DarkMarkets.com

Blood Bound Books – Seasons of the Abyss Anthology reopened

June 24th, 2010

Lorna D. Keach

“Winter [and Spring] responses have gone out and we have a few slots left to fill. We didn’t get any poor submissions just overlapping themes, so I hope anyone who missed the first cut takes another chance at this one as well as authors we didn’t hear from this time. Here are the details again:

We prefer stories to be 750 words or less although we will consider fiction up to 1,000. 1 K is firm though, we won’t accept anything longer. The story must take place in the winter season. The cold/winter itself doesn’t have to be the point of the story, but it must be the setting. Something dark that can happen during those winter months. As always, be creative.

Reading period starts now and will remain open until the remaining lots are filled.

Payment: We are offering another pro paying contest. The top story from each season will receive .05cent per word. All runners up will receive publication in the paperback anthology.”

For more info go to Blood Bound Books.

Posted in Anthologies, Markets

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June 18th, 2010

Lorna D. Keach

Tomes-of-the-Dead-Way-of-the-Barefoot-Zombie-Jasper-Bark

Recently, I got the chance to talk with Jasper Bark, the prolific UK-based author and journalist whose most recent work, Way of the Barefoot Zombie, is currently available through Abbadon Books.

You’ve published four adult novels and nine children’s books. Tell us, which came first? And what kind of experience did you have with selling your first book? Did your experiences differ between publishing children’s fiction and adult fiction?

Actually the first books I had published were poetry collections. If I’m honest I was probably published a little too early. When I signed the contract for my first major collection I was only twenty two and I didn’t really have enough work to fill a whole book. Most poets are in their late twenties or early thirties when their first major collection comes out and have an excess of work to choose from. I had to compose a lot of work especially for the collection otherwise it would have been an exceedingly slim volume of verse.

The first fiction I had published was in comic strip form. I contributed quite a bit to the sci-fi and fantasy comic anthologies that are quite big over here in Europe, like 2000AD and Warhammer Monthly. Then I had my first child and realized there weren’t anywhere near as many good children’s comics around as when I was a kid. So I decided I ought to try and move into that market.

The comics writing led to my first novel commission. A new imprint called Black Flame started putting out novels based on characters from the comic 2000AD. As I wrote comics I was asked if I’d like to pitch for a series called Strontium Dog which is about a mutant bounty hunter. Think spaghetti western meets Firefly by way of the X-Men. There was a mess up with the deadline which got put forward and as it was my first novel the publisher decided to team me up with a more experienced novelist to get the novel in on time.

I was resistant at first but it turned out to be the best thing that could have happened to me. The other writer was called Steve Lyons, a really talented guy who’s worked on everything from Doctor Who through to the Micronauts and even the X-Men. He was able to share his experience with me as we went along and I learned a huge amount about novel writing in a very short space of time. I quickly became a much better writer as a result.

Most published writers tend to have at least two unpublished manuscripts languishing in a drawer somewhere. These are the novels they cut their teeth on, that taught them how to write. Almost all of those writers would cringe at the thought of those novels ever being published. Mine did get published and you could say I grew up in public. I suppose I’m lucky that I got paid to learn how to write a novel and thanks to Steve’s in-put my first one stands up pretty well.

Having sold a couple of novels and written a lot kid’s comics I thought I ought to try my hand at being a children’s author. I started writing children’s poetry for a variety of anthologies then moved into picture books and graphic novels. Unlike adult poetry children’s poetry is actually quite lucrative.

As the editors of children’s books work in a different market, they have a different set of skills and knowledge that they bring to bear on your work. Children’s literature works within a specific set of limitations determined by how suitable the subject matter and vocabulary are for the target age group. So along with the standard conversations about plot resolution and character motivation, that’s the sort of thing you tend to discuss with the editors.

A lot of the things I’ve written for children and young adults recently have been in new media formats. I’ve just started a series of illustrated stories called ‘The Recyclies’ which are only available as apps on the i-phone and the i-pad.

