Scotopia Press
Conjuring a fetching fear...
Current Press News for Authors
Updated: 3-17-2008 (New review at Bookgasm!)
Deadline: June 30th, 2008
Deadline: Until Filled
(Guidelines! Not "rules", but ignore at your own risk)
Covers & Interior Illustrations
Information & Resources for Writer's
(Current PDF Download:
12 Rules of Self Promotion by John Peters)
About Scotopia in the Dark
What is Dark Distiortions?
Submissions Window: Dark Distortions, volume II
The submission window for Dark Distortions II will begin January 1st, 2008 and end June 30th, 2008 or until filled.
What We Want
We want strongly-written, well-composed and consistent novellas, novelettes, short stories, flash fiction or poetry that are dark in nature and show a distinctively “distorted” sensibility.
For Dark Distortions II, we also want elements that include some form of “magic rite” (Voodoo, Kabbalah, Wiccan, Judeo-Christian or altogether made up). This doesn't mean that these magic rites have to tell a supernatural story. There could be a crime that takes place before, during or after a rite, or maybe the rite is a crime itself. It doesn't matter how you approach these elements, we just want to see them in the story or piece.
Micro-fiction should be no longer than 100 words. Flash fiction should be between 100 words and 1k. Short stories should be from 1k to 8k words. Novelettes should be 8k to 20k. And novellas should be about 20k to 50k approximate words.
Poetry can be any length, though we're not looking for epic pieces. Nothing Homeresque in length, please.
We're also very stingy about manuscripts that do not follow our general guidelines (found below). For general guidelines and more information, see below. Your manuscript should also look like our EXAMPLE PDF in Rich Text, Open Office or Word programs.
Where To Submit:
Send stories to scotopia@gmail.com with the subject bar reading in all caps: SUBDARKDIS2_TITLE_. (Of course the "title" here is the title of your story.)
Purchase Date for Dark Distortions I
Editor in Chief: Molly Feese
Submissions Window: Frightscripts, volume I
Submissions begin October 25th, 2007 and carry out until filled.
What We Want
We want strongly-written, well-composed and consistent novellas, about 20k to 50k approximate words. Nothing shorter, nothing longer. We prefer novellas to be around 30k to 50k, honestly, with 20k being as short as we'll go. If you are an author who wants to be chosen for Frightscripts, it's a good idea to first have a novella ready for submission. Send us a resume of your work and publications and then give us a short synopsis of your novella. We will either send an email, passing on the project or we will will send you a letter (email) of interest, asking for the novella. If we read it and like it then we'll accept the story and be on our way.
We will pick four or five novellas, but they have to be frightening, even disturbing on some level. If you don't frighten us or make us uneasy then we're not interested.
We're also very stingy about manuscripts that do not follow our general guidelines (found below). For general guidelines and more information, see below. Your manuscript should also look like our EXAMPLE PDF in Rich Text, Open Office or Word programs.
ARTISTS: If you wish to be an Feature Artist on one of our Frightscript projects, please query, subject line reading: "Art_Frightscript".
Where To Submit:
Send stories to scotopia@gmail.com with the subject bar reading in all caps: FRIGHTSCR_TITLE_. (Of course the "title" here is the title of your story.)
Editor in Chief: C.D. Allen
titles to see what we've published before.
GENERAL SUBMISSIONS GUIDELINES
We want strongly-written, well-composed and consistent stories of a dark nature. Dark Distortions carries stories from crime to horror, but the darkness and some distorted view must be present for us to be interested. The Frightscripts must be pure horror, though they can skirt into other territories, too. Erotic horror, detective horror, splatter-punk, whatever... But the horror must be frightening and disturbing.
Make sure you also follow the special guidelines above for the specific necessities of each anthology series, whether it be Frightscripts or Dark Distortions. Also be sure to look at our EXAMPLE PDF of how a manuscript should look when we open it up.
