CALLIHOO Newsletter ----------------------------------------------------------------- Market News for Writers of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Vol. 7 No. 40 Editor: Julia West April 4, 2000 ----------------------------------------------------------------- Web page: http://www.sff.net/people/julia.west/CALLIHOO/index.htm ----------------------------------------------------------------- NEWS The references for the presentation I gave on writers' resources on the web (from Life, the Universe, and Everything--the BYU SF Symposium) are now available on the CALLIHOO website. They consist of some good links to writers' sites, reference sites, research sites, etc. I'll be adding to this list as I find sites I think are worth looking at. The URL is: http://www.sff.net/people/julia.west/CALLIHOO/webwriter.htm After a long time of no updates, the "short fiction markets paying 1 cent a word and more" tables have been updated. They'll soon be up on the CALLIHOO website at http://www.sff.net/people/ julia.west/CALLIHOO/market.htm DEADLINES Check out the CALLIHOO website, listed above, for more information on these contests, magazine issues, and anthologies. (Where it says "GLs in Vol. X No. Y," these are volume and issue of the CALLIHOO newsletter.) =Starlight 3= anthology, deadline "summer 2000". [SF/F, pays 7- 1/2 cents/wd., no upper word limit, (GLs in Vol. 6, No. 38)] =The Doom of Camelot= anthology from Green Knight Publishing, deadline 21 April 2000. [Arthurian stories, 3-7,000 wds, pays 3- 5 cents/wd., pays shortly after accept. No E-mail subm. (GLs in Vol. 7 No. 29).] LDS Alien anthology, outline/idea due 3 March 2000, story deadline 22 April 2000. [Alien viewpoint, based on documented alien sighting, LDS worldview. (GLs in Vol. 7 No. 36)] =The Asylum Volume 2: The Violent Ward=, deadline 30 April 2000. [Print anthology, H 2500-5000 wds, pays 1 cent/wd. as advance of royalties, on pub (Jun 2000). No reprints. Prefer E-mail subm. to victorheck@darktales.com. (GLs in Vol. 7 No. 38)] =The Darker Side of Eternity, Volume II=, contest deadline 1 May 2000. [contest/print antho, H (SF/F elements okay) stories. Must be member of World Horror Convention. Short to 2500 wd, long to 10,000 wd stories. 1st prize (short) $100, (long) $300. Runners-up 3 cents/wd. Pays on pub. No reprints or E-mail subm. (GLs in Vol. 7 No. 24)] The 6th =Chiaroscuro= Short Story Contest--the Piggies, deadline 15 May 2000. [Contest, H/DF to 5000 words, no reprints or mult subm, only E-mail subm, First place pub in =Gothic.net= at 23 cents/wd., second place pub in =Chiaroscuro= at 7 cents/wd., third place pub in =Twilight Showcase= at 4 cents/wd. (GLs in Vol. 7 No. 37)] =Brainbox: The Real Horror= electronic anthology, submissions accepted 1 February to 31 May 2000. [E-antho, H (and nonfic tale of what inspired it) 2500-10,000 wds, pays 2-4% quarterly royalties. E-mail subm only, no mult. subm. (GLs in Vol. 7 No. 35)] =Red Work= anthology, deadline 15 June 2000. [Electronic antho, stories of professional killers 4500 - 10,000 wds, pays approx 3% royalty, no reprints or E-mail subm. (GLs Vol. 7 No. 39)] Warner Books' First Novel Contest, deadline June 30, 2000. [SF/F novels. Synopsis + first several chapters (up to 60 pages maximum). No entry fee. Prizes: Publication with advance and royalties.] =Writers of the Future=, 3rd quarter 2000, deadline 30 June 2000 [$1000 first, $750 2nd, $500 3rd place. =No entry fee=. L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Contest, P.O. Box 1630-JBW, Los Angeles, CA 90078. (GLs in Vol. 6, No. 10)] =Cemetery Sonata= volume 2 deadline 1 July 2000. [Print antho, ghost stories 500-6000 words, pays 3 cents/wd. on pub., reprints okay. (GLs in Vol. 7 No. 39)] =Chillers= anthology, deadline 1 August 2000. [Electronic antho, H 1500-5000 wds, pays share of royalties, no reprints or sim subs, E-mail and mult subm okay. (GLs in Vol. 7 No. 39)] =On Spec= Theme Issue ("World Beat") deadline 31 Aug 2000. [Canadian print mag, theme of non-North American-based (different cultures) SF/F/H to 5000 wds, pays $50-$180C on accept., no reprints, faxed, or E-mail subs. (GLs in Vol. 7 No. 31)] =Byline= genre fiction contest, deadline September 5, 2000. [Short story that fits category: romance, sci-fi, confession, mystery, western, etc. No children's stories. 5,000 words max. =Entry fee $5.= Prizes: $50, $30, $15.] Nineteenth Annual Science Fiction/Fantasy Short Story Contest Sponsored by Science Fiction Writers of Earth, deadline 30 October 2000. [Annual contest, SF/F by unpubl authors, 2000 to 7500 wds. =Entry fee $5 for 1st ms. (gives memb to SFWoE), $2 for each other ms.