And my next children’s book is about to come out purely as an MP3 on i-tunes (watch this space).

Your Horror novel, Way of the Barefoot Zombie, is your most recent publication. What inspired you to deviate from children’s poetry and lit to Adult Horror? And, you planning on venturing into Young Adult Horror with your experience in both fields?

Actually I’ve always been a big horror fan. The first novel I ever sat down to write (when I was 14) was a horror novel. If I recall it was portmanteau story set around a graveyard with a central plot that branched off into self contained stories featuring supporting characters from the central storyline. I plotted the whole thing out and wrote about half of it before abandoning what was quite an ambitious work for a teenager…

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June 16th, 2010

Jessica Brown

I’ve been a hardcore book lover since childhood. At some point, whether in childhood or my early teens, certain preferences began to rule over my choices in reading material. I found myself reading mostly horror, with a concentration on vampires, and for years that’s all I paid attention to. If I went to the local used bookstore and found a paperback on with a bloodsucker on the cover, that baby was going home with me. I wound up reading a handful of excellent books, some godawful ones and a ton of novels in between whose titles I can no longer even remember.

I eventually weaned myself from the vampire habit somewhat, broadening my field of interest. A few years ago, I found myself enamored with the epistolary format of novels, an interesting narrative style where plots unfold in a series of written records rather than one flowing text. The device is fairly adaptable, and has been used by numerous authors several different ways. Some are in the form of letters back and forth between two or more characters, such as Wolfgang Bauer’s The Feverhead or Douglas Coupland’s The Gum Thief. Others, like Hillary Raphael’s I Love Lord Buddha, are all over the place, throwing interrelated documents from multiple characters together into an experimental mishmash that looks nothing like anything that came before it.

It wasn’t until recently that I realized one of my favorite novels growing up was actually written in this format. Stoker’s Dracula was laid out as a series of journal entries (some paper, some not), following multiple characters as they played their roles in a tense struggle between good and evil. It seems my appreciation of this style goes back further than I originally thought.

There have been numerous pseudo-sequels, adaptations and expansions of this classic novel penned over the years. Marie Kiraly attempted to continue the survivors’ lives through Mina Harker’s perspective in Mina. John Marks brought the story, part and parcel, into post-9/11 Manhattan in Fangland. Even Dacre Stoker, a great-grand-nephew of the original novelist, threw his hat into the ring with Dracula: the Undead, a sequel picking up twenty-five years after Dracula’s finale.

Rhiannon Frater’s Tale of the Vampire Bride, however, goes back to the source and starts over. There are no heroic doctors, no brash Texans and no crazy, spider-eating madmen locked up in asylums here. Instead, the novel follows one young woman as she is forced into the role of Dracula’s fourth Bride.

Lady Glynis Wright’s parents want nothing more than for their daughter to marry well and live the life of a proper woman in British society. Along with Glynis’s younger sister May, Earl Edric and Lady Antoinetta Wright drag her all over the European continent in search of a suitable groom, only to have Glynis petulantly stomp her foot (an endearing characteristic she retains throughout the entirety of the novel) and demand that she not be handed off to someone she does not love. Time and again, suitors are rejected and the family must move on to another locale to find their headstrong daughter an acceptable husband. Glynis does not much care for the sheltered existence of a high-born woman, instead longing for a life of adventure, or at the very least another meeting with the scandalous Lord Byron, whom she met once and has developed an infatuation with.

None of the wishes of the Wright family, not her parents desire for her to marry well nor Glynis’s own longing to be free, matter the moment Vlad Dracula decides that she will be his newest Bride and his ticket to British society. As soon as he sets eyes on her, she is doomed, and now she must fight her way back to the ones she loves while clinging to her dwindling mortality, fighting off both her husband and the unimaginable thirst that grips her.

