Deadline: July 31st 2023
Payment: Royalties
Theme: Pick a famous incident, an unknown one, or make up your own and let us know what really happened!
Note: Not looking for ‘extreme’ horror

What Really Happened (Tentative Title)

Swamp gas?

Weather balloons?

Ball lightning?

That couldn’t really have been an atmospheric reflection of Venus, could it?

Heck no!

And we want you to tell us what it REALLY was!

Pick a famous incident, an unknown one, or make up your own and let us know what really happened! I mean, we’re not saying it was aliens, but…

Submission Guidelines:

Submissions will be open May 1st to July 31st 2023. Send submissions to [email protected]

Please attach your story as a .doc, .docx, or .rtf file. No PDFs or cloudsharing will be accepted.

Anthology expected to be published in or around November, 2023.

Word count maximum (firm) of 7,000 words. Anything under 2,000 words will be considered flash fiction.

Flash fiction is welcome and will be paid at 1/2 rate.

Payment is royalty sharing through Draft2Digital’s Royalty Sharing Program.

**If you are not willing to obtain a Draft2Digital account in order to receive royalty shares as payment, then DON’T SUBMIT TO US.**

For this anthology, please no extreme horror or graphic sex. Though we want dark stories and even horror, we are not interested in the extremes of the genre. Please keep content and language limited to the equivalent of a “PG-13” rated movie. Please remember, Knight Writing Press will not accept a story that glorifies, supports, encourages, or gratuitously includes hate, hate crimes, rape, sex, sex crimes, or any other forms of inhumanity.

There are no genre restrictions on this anthology, as long as the story fits the theme, which means if it is not sci-fi, it’s going to be a hard sell! Please make sure you read and follow all submission guidelines and look over the sample contract on https://knightwritingpress.com/sample-contract/ before you submit. The sample contract will not exactly match what you will receive, should your story be accepted, but it will give you a good idea of what to expect.

Important: In the text of your Submission Cover Letter, include confirmation that you understand we are using Draft2Digital for royalty sharing payments and that you must have an account there in order to receive royalties for your story. Failure to do this may result in an immediate rejection for failing to follow submission guidelines. Note: you do not need an account in order to submit to us, only if your story is accepted.

Rights asked for: Exclusive first-time rights, but only until such time as the anthology is published (the reason for this is explained at the end of this page), and worldwide, English Language publication rights, for both print and electronic, for as long as the anthology remains in publication. (As soon as the anthology is published, you can do whatever you want with your story.)

No reprints. (the reason for this is explained at the end of this page.)

Payment: Royalty sharing through Draft2Digital’s royalty sharing program. If you are not willing to obtain a Draft2Digital account in order to receive royalty shares as payment, then DON’T SUBMIT.

Flash fiction (anything under 2,000 words) is welcome and will be paid at 1/2 rate .

Please be aware that this submission will be open until July 31st 2023 and any response for your submission, acceptance or rejection, may not be forthcoming until several months after that date. If you are not okay with that waiting period, please don’t submit.

Multiple and simultaneous submissions are acceptable. Please be aware that while we may not mind publishing your story at the same time someone else does, other publishers may not feel the same way, and you should keep them informed of the multiple submissions status of your story.

Please Note: We are no longer accepting previously published stories. We regret this, but some sales outlets (that maybe start with A, have a Z in the middle, and end with an N) have caused us problems when a previously published story appears for free (in whole or in part) online anyplace. This means if you posted your story on your (or any) website, it has already been published for free and SOME outlets won’t carry it for sale, even as part of a new collection.

While we don’t like to ask for many rights beyond the world-wide English Language publishing right needed to include your story in an anthology, because of the above-mentioned problem, we now ask for first publishing rights (no reprints) and that you stay exclusive (don’t post it or resell it) until after the anthology is published.

We ONLY publish through D2D. We do this because we ONLY pay royalty shares, and that is paid through D2D. If you are not willing to obtain a D2D account in order to receive royalty shares, then don’t waste your time and ours by submitting a story.

(Seriously. We will not just send you $5 via PayPal instead.)

Via: Knight Writing Press.