= Prizes $200 1st, $100 2nd, $50 3rd. (GLs in Vol. 7, No. 33)] The Best of Soft Science Fiction Contest opens 1 Oct 2000, closes 15 Dec 2000. [Annual contest, soft SF, to 7000 wds, published or offered for pub during year, enter as many as want, =no entry fee=, prizes 1st $100, 2nd $50, 3rd $25. GLs in Vol. 7 No. 33] MARKET GUIDELINES =Jackhammer E-zine= [Weekly webzine, themed (question of the week), SF/F/H to 2000 wds, pays 1 cent/wd. (min. $5) on pub. Only accepts E-mail subm, reprints, sim, and mult subm okay (no mult for same question).] Raechel Henderson--Editor E-mail: jackhammer@eggplant-productions.com I. What to submit to us Questions - Do you have a question that you would like to see on =Jackhammer=? Submit them to: jackhammer@eggplant-productions.com Stories - What we're looking for: Up to 2000 words, SF/H/F (Science Fiction/Fantasy/Horror), or any mix of the three, based on the question of the week. These are stories, so please entertain us. Don't preach. Send us your best. Please use proper grammar and spelling. We do not consider stories that involve child molestation, gore for gore's sake, or pornography. You can e-mail your manuscript to: jackhammer@eggplant-productions.com. We only accept e-mail submissions. Snail mail submissions will be returned unread. Send us a clean, easily readable manuscript. Double space between paragraphs, keep line length to seventy (70) characters and send in plain text as the body of the e-mail (no attachments). If you use special characters for italics please indicate so at the top (i.e. "* denotes italics"). Please don't use ALL CAPS to indicate italics or emphasis. Place the title and your name as the subject. At the top of the message include your name, e-mail address, snail mail address, word count and the question the story is for. We don't accept general submissions. That is, all stories and articles I accept must touch upon a Question of the Week. Don't submit a story with the intention of it being a "general submission" and don't submit a story or article without indicating what question it is for. I request this for two reasons: 1) it makes my life just a little bit easier, which in turn allows me to put out a great e-zine, 2) if I don't have a question, it slows down response time. =Jackhammer= now responds to submissions within 2 weeks. Please wait at least that long before querying if I've gotten to your submission yet. If you want to hear back from me quickly, include a question with your story or article. Please, no HTML coding or URL's in the story. If you have links that go with the story, we will put them at the end of the text. If you have a web page, include that as well. We will link to it while your story is up. Reprints accepted (please indicate when and where the piece was previously published). Finally, while we accept multiple submissions, we do no accept more than one submission for an issue. Do not submit 2 stories for the same issue. Do not submit 1 story and one article for the same issue. I will reject the second submission and only look at the first. I'll try to comment on every story that comes before me. I am a writer and I hate form letters so you won't get one from me. Simultaneous submissions are okay, as long as you let me know. Articles - Pretty much the same as above. 1000 word, $10 (U.S. Currency) limit. Relevant HTML coding and URL's can be included in the article and are encouraged. Although I'll look at opinion pieces and essays, I want more informative articles that are linked to a Question of the Week. I like links, especially ones that help readers learn more about a particular topic on their own. Things that are important to me in articles are structure, flow and good grammar. I'm seeing too many articles that read like rants and too many articles that wander with no real sense of where the author is headed to. Take some time to make sure that your article gets your point across. Writer's Duet - Occasionally we run a writer's duet, in which two writers work on a story all week long, each posting parts of the story. If you would be interested in working on such a project, e-mail us and submit a few samples of your writing (so we can match you up with another author). We pay each author $20 for participation and we post the results of the duet in its entirety the next week. II. Rights First Worldwide Electronic Rights - We buy First Worldwide Electronic Rights for pieces that have not appeared anywhere on the web before including print reprints. Rights revert back to the author 90 days after publication, and we ask that accepted submissions do not appear elsewhere on the web until after this time expires. Worldwide Electronic Rights - We buy Worldwide Electronic Rights for web reprints. Again, rights revert back to the author 90 days after publication, and we ask that accepted submissions do no appear elsewhere on the web until after this time expires. Stories and articles will be available on =Jackhammer E-zine= for 1 month. III. Payment 1 cent per word with a minimum of $5 (US Currency) for both stories and articles. Payment upon publication. Unfortunately, we can not pay for questions of the week (we'd definitely be poor then). The most we can do for the question submissions is to put your name in lights. Payment will be made with a personal check. In those cases when the author is outside of the US and Canada we will be happy to make payment through other means to avoid the high cost of cashing a personal check at the banks. These other means include payment in US stamps, payment with a US Postal International Money Order (in this case, we will have to subtract the cost of the money order from the payment) or any other type of payment that we can work out. If an agreement cannot be reached, the default payment will be a personal check. I try to get payment out on Monday each week. Due to pressures from work, school, life and the universe payment might be delayed as long as Friday. Payments do go out during the week that the issue is up. Also, due to time constraints I no longer send out confirmations. Upcoming Questions Question Deadline In today's society is the Good Samaritan a thing of the past? 4/12/00 When the meek inherit the Earth, what will they do with it? 4/19/00 (Closed to stories. Need articles.) How will they come? 4/26/00 (Closed to stories. Need articles.) Cyberbiology: Are computers intelligent beings? 