Tale of the Vampire Bride follows the same journal entry style as Stoker’s novel, each chapter beginning with a date and location to remind the reader that they are spying directly upon a character’s innermost thoughts before gently transitioning into a more formal narrative style. It works very well, keeping the audience close without causing distraction. In addition to keeping with the original story’s format, it is obvious that a great deal of both fictional and real-world research went into recreating early nineteenth-century Europe. The characters are people of their times, not only in dress but demeanor. The wealthy aristocrats behave in a manner befitting their stations in life (and even Glynis clings to some of these conventions, or at least feels guilt upon breaking them, as a vampire), and Dracula is every inch the fourteenth-century warrior despite his pretentions of civility. In fact, towards the end of the novel, I had become so outraged at his casual brutality that I wanted to reach into the pages and choke him.

Much of the time, vampire novels take a single-angled approach, offering readers grotesque bloodshed without humanity or nearly pornographic romances without monstrosity. Not with this novel. Violence, sensuality, tense conflict and intense drama roll at full speed against the backdrop of romantic Old Europe from the first page to the very end. Frater’s novel has managed to be almost everything to every vampire fan, a feat not easily pulled off. At nearly five hundred pages, Tale of the Vampire Bride has more than just a little something for everyone.

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June 14th, 2010

Jessica Brown

[Note: Interview originally appeared on New Reads and Old Standbys in conjunction with the review for John Dies at the End.]

BIO
D.L. Snell is a writer and freelance editor at Permuted Press. He edited Dr. Kim Paffenroth twice, John Dies at the End once, and provided a constructive critique to Joe McKinney on his next major novel after Dead City. He has also edited Permuted’s Undead series. Snell’s second novel DEMON DAYS, co-authored with screenwriter/producer Richard Finney, deals with demonic possession, near-death experiences, and Armageddon. Snell’s websites are exit66.net and finneyandsnell.com.

First of all, thank you for agreeing to this interview. I haven’t been given the opportunity to pick an editor’s brain yet. This is very exciting for me.

No problem, Jessica! My pleasure.

How did you get into editing? What’s your background like? How did you come to work with Permuted?

I started off as a writing tutor at my community college. I learned a lot about grammar, mechanics, proofreading and clarity, and more than I ever wanted to know about MLA citation. Also, I learned how to convey, both in person and online, the concepts of revision and clarity.

As an editor, I started at Permuted Press working on its first anthology The Undead. Jacob Kier liked my submission to the antho and thought I’d make a good editor–even though in my own story, the protagonist’s name changes on the second page! Anyway, my background in tutoring gives me a special edge as an editor, because I approach the job more as a teacher. I make the writer fix things. And if I fix stuff, I explain why.

I recommend tutoring to any writer or editor: you can never really know something until you’ve taught it.

How does your editing process work?

Usually to start, I read the editing project and make overall comments using Microsoft Word’s Review tools. This first round I reserve for big-picture suggestions, such as critiques on plot and characterization. (No sense in tackling grammar and mechanics on material that we’ll change, you know?) If the writer doesn’t agree with my big-picture advice, we discuss compromises until we’re both satisfied. Then the author revises. It’s important to let writers control these types of edits, so they can maintain their style and sense of ownership.

The next few stages involve line edits and proofreading. I document all of my revisions using a Review tool in Word, called Track Changes. Using this technology, the writer can quickly sort through and reject or accept my changes. If I think some revisions might be difficult for the writer to understand, I use Comments to explain my reasoning; I’ve found a higher rate of acceptance using this method.

(Here is a little demo I created on how to use Track Changes.)

Throughout the various stages of revision, I keep a copy of every round of edits, as well as the original manuscript. I even use a numbering system in the filenames to track lineage. These types of records are crucial if an author ever accuses me of a mistake or any wrongdoing. For example, if someone accuses me of adding too many urine scenes to her book, I can present the original manuscript and prove the contrary.

Am I crazy for noticing them mostly in books you’ve edited, or are you actually fond of semicolons? I don’t often see them elsewhere these days.

