Market Day

Might as well start with the bad news. Ezine "Zygote in My Coffee" has closed their doors, it looks to be permanent this time.

And the good news? We've got markets!

First up is a fledgling sci-fi market called "Daily Science Fiction". They're looking for stories of 100 to 10,000 words but shorter is preferred. There's an online submission form and they're paying pro rates of 8cents a word. You can find all the details at http://dailysciencefiction.com/submit

Canadian publisher Northern Frights has listed another anthology call. This one is "Fallen: An Anthology of Demonic Horror" They're looking for stories about demons and demonic possession. They don't want demons falling in love and moping around re The Twilight series. As they say, they're a horror market and they want horror stories. In other words, scare the bejesus out of them. The deadline is August 31 for stories up to 10,000 words. The pay is a penny a word with a $40 cap plus one copy. You can find all the details at http://northernfrightspublishing.webs.com/guidelines.htm

From Paul Brazill we have Cast Macabre, a podcast market. They're looking for horror stories up to 4000 words. This is a non-paying market. You can find all the details at http://castmacabre.blogspot.com/p/submission-guidelines.html

John Scalzi and Wil Wheaton are sponsoring a short story fanfic contest to benefit the Lupus Foundation of America. There is a June 30 deadline for a 400 to 2000 word short based on the picture at Scalzi's site. Cool picture by the way! The winner receives 10 cents a word and his story will be published in an electronic chapbook alongside Scalzi, Wheaton and several others. The profits from the book will go to the Lupus Foundation. You can find the picture and all the details at http://whatever.scalzi.com/2010/05/30/fanfic-contest/

For those of you who write erotica, Duotrope has listed quite a few anthology calls from Circlet Press here http://www.duotrope.com/recentupdates.aspx There's also a bunch of fledgling markets listed if you're interested. I've stopped listing them here unless they're a paying market or a new start-up from someone I know and expect that they'll follow through. Many people want to publish zines, but they don't always realize the work involved and bail before or just after the first issue. And yes, I've been there and done that - many times. One of the reason I'm leery of new zines these days.