I've seen some strange submission calls over the years but this one from DarkFuse gives me pause. They're looking for dark flash fiction, 99 to 999 words for their online zine horrordoeuvres.com and they're paying 5cents a word. And that's all great.
Here's what's not so great. The zine is subscriber based so stories aren't available to the public. This I can understand because it helps pay the authors. But they acquire lifetime rights for that payment the only exception to this is if your story is selected for a best of anthology. The other thing that bothers me? In coming down to the final acceptance decision your author website and your marketing plan is what will win you a spot in the zine. Huh?!?
A marketing plan for a zine that outright owns your story? It's not like they're going to be paying you anything extra if you sell more subscriptions. So here's the thing, you have to decide if a $49.95 or less payment is worth your marketing time. Proceed with caution out there, my friends.
Market found via darkmarkets.com
2 comments:
Just to clarify: DarkFuse only takes first antho rights and rights to archive on their site for the life of the site's existence. Authors are free to include their stories in personal collections or anything else they choose.
Welcome to the Corner, Mr. Staley. Thanks for the clarification, but that's not how it reads on your submission guidelines under rights, so it could be confusing for authors.
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