Ah, you have the keen colonoscope of a proctologist! I admit I abuse semicolons. And em dashes. And urine. The writers I edit have the right to argue any semicolons I insert in their work.

Personally, I use whatever punctuation sounds best when I read something aloud. In my opinion, periods create an entirely different rhythm than semicolons.

How do you balance editing with the original work an author gives you?

My plan differs for each project, depending on my estimated volume of revisions. I always task the writer with the big-picture edits, as described earlier, but as for line edits… I have worked on books so rife with errors that by the end I could be considered a co-author. Thanks to Track Changes, all of my work is fully transparent. If the author doesn’t like a change I made, we work it out. Ninety-eight percent of the time, negotiations remain peaceful and resolve satisfactorily, whether or not I prevail.

The other two percent saddens me, because I work extremely hard to help authors improve their writing in what I believe to be a reasonable, empathetic manner–sometimes only to have it thrown back in my face. In the end, it’s my responsibility to honor an author’s wishes, and if those wishes go against Permuted’s standards, it’s better to cut ties with the author and let her do what she wants with her work. Or his. It’s the right thing to do. Unfortunately, I learned that the hard way.

Do you edit anything other than horror?

Haven’t yet. I do write in other genres, such as fantasy and sci-fi. Or I at least blend those two (and more) into my horror.

How do your personal tastes as a reader run, and does editing alter how or what you read for pleasure?

My reading tastes are eclectic: fantasy, horror, sci-fi, thrillers, mysteries, poetry…. Sometimes I only have time to read whatever I’m editing; thankfully, I’ve enjoyed almost every project.

From the editing end of the business, what do you make of the popularity of zombie fiction right now? Is this a trend, or am I just suddenly noticing what’s always been there?

As with every staple of the horror genre, some new book or movie on the subject will spark interest in both readers and writers. And now more than ever, writers have more avenues to reach an audience, whether it’s through self-publishing, the small press, or podcasts; therefore, the saturation is more widespread–and the more widespread something is, the more interest it’s likely to accumulate. Up to a point, of course.

Is there anybody you haven’t worked with that you’d particularly enjoy editing?

Uh, Stephen King? Kidding… sort of. Since I edit for Permuted, I’ll answer with Permuted names: I wouldn’t mind working with someone like David Dunwoody or Wayne Simmons, and the late Z.A. Recht would have been great to edit; I met Dunwoody and Recht at Horror Realm, and they both seemed like stand-up guys–and they’re great writers to boot.

I know you’re also a writer. What have you written, and how long have you been involved in both writing and editing?

I’ve been writing longer than I’ve been editing. But I’ve edited more than I’ve written–it’s so much faster! However, I’ve been slowly shifting that ratio. My work appears in just about half of Permuted’s anthology line-up, and I also sold a story to Pocket Books’ Blood Lite (alongside bestsellers such as Jim Butcher and Charlaine Harris). I have two novels out as well. The first one I mock, yet cherish. The second one we’ll discuss in a minute…

Does your experience on both sides of publishing make it easier for you as a writer?

In many ways writing is problem solving, whether it’s at the plot level or at the scope of an individual sentence. When a writer hasn’t communicated clearly and provocatively, the work needs repair. Editing has taught me to recognize problems and to observe them objectively from different angles; this makes solving the issues easier because I’ve learned to think up multiple fixes, and to predict how those fixes will affect the interlocking pieces of the story. This ability has vastly improved my own writing; my work wouldn’t be at the same level had I never edited.

Also, editing allows me to network with a variety of authors. For some of the anthologies I’ve worked on, my co-editors and I received submissions from the likes of Kevin Anderson and Simon Clark. It builds great rapport–especially when you reject them.

Tell me about this Demon Days project I keep seeing the trailer for. What was that like, collaborating with another author on a full-length project?

