Submission Guidelines

We're currently open for submissions for novellas.

Currently we're looking for works less than 50,000 words. We are looking for great stories that can be finished during an extended reading session. Please make sure your work is science fiction or fantasy or any subgenre in those groups. All stories that are polished and ready for submission free of grammar errors. Closes 09/30/2024 11:59pm

 NO AI STORIES ALLOWED !

Currently we are closed for short story submissions. The following guidelines are for our collections

How you incorporate the quarterly theme in your story is up to you.  We do ask that you make sure the theme idea is not an afterthought, but an integral part of the story.  We want truly want stories depicting underdogs rising to the occasion when it seems all hope is lost.

We are looking for polished manuscripts of about 3,500 - 12,000 words (not hard cut-offs, but not too much under/over please) in standard Shunn format. Please include your contact information, including full name and email address and any social media links you may have as well as any prior publications.

 

If your story is nobledark, noblebright, grimdark, or grimbright or something in the middle of all of those that's okay.  Let us take a look. For any novel, novella, or call for submission, we want to be sure that there is not overly sexualized content or gore. We do not want overly detailed sex scenes, rape scenes, or any other type of sexual vilence. We also do not want gore. We understand that some stories have violence and conflict is needed, but we don't want stories going into intricate and graphic detail.

Our goal is to make this as clear as possible as based on recent submissions we do not think this is as clear as it could be. Submissions for novellas will open 8/1/2024 and will close on 11/30/2024. We received a lot of stories last time and since these are longer we don't anticipate getting through them until 3/31/2025. 

 

You can submit your story using the following link as an attached Word doc or docx.

Please format the email subject line and your submitted file name as “The Underdogs Rise – [Story Title] by [Author Name] for [Anthology Name]”.

Accepted authors will be paid $.03/word and receive a contributor copy of the standard mass market paperback.

We are purchasing first world-wide print rights for three years from publication (reprints in “best of” yearly anthologies will be allowed).

We plan to notify all authors on the outcome of submissions by mid-December.

Reprints are not accepted for this anthology. Simultaneous submissions are not accepted. Multiple submissions are accepted, but limited to three per author.

The Underdogs Rise Vol. 2 will be published in June 2024 (Currently we are a little behind in responses due to the number of submissions we received. We'll will begin sending out notifications by the middle of March.)

The Way of Worlds  will be published in August, 2024 (Currently we are a little behind in responses due to the number of submissions we received. We'll will begin sending out notifications by the middle of April.)

Nightmares Before Bed  will be published in October, 2025