the author’s name. Italics and bold should be in italics and bold.
SKULL X BONES is to feature science fiction, fantasy, or urban fantasy stories where the story revolves around pirates. We would like a wide variety of genre settings for this anthology. In other words, we don’t want the entire anthology to be urban fantasy settings; we are actively seeking science fiction and fantasy. There must be some science fiction or fantasy element to the story; it cannot simply feature pirates at sea. As always, we are looking for a range of tones, from humorous all the way up to dark. We welcome submissions from diverse voices. We DO NOT accept anything that includes gratuitous violence or sex. If you really want to know what we like, read our previously-published themed anthologies.
TIMELINE:
Decisions on stories will be made by the end of July 2025. You will receive a receipt email from Moksha and will be able to keep track of your submission through Moksha. Rejections and acceptances will be sent through Moksha no later than the end of August 2025. If you have not received notification of submission, please query after one week; if you have not received a rejection or acceptance notification, please query after August 2025. Send queries to [email protected].
WHAT TO EXPECT IF YOU’RE ACCEPTED:
If your story is selected, you should expect a revision letter, followed by a copy edit phase. A formal acceptance and contract will follow after completion of copy edits. Afterwards, there will be a page proof phrase. Advances would be immediately earned out upon publication of the anthology. Royalties on additional sales of the anthology (not including Kickstarter editions) will be 25% of ebook cover price and 10% of trade paperback cover price, both split evenly (not by word count) among the authors in and editors of the anthology.
A sample contract can be found at:
Stories will be published in the SKULL X BONES anthology by December 2025. Zombies Need Brains LLC is seeking exclusive world anthology rights (including electronic rights) in all languages for the duration of one year after publication of the anthology. Your story cannot appear elsewhere during that first year.
Questions regarding these submission guidelines should be sent to [email protected]. Thank you.