DEMON DAYS is my second novel, a supernatural thriller co-authored with screenwriter/producer Richard Finney. The story mixes the classic theme of demonic possession with the phenomenon of near-death experiences–and then twists them into a plot about preventing Armageddon. An extended synopsis and a sample chapter are available at finneyandsnell.com.

Collaborating with Richard Finney on DEMON DAYS was awesome. Richard’s got a great sense of business and story, and he couldn’t be a nicer, more flexible guy. We got along well throughout the process of writing the book, and we hope to do it again soon.

Do you have anything else in the works that you’re able to discuss?

Yeah, a sequel to DEMON DAYS subtitled ANGEL OF LIGHT. We expect to finish it in 2010.

Thanks for the interview. This was a lot of fun. I’m looking forward to picking up more works both authored and edited by you.

Thank you–I appreciate your time!

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June 14th, 2010

Snell

THE MARKET

Publisher: Aspen Mountain Press
Aurora Regency/Aurora Historicals
Editor(s): Celina Summers
Pay Rate: 35% US download price; 40 % after 100 sales
Response Time: 1 month
Description: Aurora Regency and Aurora Historicals are imprints of Aspen Mountain Press, a multi-genre, royalty-paying, independent e-publisher. (More in guidelines.)
Submission Guidelines: www.aspenmountainpress.com

NOTE: Horror author D.L. Snell conducted the following interview to give writers a better idea of what the editors of this specific market are seeking; however, most editors are open to ideas outside of the preferences discussed here, as long as they fit the basic submission guidelines.

THE SCOOP

1) What authors do you enjoy, and why does their writing captivate you?
I enjoy all kinds of authors. I read many genres, so my tastes are eclectic–ranging from Jane Austen to Georgette Heyer to JK Rowling and Jacqueline Carey. I find that all of these writers inherently tell a good story, the kind of story that leaves you waiting anxiously for the next installment of it. That’s what I look for in submissions I consider.

2) What are your favorite genres? Which of these genres would you like to see incorporated into submissions to this market?
Fortunately, Aspen Mountain Press publishes most fiction genres so I find that my needs as an editor are met. Right now, I’m busily getting Aurora Regency ready for launch, and we are focusing initially on Regency romances and fiction set between the Georgian and Victorian eras. I would like to see that expanded into Elizabethan/Tudor England and medieval Europe in the very near future, and I always have a soft spot for western romances and Greco-Roman mythology.

3) What settings most intrigue you? Ordinary or exotic locales? Real or fantasy? Past, present, or future?
At the moment, I’m focused upon settings that are historically and socially accurate. At Aurora, we are stringently fact checking everything in our novels from where specific shops are on streets to popular slang and dances. Accuracy is a must at Aurora. But at Aspen Mountain, I really adore stories in fantasy/sci fi/steampunk settings that are rich and fully developed. Nothing fascinates me more than outstanding world building.

Read the full interview at D.L. Snell’s Market Scoops!

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June 13th, 2010

Jessica Brown

[Note: Review originally appeared on New Reads and Old Standbys in December 2009.]

Sometimes you hear about a book through word of mouth, not through reviews or advertisements, and it seems so interesting that you immediately go out and pick up a copy to find out for yourself just what this work is all about.

For many people, that’s exactly how they were exposed to David Wong’s John Dies at the End, a novel that began as a free online serial. I missed the boat the first two times around, both when it was online and when the print edition was first published by Permuted Press, but I recently had the opportunity to pick up the new edition and was pleasantly surprised by what I read.

I remember, years ago while JDatE was still an online novel, people ranting and raving about how terrifying and absolutely mind blowing the story was. I have a tendency to take online opinions, especially those of people on generalized message boards, with a grain of salt, so it’s no surprise that I missed the novel in its first few iterations. However, earlier this year I found out that it was being rereleased in a gorgeous new hardcover format and, and usual, the cover caught my eye and refused to be ignored.