What We Want To See
1. Well written characters with a consistent voice.
2. Well developed themes.
3. An original voice. Stand out.
4. Tight, well constructed plotting.
5. Controlled pacing.
What We Don't Want
We do not want gratuitously violent or sexual stories unless they are important to the story. No bloodbaths just to have gore, no extreme sex scenes just to titillate yourself. Violence and/or sexuality will be tolerated, even praised, if we feel that it advances the story, and the story that is advanced is worthy of publication. Sex and violence for their own sake will get a story shot down here. Overtly hateful or disgusting stories are similarly undesirable. There are adult, disturbing topics that can be developed into a good story, but if the story isn't maturely handled then it won't be accepted. We will take erotica and gross-outs, but they should have a plot at the very heart of them.
Other Do Not's
1. Do not send us vampires, werewolves or zombie horde stories! (Unless you do something VERY different with them.)
2. Or stories based off of a movie.
3. Or stories based off another story.
4. Do not send in manuscripts that are not formatted to our guidelines.
5. Do not send manuscripts in the body of the email.
6. Do not send us a story based off a RPG or one of your game sessions.
How to Submit/Our Guidelines
Please format your manuscripts (ms) according to these guidelines. Those who waver from the accepted ms guidelines will be automatically rejected. Also, please take a look out our EXAMPLE PDF of how your manuscript should look, which follows these guidelines to a T.
1. EDIT your work before you send it to us. Run it through a spell check. Read it through carefully. Look for grammatical errors. Etc. We know every ms won't be perfect and we know some writers are still learning, but we don't want to do your grunt work.
2. Please include your contact information, including legal name, mailing address and e-mail address, at the top of your submission. If you publish under a pen name, please clearly indicate the by line name under the title of your story (centered).
3. The whole ms should be in 12 pt. Times New Roman or similar font.
4. Include any special formatting such as bold or italic type normally.
5. Do not indent your paragraphs! No tabs or other special formatting to the ms, please.
6. Keep it single-spaced and DO make sure there is a space between each paragraph.
7. Do not special-wrap your text. This a formatting nightmare! Do not hyphenate for text line length.
8. Single space between sentences. We are no longer in the world of typewriters and our software make the needed extra space for us.
9. Attach your ms in .RTF or .DOC format to the email. If you use the Open Office suite, we do accept .ODT as well. Do not embed your story into the body of the email.
10. In the body of the email, write us a cover letter, including who you are, where you've published before (or if you're a new, unpublished writer). Cover letters sell you, so take them seriously. WE DO read cover letters before we read the work. Also include a brief biographical statement (in 3rd person: “C.D. Allen is the author of such works as . . . blah, blah”). We reserve the right to edit the bio for content and/or length, or to not use it at all.
11. Send stories to scotopia@gmail.com, the subject bar indicating which anthology label your submitting to and the title of your story (in all caps, please).
Please submit your strongest story and only one story at a time. DO NOT RESEND WORK WE REJECT.
PLEASE query before submitting reprints, excerpts or parts of series. We generally shy away from these types of pieces, however, we would be remiss to ignore a piece if it is truly brilliant. ***Note: A story will be considered a reprint if it is “Google-able” and the text is available on-line for free. The editors will check this.***
Expect a response within 60 days of your submission. Feel free to query about the status of your submission if you have not heard from us within 60 to 90 days; it probably got lost somewhere along the way. Please include the text "QUERY" in the subject line when inquiring about the status of a submission.
Non-conforming submissions will be returned unread.
Our Editorial Process
If we like your submission we will send a Letter (email) of Interest. Following the Letter of Interest, you will receive a detailed line edit. This will be your ms in an .RTF attachment, usually tagged “_edit”. When you open it up, there will be comments in bold and in bold brackets anywhere the editors have suggestions or the section needs reworked.
Some are comments about what we liked about the piece, some suggestions that the author is able to take or leave and some will be fixes that we feel must be corrected in order for us to publish the piece. All editorial comments may be debated, but the author will have to make their argument. The burden of proof is on the author. If the author doesn't fix the problems, we assume the writer either missed it or ignored it. In this case, we may reject the story on this reason alone. So make sure every disagreement is brought to the editors' attention, so that both parties may come to a workable solution.
After all the changes are made, resend the .RTF ms_edit. Sometimes it will be considered the “final proof” and you will receive your official Letter (email) of Acceptance, or in other cases, the process may repeat until the editors feel like it is ready for layout. Please be patient and bare with us for the entire process. We strive to choose quality pieces and feel that we would be remiss in not giving you our best effort. The editorial process is for you as the author as well as for the anthology as a whole, as each of us represents ourselves and whole of a quality anthology. Who knows, you may even realize that your piece is stronger for the process.
