Abandoned Towers Writer's Guidelines
PLEASE NOTE: There are two parts to Abandoned Towers Magazine. They are:
Online content - free to everyone
Print/pdf content - not free, but not expensive.
None of the print/pdf content will appear on the website. If you want to read it, you'll have to buy the print issue.
The online content will be a mixture of stuff and anyone that would like to is welcome to submit stuff for it as well. Same submission process as for the print mag, same requirement for excellent writing and you can just about count on being asked for at least 1 revision if not several. Line edits will be done on all submissions before they go online. This does mean you have to choose one or the other. If you don't state otherwise when submitting work, I'll assume it's for the print mag.
You may get more exposure for your work if you submit it to be placed online, but I don't pay for online content since it's being given away for free.
Your friends and relatives can't get copies, they have to read the website.
You can post the link to your writing all over the net so people can read it which you can't do with the print mag.
You can't take copies to a convention or or other places and show it around unless they have access to the website.
Print issues come out once every 4 months. Online copy is updated daily.
Regardless of whether you choose to submit to the print issues or the online version, the submission process is the same.
Reprints for both the print mag and the online content pages are welcome as long as you have the rights.
What we want:
We are looking for fiction, poetry, and non-fiction. Our mission is to provide good, quality entertainment to a wide audience. Rather than give you a long list of what we want, we'll provide you with a short list of what we do not want. If you're not sure whether your submission fits our not-wanted list, write and ask.
What we will not accept under any circumstances :
Fan-fiction.
Content rated 'R' or above.
Blood, guts, gore or slasher horror.
Religious material.
Alternative Lifestyles.
Cursing and Obscene Language.
What we're not too interested in:
Anything that the market is currently saturated with. If every place you look, you see books and stories about a particular subject, then we're probably bored to death with it. Either make sure your submission is unique in some way, or wait till the current fad is over and send it in then.
Other than that, we accept all genre and literary fiction, both poetry and prose. We also accept non-fiction articles on just about anything as long as it's an interesting topic.
Word Count and Line Limits
Free-verse poems
We do not accept anything with less than 3 lines or more than 30 lines.
Structured Poems
We require that the poet state what form is used, and provide the structure rules if the form is uncommon.
Alt-history :
Yes, we are accepting alternate history, however be aware that if your story is too far into the alternate we may reclassify it as something else.
RPG and game based stories:
We do accept these, however your submission may not violate the game's copy written, or trademarked, content. As an example, you might have a character running around in one of the popular online multiplayer games. You might want to write a story about your character's adventures. That, in itself, is fine. But before you mention the game world, or use the names of any of its creatures or characters belonging to other players, you must first get permission from the gaming company and the other players. It's usually easier if you create your own world to set your story in.
Reprints:
We accept previously published work as long as you have the rights and can provide proof if necessary. We define 'previously published' as any work presented to the public by a professional entity in any format. Professional entities are: E-zines, podcast sites, print publications and others like these, whether such organizations pay for the work they publish or not. We do not consider work posted to a crit group, in a personal blog, an online forum, or other places where the intention is not to publish professionally to be previously published.
Simultaneous Submissions
We do not accept simultaneous submissions. If you have sent your work out to another publisher, please wait until they have made a decision before sending us your manuscript. If you feel you can't wait on the other publisher any longer, then contact them and withdraw you manuscript before doing anything else with it.
Query Letters
Query letters are a frightening beast for a lot of authors, so we're going to make this easy on you. We want your query letter to contain your name, a description of what you'd like to submit and which genre you feel it would fit best.
Don't go to a lot of trouble trying to write the perfect elevator pitch or boil your story down into five sentences. Just tell us what it's about. Make it simple. Pretend you're writing to a friend and don't worry so much. We're not judging your ability as an author on your query letter, we just want to know if your work sounds like something that would fit what we publish.
Please don't include a bio or a list of your publication credits with the query letter.
Do not send email attachments with your query letter. Unsolicited email attachments will get the entire letter deleted and no response.
Please make sure your contact information is correct and that your email spam filters will not prevent our communications from reaching your inbox. We try to send acknowledgements the day we receive your submission. We will make every possible effort to contact you; however, life and internet gremlins happen to everyone. If you have not heard from us within three days, assume we didn't receive your email and contact us by posting in our online forum. We do have an email gremlin catcher on staff, but the sneaky things sometimes get past him anyway.
Payment
We require non-exclusive, digital and print, single-issue rights.
What that means is that we get the right to publish your submission in one issue of the magazine, both in digital and in print format. It also means you can still sell it to someone else while we have it in print, as long as they don't want exclusive rights.
Issues of the magazine will remain available in both print and e-format on a continuous basis, even after new issues come out. However, we're reasonable people and if asked to do so, we'll be willing to remove items from past issues, replacing such items with a note that 'xxx' has been removed by request of the author.
In exchange for those rights, for print submissions ONLY, we pay: 5.00 per poem
10.00 per article or story
Additionally, all print issue contributors get a complimentary free pdf version of the issue their work appears in.
Prose - Fiction and Non-fiction
Minimum word count - 1 (but boy that better be one really good word if we're gonna pay you 10 bucks for it!)
Maximum word count - 4500
Definitions: Digital format means any electronic format such as .pdf, msreader or online webpages.
Print format means printed material such as ink on paper.
Send email to abandonedtowers@gmail.com
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