Compelling Science
Fiction
Payment: 6 cents a word
Story Length: 1,000–10,000 words
Deadline: (open) Oct. 1–Dec. 1, 2018
Reprints?: No
Response: 6 weeks
Description: Online science fiction magazine focused on ‘hard’ science fiction:
entertaining, scientifically plausible, self-consistent, and technically
detailed when appropriate. We have a preference for ‘positive’ stories, and
also open to humor.
Horror Humor
anthology (Bad Dream Entertainment)
Payment: 6 cents a word
Story Length: 1,500–8,000 words
Deadline: December 31, 2018
Reprints?: No
Response: 2–4 weeks
Description: Original horror
fiction with a strong sense of comedy, and most themes, subjects, and settings
are welcome but standard genre tropes are definitely discouraged (vampires,
zombies, werewolves, etc.). The comedic aspect can be goofy and slapstick or
black and morbid, just as long as there are equal amounts of darkness and
humor..
DreamForge Magazine:
Future Best Issue
Payment: 6 cents a word
Story Length: up to 1,500 words
Deadline: October 31, 2018
Reprints?: No
Response: unknown
Description: Any genre or
sub-genre of science fiction and fantasy that meets the following three points:
1. A future with a hopeful ending.
2. A future in which humane values triumph
or are strongly demonstrated.
3.
A future where the protagonists struggle to improve life for others as well as
themselves.
Future of Death (io9)
Payment: 50 (fifty!) cents
a word
Story Length: up to 2,000 words
Deadline: October 25, 2018
Reprints?: No
Response: unknown (probably
less than one month)
Description: Essays,
investigations, and short fiction: Perhaps death has become a thing of the
past—for some humans, at least. Maybe a newly sentient AI must decide whether
to program some form of death into its universe. Whatever the premise, we’re
looking for creative takes on what it means for an object or entity to cease to
be. We’re most interested in futuristic and science fiction-infused tales; no
gore or straight horror, please. NOTE:
Assume VERY low acceptance rate on this compared to amount of interest/ submissions.
Zombies Need Brains, LLC anthologies (3
separate markets, Similar guidelines)
NOTE: These are
successfully-funded Kickstarter campaigns open for public submissions.
All 3 anthologies:
Payment: 6 cents a word + Royalties
Story Length: to 7,500 words
Deadline: December 31, 2018
Reprints?: No
Response: February 28, 2019
Tone for all: Range of tones, from humorous all the way up to dark; Not
looking for torture porn, nor gratuitous violence of any kind.
1. Portals
Description: Science fiction or fantasy stories that contain a portal opening up
between two different worlds and the consequences that come from that portal.
2. Temporally Deactivated
Description: Stories where the author explores what the phrase “temporally
deactivated” could mean with regards to a person, place, or thing. Stories featuring more interesting takes on
the twisting of time and how it is integrated into the story will receive more
attention than those with more typical twisted time stories.
3. Alternate Peace
Description: Alternate history stories where the divergence from our timeline comes
from some kind of peaceful change to our past.
It must explore the consequences of this divergence, not simply
introduce the divergence. Stories
featuring more interesting historical settings and twists on the consequences
of the peaceful divergence from our timeline will receive more attention than
those with more standard changes to the course of history.
***Non-PRO-Paying Market, but Eric J.
Guignard’s “Pick of the Month”
Tales from the Lake, Vol. 6 (Crystal
Lake Publishing)
Payment: 3 cents a word
Story Length: 500 to 5,000 words
Deadline: November 1st, 2018 through January 1st, 2019
Reprints?: No
Response: unknown
Description:
Non-themed horror, with a preference for believable,
quiet horror and dark fiction with a literary bent.
Tales from the
Canyons of the Damned
Payment: 3 cents a word
Story Length: 500–5,000 words
Deadline: ongoing
Reprints?: No
Response: unknown
Description: Dark Science
fiction, Horror, and Slipstream. Think of the Canyons as a literary Twilight Zone, Night Gallery, or Outer
Limits—it's Netflix's Black Mirror.
