Pulp Stories for the 21st Century

Submission Guidelines

The most important question here is 'is the story exciting?' If the answer is yes, then it is probably what I am looking for. I don't want to constrain submissions too much by genre, a good tale is after all a good tale, but I include below a guideline to give an idea of what will fit.

 

Fantasy: Yes, please, especially Sword and Sorcery.

 

Sci-Fi: Yep. All varieties, as long as they are action packed and exciting.

 

Historical: Yes, from any era. Especially keen on Westerns.

 

Mystery/Crime: Yep. Anything from hardboiled sleuth to Holmesian adventures. Cosy or procedural might be a hard sell.

 

Suspense/Thriller: Definitely.

 

Horror: Oh, yes.

 

Steampunk: Of course. Any genre containing punk is alright by me, cyberpunk, biopunk, splatterpunk, tweedpunk...

 

Erotica: No thanks. I’m quite open to sex scenes, graphic is ok as long as the whole point of the story is not titillate.

 

Swearing is fine, use what ever you think is appropriate for the story.

 

Lengthwise I’m looking for stories between 2k-20k, with an emphasis on the middle range. I don’t mind stories being short as long as they manage to draw the reader in. Anything over 12k will have to justify its place.

 

Manuscripts should be formatted in the standard way. Please include your name and email at the beginning of your story. British spellings are preferred but lack of them will not will result in an other wise good story being rejected.

 

Submission should be sent as an attachment, either .rtf or .doc. In the body of your email please include the following: your name, your pen name (if different), the title of your story, the genre of your story, wordcount, a brief description of your story (3-4 sentences), and your publication history.

 

All writers who have a story accepted will be asked to write a third person author bio nearer to the publication date. This should include where readers can find any other works you have had published.

 

Payment is based on royalties. 50% of the profit (ie after the cost of publication and publicity have been covered) will be split between the contributors. It will be split on word-count percentage basis. Payments will be made quarterly via paypal.

 

No simultaneous submissions. If your story is accepted you will need to sign a contract giving me Exclusive UK Print and Exclusive Electronic Rights for one year from publication. Copyright remains with you and after a year has passed you are free to distribute the story how you like.

Please note that most publications will not accept your story if it has already been published by Rollicking Tales.

 

Send all submissions to: submissions@rollicking-tales.co.uk

 

The Farmers’ Almanac Guidelines: This is going to be our first publication. Stories submitted to The Farmers’ Almanac should be centred around agriculture of some sort. It could be cattle ranching in the old west or slug farming in the distant future, whatever.

 

Be warned I am a farmer (that’s why I chose this subject) so, while I don’t want minutely accurate portrayals of farming life before you submit, check your facts!

 

Deadline for this publication is 31st December 2012. You will receive a manual response within one month. If you don’t receive this please email me again to check. All acceptances/refusals will be given by 28th February 2013.