Publishers of fine genre fiction
TM
TM Your Subtitle text
SUBMISSIONS & GUIDELINES
SUBMISSIONS:
We are currently taking story submissions by invitation only. Check back later for open submission periods, or sign up for email alerts at Duotrope.com for this and other publishing opportunities.
WRITER'S GUIDELINES:
For those who have been invited to submit, please try to follow generally accepted publishing industry submission rules, like:
Submit your documents in Microsoft Word, .doc file preferred. Rich Text Files (.rtf) are acceptable if you don't write in Word. And we promise not to tell Microsoft you are defying their plans for world domination.
Author's name, mailing address, contact info, story title, draft number, and approximate word counts on the top of page 1, and Author's name, story title, and draft number in header of all following pages.
Story name, author, and draft number are preferred in the electronic file name. If you use another file system, we can rename, just make sure you mention the draft in the accompanying e-mail.
If a new draft is submitted, please change the draft number on the new document and in the file name.
For Anthologies, we prefer stories in the the 2500-7500 word range, but that is not absolute. Novels 75,000 to 125,000. Just axe about longer or shorter for either format.
Double spaced lines preferred.
No fancy fonts; 12 point Courier, Times New Roman, or Arial are fine. Wingdings... not so much.
Single space after commas and periods. Sorry, old timers, the double space is pretty much dead... and we mourn its passing.
Underline words you want Italicized. The Editors will format later.
"Thought" dialogue - what a character is saying to themselves- will be in Italics in our published drafts. So they should be Underlined in your submission draft. They should also NOT be surrounded by quote marks ("wrong") (right). Thoughts should otherwise be treated as dialogue with regards to paragraphs and indents.
STYLE GUIDELINES:
Big Time Books publishes genre fiction. At this time there are no plans for non-fiction or art/picture books. Horror and Science Fiction are our main focus.
For legal reasons, avoid using real people, companies, places, and brand name products as much as possible, especially in a bad light. While we both might think it is cool to have a name celebrity bashing her husband's brains out with a name-brand whiskey bottle, our lawyers don't think it's cool at all. And neither will theirs.
Violence in the context of a story or characters is acceptable and gleefully encouraged- we do publish horror after all. However, we do not publish "torture porn". It's the level of detail basically. You are writing a story, not a dissection manual (hopefully). If in doubt, just ask.
As with violence, we do not accept gratuitous sex in our stories or detailed sexual descriptions. Sexually deviant acts are okay in context, as is "normal" sex (whatever that is) that comes out of story or character, but again, we can't publish every disgusting detail.
Gratuitous racism, sexism and associated epithets (you know, the "n" word and similar) are generally off limits. No casual use of such insults in prose or dialogue or general viewpoint will be accepted. If your story is just an excuse to promote hate against another race, sex, sexual orientation, or religion (or lack thereof), we don't want to see it.
However, we do recognize there are such people and situations in the world, and they sometimes show up in fiction. As with violence and sex, we will consider these stories on a case by case basis (Apt Pupil by Stephen King is an example of something we would happily publish), but in general it is best to avoid such situations entirely.
FYI, we love our friends and colleagues who write and film the sickest things you can imagine, and we have made some ourselves. But that type of material is just not what we want for this particular venture at this time, that's all.
On a lighter note, we personally despise the word "exited" when describing a person leaving a room. Just sayin'.
We are currently taking story submissions by invitation only. Check back later for open submission periods, or sign up for email alerts at Duotrope.com for this and other publishing opportunities.
WRITER'S GUIDELINES:
For those who have been invited to submit, please try to follow generally accepted publishing industry submission rules, like:
Submit your documents in Microsoft Word, .doc file preferred. Rich Text Files (.rtf) are acceptable if you don't write in Word. And we promise not to tell Microsoft you are defying their plans for world domination.
Author's name, mailing address, contact info, story title, draft number, and approximate word counts on the top of page 1, and Author's name, story title, and draft number in header of all following pages.
Story name, author, and draft number are preferred in the electronic file name. If you use another file system, we can rename, just make sure you mention the draft in the accompanying e-mail.
If a new draft is submitted, please change the draft number on the new document and in the file name.
For Anthologies, we prefer stories in the the 2500-7500 word range, but that is not absolute. Novels 75,000 to 125,000. Just axe about longer or shorter for either format.
Double spaced lines preferred.
No fancy fonts; 12 point Courier, Times New Roman, or Arial are fine. Wingdings... not so much.
Single space after commas and periods. Sorry, old timers, the double space is pretty much dead... and we mourn its passing.
Underline words you want Italicized. The Editors will format later.
"Thought" dialogue - what a character is saying to themselves- will be in Italics in our published drafts. So they should be Underlined in your submission draft. They should also NOT be surrounded by quote marks ("wrong") (right). Thoughts should otherwise be treated as dialogue with regards to paragraphs and indents.
STYLE GUIDELINES:
Big Time Books publishes genre fiction. At this time there are no plans for non-fiction or art/picture books. Horror and Science Fiction are our main focus.
For legal reasons, avoid using real people, companies, places, and brand name products as much as possible, especially in a bad light. While we both might think it is cool to have a name celebrity bashing her husband's brains out with a name-brand whiskey bottle, our lawyers don't think it's cool at all. And neither will theirs.
Violence in the context of a story or characters is acceptable and gleefully encouraged- we do publish horror after all. However, we do not publish "torture porn". It's the level of detail basically. You are writing a story, not a dissection manual (hopefully). If in doubt, just ask.
As with violence, we do not accept gratuitous sex in our stories or detailed sexual descriptions. Sexually deviant acts are okay in context, as is "normal" sex (whatever that is) that comes out of story or character, but again, we can't publish every disgusting detail.
Gratuitous racism, sexism and associated epithets (you know, the "n" word and similar) are generally off limits. No casual use of such insults in prose or dialogue or general viewpoint will be accepted. If your story is just an excuse to promote hate against another race, sex, sexual orientation, or religion (or lack thereof), we don't want to see it.
However, we do recognize there are such people and situations in the world, and they sometimes show up in fiction. As with violence and sex, we will consider these stories on a case by case basis (Apt Pupil by Stephen King is an example of something we would happily publish), but in general it is best to avoid such situations entirely.
FYI, we love our friends and colleagues who write and film the sickest things you can imagine, and we have made some ourselves. But that type of material is just not what we want for this particular venture at this time, that's all.
On a lighter note, we personally despise the word "exited" when describing a person leaving a room. Just sayin'.