I bought my copy with a Barnes and Noble gift card I’d received for my birthday, slipped the cover off and tossed it into my bag, taking it everywhere with me for several weeks while I spent most of my time on campus focusing on my coursework. I’d read a chapter here and there, before classes, after classes, sitting in my car between classes when classes were cancelled. It was sporadic reading, forced to fit into the slots that my academic life allowed, and because of that I was much slower in finishing the novel than I normally would be.

So, did it stand up to the hype I’d seen lavished on it years ago? Yes and no. I didn’t find the novel to be so much terrifying as I found it to be crude, immature and utterly hilarious, with healthy doses of creepy and unsettling thrown into the mix. It didn’t feel to me like the kind of book that would keep a reader up all night fearing the movement of shadows, which for me is the very definition of terrifying. It certainly would, however, keep a reader up all night snickering at the very bizarre mental images running through their head the whole time they left the book open, which is exactly what happened with me. On more than one occasion I found myself, long after retiring the book for the night, remembering the outrageous things I’d read just a few hours before and giggling like a kid that’s stayed up past their bedtime to catch something inappropriate on Cinemax.

One of the strongest points to the novel is just how convincing the two main characters, Dave and John, are. They’re far from unique individuals, and there’s a strong chance that people who read the novel will either be just like one of them or know someone who is. These are the guys who work at video stores and look down on the people renting stupid movies, the guys who when not at work drink beer, play video games and make jokes amongst each other about the impossibly massive size of their genitals. Don’t lie and pretend you don’t know the guys I’m talking about here, because we all know you do. Everybody has a friend named John who brags about his wang. My buddy John refers to his as Señor Kingsnake.

John Dies at the End is, essentially, the story of impending cataclysm with only two slackers standing in the way of utter destruction. Dave, the narrator, buys a mysterious drug (referred to as “Soy Sauce”) off of a fake Jamaican, which turns out to have both mystical properties and a malignant origin, bestowing users with extrasensory abilities before causing their very visceral deaths. At the same party, Dave finds a dog that he realizes belongs to a guy he knows named Jim Sullivan, and when he returns Molly (after reading her tag and learning her name) to her proper home, Jim’s sister Amy tells Dave that she’s worried her brother may be dead.

Things get weirder from here on in. Evil entities make appearances, and time and space shifts somewhat. The story becomes slightly hard to follow in places, but the humor keeps it afloat as more and more characters are brought in and the stakes are raised. There are excerpts of other works within the narrative, including a book by paranormal lecturer Dr. Albert Marconi and Jim Sullivan’s amateurish short story writing, which caused the loudest and longest bout of laughter to erupt from me throughout the whole book.

There’s a lot more to this book, but it has to be read to be understood and appreciated. Suffice it to say, though, that it’s nearly four hundred pages of penis jokes, pop culture humor and hilarious one-liners (usually uttered by John, who manages to be both moronic and strangely endearing as he charges through the story, Dave in tow) interspersed with an intricate parallel world plot that almost needs a chart to track its complexity. It’s an unusual combination of cheap laughs and plot twists that manages to work where the effort of a lesser writer would have easily fallen flat.

While it may not have lived up to the “Oh my god, you guys, this is the scariest thing I’ve ever read in my life” hype for me, as a lover of crude humor and off-the-wall storytelling it hit the bullseye perfectly.

John Dies at the End still has quite the web presence despite its multiple printings, and its webpage is still active and updated.

Posted in Book Reviews, Reviews

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June 11th, 2010

Lorna D. Keach

(Or, hey, maybe e-media IS that bad…)

So, when we last left our intrepid heroes, brand new USB ports were being installed directly into our foreheads.

Now that we’re equipped with the latest technology and a new love for electronic media, we’re all going to rush right off and self-publish our books, so we can get a crappy deal with a publisher that writes in an indefinite e-media clause into the contract, so our novels can be implanted forever on Google Books and Kindle without so much as a cent ever crossing our paths…

Wait. No, we’re not.

Electronic media may not be the homicidal serial killer of print media like people say, but it is kind of a creepy stalker. It has its hazards.