5/3/00 When is ignorance not bliss? 5/10/00 Can we really commercialize space? 5/17/00 Is destiny just a theme for the story books or does it work in our lives? 5/24/00 What's your concept of time? 5/31/00 (Closed to stories. Need articles.) Reincarnation: Dream or Nightmare? 6/7/00 What are you passionate about? 6/14/00 If you could know what the future held, would you want to? 6/21/00 [http://www.eggplant-productions.com/ep/] =Lore= [Print H magazine, pays 2 cents/wd for originals (1/4 cent/wd. for reprints) to 5000 wds. No E-mail, mult. or sim. subs. Rod Heather: Editor Sean O'Leary: Sr. Associate Editor/Graphic Designer Joe Martucci, Ricardo Santagata, Jeffrey Thomas: Associate Editors P.O. Box 381, Matawan, New Jersey 07747-0381 Reprints? Query first. Where was the tale first published and when? Simultaneous, multiple or electronic submissions? No Non-fiction? No What do we like? FICTION: Up to 5000 words - query for longer. Interesting, well-told tales that work on many different levels. We like to see convincing tales steeped in atmosphere. Our emphasis is on traditional dark fantasy, but we're open to stories that challenge established conventions. If we're afraid to peek out the window or left wide-eyed as we realize your tale's implications, you're on the right track. POETRY: Approximately 30 lines - query for longer. We will consider both rhyme and free verse. We like chilling pieces with plenty of atmosphere that don't so much say it as insinuate it. Please send no more than three poems per submission package. ARTWORK: Send camera-ready, disposable b/w copies. We need capable artists to work on assignment. Some artists whose work we admire: John Bauer, Richard Corben, Helmut Wenske, Gustav Dor‚, Wayne Barlowe, Edward Gorey, H.R. Giger . . . but hey, broaden our horizons. What don't we like? Topics that were beaten to death long ago with nothing new to offer. Tales that are too abstruse for their own good. Vampiric, gothic romances. Rigid, unblinking chains of events. Gore or sex-driven tales. Virtual reality. Sing-song rhymes. Allegorical figures should be avoided like the plague. Or, should we say, like Plague, Famine, War & Death. Theological soap operas (Melrose Place meets =The Screwtape Letters=) have become tiresome and screwy time pieces (it's November 3, 1998. Again!) are painfully commonplace by this point. General Information Your submission will be much more favorably read if it is well formatted and smooth. Always include a cover letter and a SASE with proper postage affixed (or, appropriate # of IRCs and SAE if outside U.S.). Make sure your name and address appear on your submission. Let us know if your submission is disposable or should be returned and whether or not we can write comments on it. Response time: up to two months. Do not send the only copy of any work for consideration. =Lore= is not responsible for unsolicited submissions. We buy First World Serial Rights. See Contributor Pay Scale for detailed payment information. [Pay scale not on website. Recent correspondence from editor Rod Heather indicates it's 2 cents/wd. for original fiction and 1/4 cent/wd. for reprints.] [http://www.loredigest.com/guidelines.htm] MARKET INFORMATION =Agony in Black= Horror magazine =Agony in Black= has a new address: Chanting Monks Studios, c/o MSI, P O Box 827, Clifton Park NY 12065-0801 or e-mail to: editor@chantingmonks.com [http://www.mediasi.com/chantingmonks/agony/aibguide.htm] =Duelist= The Wizards of the Coast website says that the gaming magazine =Duelist= has been replaced by =TopDeck=. It was unclear from the website whether or not the magazine will accept fiction submissions. "Dear =Duelist Online= Reader: "Subject: Metamorphosis of =Duelist Online= "To a publisher, nothing is more exciting than the launch of a new magazine. At Wizards of the Coast, we have just launched =TopDeck=(TM) magazine, the new magazine that is replacing =Duelist=(TM) magazine. . . . "In celebration of the launch of =TopDeck=, we've also changed =Duelist Online= to =TopDeck Online=. You'll still see the type of coverage you've come to expect in online coverage from =Duelist=, only enhanced. Don't just take our word for it . . . take a tour of our new magazine, online site, and charter subscription offer." Sincerely, Johnny L. Wilson Group Publisher Wizards of the Coast Periodicals [http://www.wizards.com/topdeck/article.asp?cat=main&file= duelist] =Parsec= Canadian SF magazine Parsec has a new website at http://www.parsec.on.ca/ =SciFi.com= Ellen Datlow told a writer at SFF.NET that she's looking mostly for science fiction and edgier fantasy for SciFi.com. [sff.writing.response-times, 2 Apr 2000] ==End of CALLIHOO newsletter for 4 April 2000==