Currently Closed!
Our publication schedule is currently full through early 2009. At this time
we are closed to submissions. Please watch this space for announcements regarding
when we will reopen.
All submissions received before 3/29/2008 will receive consideration for publication
per our guidelines below
Submissions
Afterburn SF is looking for action oriented, well-written stories in Science-Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror. Please check out the guidelines, then send submissions to addresses listed below.
Guidelines
What we are looking for - As stated above, we are looking for action-oriented, well written stories in Science-Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror. We want action-driven short stories that present a complete, well rounded tale, with strong characterization, clear description, and clean prose. Length should be between 1K and 10K words, although we will consider longer works based on their merits. Three to four stories in each category (SF, F, H) will be selected monthly. The stories will run for three months, and then will appear in the archive until the author requests for it to be removed. Please make sure you own the copyright for any work you submit.
Reprints will be considered, as long as the author owns the copyright.
We cannot accept fan fiction, because we don't like being sued.
Types of stories we want - For Fantasy, we want action-driven traditional fantasy stories - knights, dragons, sorcerers, elves, dwarves, magic swords, skulking thieves...you get the picture. For Science-Fiction, we want exploding spaceships, aliens, cyber-ninjas, rogue AIs, space marines, etc. For Horror, give us blood chilling tales that make us sleep with the lights on.
How violent/sexual/dirty/grotesque do we want it? - Ideally, we want it at a PG-13 level. That's today's PG-13 level, which actually gives you a lot of leeway. We will let some R stuff slip in, as long as it is intrinsic and important to the story, if the story merits it. We will not publish gratuitous violent/sexual/dirty/smutty/grotesque for its own sake. We're not trying to be prudish or censor anyone, but if you are looking for erotica or splattterpunk stories, there are plenty of sites already out there. We want to focus on good, solid, mainstream Speculative Fiction.
Response Times - We will make every effort to decide about your work as quickly as possible. Our response time should be under 60 days. If 75 days go by, feel free to query regarding the status of your work.
Rights
Afterburn SF requests one-time English language electronic publishing rights for all works that we accept. We will publish your work online in our Ezine for a period of three months. After that we will place it in our archive, unless you request otherwise. All works will be removed from the archive on author's request, or after one year. Afterburn SF waives all rights beyond those stated above. Bottom line - we are here to help authors. If you resell a story that we have already published - good for you! You wrote it, after all, and it should remain yours to use in any way you see fit.
Payment
Contributing authors whose work is selected for Afterburn SF will receive a $30 payment via paypal upon publication. Alternatively, authors whose work we use may select a three month banner ad in lieu of cash payment.