One of which is, of course, self-publishing. Now, I’m not going to totally malign self-publishing, because I do have a bit of an anarchist streak, and I really like the idea of thumbing our noses at The Man and hacking our own way through the jungle of success with a cheap and accessible machete. Lots of people have circumvented the often prejudiced and short-sighted major publishers by self-publishing, and gained the respect they deserved.

And, many people have gained the non-respect they deserve. Before leaping into the pit of Self-Publishing Doom, it’s good to have a reasonable idea of exactly what kind of respect you’ve got coming to you.

But that’s not the only pitfall. Things like dubious copyright enforcement, interminable agency clauses, Google just up and deciding it was going to scan a bunch of library books and dump them on the internet, copyright e-protection scams, and predatory e-publishing houses are all pokey spiky bits at the bottom of the pit that could very well skewer us.

Just as Napster and other file-sharing programs brought down the music industry by ensuring that its artists could no longer get paid for their work—wait, no it didn’t—so is the electronic publishing industry ending the world as we know it. E-Media may not destroy our ability to write and get published, but it sure is going to change how we get paid.

The best thing we can do while the New World Order of Publishing figures out how to deal with the complications that surround electronic media is arm ourselves. Do our research. Clarify our contracts. Check for traps. Always check for traps.

All in all, we must tread carefully, and not go leaping into any pits, whether electronic or print, before we’ve thoroughly checked what’s at the bottom. And make sure you’ve got a cleric in your party when your thief fails their disarm traps roll. (For any non-D&D geeks out there, this means you get blown up. Essentially.) A Staff of Literary Resurrection is handy, too, but I hear you can only get one by slaying an Agent.

Posted in The Horrors of Horror Writing

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June 7th, 2010

Randi Harlan

“Singularity is a quarterly publication, interested in exploring the realms of genre fiction. We want to create a magazine that is filled with gems of stories, served straight from the writer’s brain, into your hands. Nuggets of other worlds and possibilities that make our readers smile, cry, and look over their shoulder (though not necessarily at the same time.)”

“At Singularity, we want to see the best you have to offer. We are interested in genre fiction of the highest standard. We are looking for stories that take in Horror, Fantasy, Science Fiction, or a mixture of the three. We aren’t that concerned with pigeonholing stuff, so if you have something that doesn’t strictly fall into any of the above categories, but you think might interest us, send it in anyway. Bear in mind the amount of nice vampire/malevolent ghost/hungry werewolf/barbarian hero/marauding dragon type stories there are out there. We want to see fresh stuff. That’s not to say you can’t include these types of characters, but we’d like to see something interesting done with/to/at them.

The ideal size of piece we want is between three and ten thousand words. We might also be interested in serialising novellas or novels, but not epic 100k space operas I’m afraid.

Above all, we want good, intelligently written escapism.”

Pay: We are offering a token payment of £10 for short stories, along with a free copy of the mag. For novellas etc, we will negotiate.

Full guidelines: http://web.me.com/myeggsareboiled/Singularity/Submissions.html

Website: http://www.singularitymagazine.co.uk

Posted in Magazines

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June 4th, 2010

Snell

THE MARKET

Zine: Apex Magazine
Editor(s): Catherynne M. Valente
Pay rate: 5 ¢ / word
Response Time: 4-6 weeks
Description: We want science fiction, fantasy, horror, and mash-ups of all three—the dark, weird stuff down at the bottom of your little literary heart. (More in guidelines.)
Submission Guidelines: www.apexbookcompany.com

THE SCOOP

1) What authors do you enjoy, and why does their writing captivate you?
I love anyone who can captivate me with language and honesty–in that I’m not too different than any other editor, I suppose. Theodora Goss, Jeff Vandermeer, Kelly Link, Gemma Files, Christopher Barzak–all of these writers are doing great work right now. But I hate listing favorite writers. Even the best writer varies from story to story, book to book. All I really want is for a story or a novel to arrest me for one moment, make me forget everything else, and anchor me in the tale.