Writer's Crimewatch
Most NOT Wanted: Adverbs
WE DO TAKE ADVERBS AS A SERIOUS MATTER!
Yes, this is the small press, but why should we allow ourselves to stoop to sloppy writing? We, the editors of Scotopia Press, believe that every author, who takes his/her work seriously, should be willing to improve himself/herself. It's one reason why we do line edits before accepting stories. Most writers, we've found, don't seem to take bias against adverbs too seriously; the work is littered with them.
A good rule of thumb: there shouldn't be any more adverbs than half the total pages of your ms. Better yet, don't have any at all. We will find them and show you how to kill them in the line edit phase. But if there are a ridiculous number of them in your work, we could reject the story outright and it will never receive the benefit of our scalding edit.
If you don't know why you shouldn't use adverbs or are looking for information on how to exterminate the vermin, check out C. D. Allen's Redrum for the Writer.
Two and Fro
Watch you homonyms. Naval is not your bellybutton. That's your navel. “Naval” pertains to ships and/or a navy. Funny thing, I catch myself using “balls” rather than “bawls” in my own work. I don't know why, but I always end up hunting for it before I send it out. Can you imagine a girl “balling” rather than “bawling”? Dear Lord!
On and On . . .
Use the ellipses correctly. It's spaceDOTspaceDOTspaceDOTspace. Like: “Hey, man . . . what's with all the dots, man?”
Blondes Have More Fun
Blond is a color. Blonde is a person with blond hair. Use the correct form.
Please Use Responsibly
Band-Aid is a product name for an adhesive bandage. You blow your nose on a facial tissue which may also be a Kleenex. A Jeep is not a jeep, but an all-terrain vehicle. Be sure you know the difference between product/company names (capitalized) and the appropriate type of product. If you choose to endorse, capitalize.
To Have Leapt or Leaped, That is the Question
Stick to either American English or King's English, don't use both. Leapt is leaped in American English. Dreamt is dreamed. Learnt is learned. Etc. Be consistent in spelling, word choice and grammar.
What Each of Us Get
Publication of your work in our anthologies requires you to grant us print publication rights (First American Anthology Rights) and First Electronic Rights. Upon approval of your submission, we will request the right to publish your work in one volume of the print anthology Dark Distortions or Frightscripts and the right to market the story in any way we see fit to promote the book.
Anthologies have a different process than magazine publishing. We do pay for each story and, of course, every author will receive a free copy of the anthology they appear in. Payment, for right now, is a royalty-based system up to the contracted payment amount based on a 2 cents per word formula.
All copyrights remain with the author of the work.
Artist's Submissions
However, we only purchase two covers a year (one for each series), so we may not be looking for anything when you query. Be sure to check back here for open and close dates for cover art.
Interior artists get the chance to do more work for the Frightscripts series. We usually need one artist who would like to do all the opposite-facing chapter pages (what we call chapter heads) for one of the stories appearing in it. We also prefer our cover artist to do one of the interior pieces as well, though this can all be arranged. After all we'd like to have a "feature artist" working with a "feature writer" for each story. The interior artwork must also be based off a piece of the story, through the artist's eyes, from each chapter that it will head, so we do require the interior artists to read the story. We will make sure you have a copy of the manuscript in order for you to do so.
Cover Art Specifics: Color. 300dpi image in .PNG or .JPG. Feel free to use any sort of art that works for you: photography, digital, painting, etc. The cover design will be front and back (including the binding), so we will inform you of these specific dimensions when you query.
Interior Art Specifics: Black & White. 300dpi in .PNG or .JPG. 6"x9" (450x675 pixels). Whatever you use, make sure it will look good in black and white.
Scotopia Press pays a flat fee of $60 for cover art and $10 for each piece of interior art (based on number of chapters: so an eight chapter novella would be $80).
Dark Distortions II: Now looking for cover art. ($60 payment if accepted)
Frightscripts I: Now looking for cover art ($60 payment if accepted) and interior art ($10 payment per chapter head if accepted)
