Submission Guidelines

 

BY SUBMITTING YOUR WORK TO SINISTER TALES, YOU AGREE TO NOT SUBMIT THE WORK ANYWHERE ELSE, YOU AGREE TO GIVE SINISTER TALES FIRST NORTH AMERICAN SERIAL RIGHTS, AND AGREE THAT THE WORK IS YOUR ORIGINAL WORK!

 

READ ALL SUBMISSION & MANUSCRIPT FORMAT GUIDELINES BEFORE SUBMITTING. SUBMISSIONS THAT DO NOT FOLLOW ALL GUIDELINES WILL BE DELETED.


MAKE SURE THAT YOU HAVE REVISED YOUR SUBMISSION VERY WELL. WE WILL NOT ACCEPT SUBMISSIONS WITH NUMEROUS GRAMMATICAL AND PUNCTUATION ERRORS.


WE PAY VIA PAYPAL ONLY. NO EXCEPTIONS.


We are looking for the best unpublished literary horror and Gothic tales. Think early Clive Barker, Richard Matheson, Algernon Blackwood, H.P. Lovecraft, Shirley Jackson, Ramsey Campbell, and the like. Profanity, sex, and blood are all fine, just make sure they fit with the story and are not just thrown in to be thrown in.

Electronic submissions ONLY! Please place one of the following in the subject box:

  • Query
  • Fiction Submission
  • Poetry Submission
  • Art Submission

Send all submissions to: sinistertales@yahoo.com


Fiction Submission Guidelines


Category: Literary Horror, Terror, Gothic, Southern Gothic, Supernatural, Dark Fantasy, Dark Erotica


Possible Sub-categories: Halloween, Haunted House, Apocalyptic, Satanic/Occult, Weird, Carnival, Macabre, Demonic/Possession, Ghost Story, Unique Vampire Tales (not cliché), Monster/Creature, and the like. Submissions are not limited to these sub-categories…


*We do NOT want: zombie, sword & sorcery, splatterpunk, hard-core sci-fi, hard-core fantasy, or ANY story involving characters between the ages of 0-17 involved in violent, immoral, or sexual activity.


Length: Flash-20k (prefer 5k-7k). Query for longer than 20k.


Your submission should include the following:

In the body of the email, provide the following information (please number your responses as shown below):

  1. Story title. Word Count. Category. Sub-category.

  2. A short summary of the submitted story (keep it to 1 paragraph).

  3. Where you have been published. Unpublished authors welcome.

  4. Your agreements to not submit your work anywhere else, to give Sinister Tales First North American Serial Rights to the work, and that the work is your original work.

  5. 2 sentence bio (byline).

  6. Your contact information (name, address, email)


Manuscript format guidelines:

  1. Your manuscript should be a .doc Microsoft Word attachment.

  2. 10pt Times New Roman font

  3. Single-spaced

  4. All indentions should be made with the TAB key, NOT the space bar, Word’s autoformatting, or any other method.

  5. All paragraph breaks need to be hard returns (the Enter key). Please do not use line breaks. Do not use a paragraph break (hard return) at the end of every line, only at the end of every paragraph.

  6. Dialogue goes in quotation marks. Thoughts go in italics (not underline).

  7. Have your contact information, including email address, word count, and First North American Serial Rights on the 1st page.


*Any submissions that do not follow these guidelines will be deleted.

*No multiple submissions or reprints accepted.


Pay: $125 (via Paypal only) for lead story, others exposure only. We do not offer contributors copies.


Poetry Submission Guidelines

  1. Poem(s) title(s). Category

  2. Where you have been published. Unpublished poets welcome.

  3. Your agreements to not submit your work anywhere else, to give Sinister Tales First North American Serial Rights to the work, and that the work is your original work.

  4. 2 sentence bio (byline).

  5. Your contact information (name, address, email)


Category: See Fiction Guidelines

Length: Up to 75 lines.

Do not submit more than 5 poems at a time.

Type poems in the body of the email. Do not attach.


Pay: $25 (via Paypal only) for lead poem, others exposure