2) What are your favorite genres? Which of these genres would you like to see incorporated into submissions to this market?
Obviously, I’m partial to fantasy, but my first love was horror. As a child I read countless horror novels and their sensibilities seriously informed my work and my reading habits. And I deeply want to see SF innovate and evolve and experiment as fantasy has in the last several years. I even like a good deal of realist work, though my heart will always be with the fantastic. I’d like to see any fantastic stories submitted to Apex–so long as they have a dark edge and a uniqueness to them. The key isn’t genre, it’s quality, it’s what a story can do to the reader, not the category the reader can put a story in.

3) What settings most intrigue you? Ordinary or exotic locales? Real or fantasy? Past, present, or future?
I’m intrigued by all of those, to be honest. There’s no such thing as ordinary in the hands of a capable writer. I want to see all of these locales cross my desk, because a genre cannot be healthy without including all of them.

Read the full interview at D.L. Snell’s Market Scoops!

Posted in Magazines, Market Scoops

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June 4th, 2010

Lorna D. Keach

(Or, hey, e-media’s not that bad…)

We’ve all heard it. Soon, we’ll be burying the bloated corpse of print media and reading all our newspapers online, and the internet will plug directly into our skulls to feed us mortgage refinancing commercials while we sleep, et cetera, et cetera…

And, truly, it’s a horrifying thought. Every writer is haunted by nightmares of that vast, barren landscape crawling with Borg-like ebook readers, where the Feds break down our doors to forcibly implant USB ports into our foreheads. A dystopian future where no one can press their noses between old pages and inhale that glorious smell of print. Terrible!

But I’m here to say, don’t worry. It’s totally not going to happen.

Back in the day, people freaked out about television murdering the movie industry. Not the making of the movies themselves, but the theaters that showed them. It was a brand-new format, wildly accessible and cheap, and the fear was that the public would no longer want to fork out the cash for just the experience of a theater when they could get their movies on the little box flashing in their living room.

People like to freak out. (Which is good for us, because we’re horror writers. We capitalize on people’s tendencies to freak out.)

Anyway, literature is not necessarily the profit-shoveling venture that motion pictures are today, so its easy to see the writing on the walls and mistake it for doomful prophecy. More and more publishers are flocking to the safety of the low-overhead-cost electronic formats. Especially magazines. And it’s not just because of the current economic maelstrom—magazines have been slowly shedding their print-format skins for years. Especially fiction magazines, which have been an endangered species since freakin’ 1857 or something. (Just go to your local Borders and count how many fiction magazines are stuffed in like refugees between the Cosmos and the Guitar Worlds. It’s grisly.)

And any writing produced in print format is more costly to produce and more expensive to buy. Just like at the movie theaters, where they charge upwards of eight dollars for one medium tub of popcorn. But, really, who can go see a movie without the massive tub of greasy popcorn?

People will still buy books for the experience. And, people will still enjoy good fiction online and in electronic formats. It’s actually more of a widening of options than it is a funeral for the industry. Publication is publication, and more and more people are beginning to realize that these days. The literary stigma of pixel vs ink is beginning to fade.

Electronic media is not a murderer, anymore.

So, the only thing to do is to stop doom-saying and submit. Because it doesn’t matter if the publisher is print or online, the best markets to send your fiction are the ones that are established and thriving. The markets that have an audience, whether that means an audience of cash-forking bibliophiles or web-surfing click-addicts. And a thriving online market is much more valuable to a writer’s career than a pretty print market that spit out its first issue at Kinko’s last week and is going to die after issue two.

But of course, with all this lovely supportive sentiment about electronic media aside, Kindle is the work of the Devil. Seriously.

I’ll have to elaborate on that point another time, because the Feds just broke down my door, and I can already hear the mortgage refinancing commercials singing in my head.

Posted in The Horrors of Horror Writing

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