Update: re submissions

Because so many have asked: no, we are not open to unsolicited* submissions right now.

[About that asterisk: Right now we don’t have the time or resources to handle being fully open to submissions. I’m especially leery of our being listed as an open market on Duotrope, as every time that happens we get absolutely inundated in submissions from people who either don’t read or refuse to abide by submission guidelines. What we are seeking right now is very specific: a few more short stories of up to 1,000 words in length, for publication on our web site, science fiction preferred, fantasy considered, no more horror. We already have all the horror we can use. We are also unapologetically giving first preference to writers we have published before and people who have become our friends on social media. These people have been solicited to send us submissions. If you are a regular reader of this site, you may consider yourself solicited, too.]

A few weeks ago I put out a specific and carefully targeted call for submissions to known friends of Stupefying Stories and past winners of the Pete Wood Challenge. My goal was to build up our inventory of flash and short fiction, so we’d have enough stories in the pipeline to support our move to publishing a new story daily, beginning at 0700 CDT this coming Saturday, July 1st. 

I’m pleased to report that the Friends of Stupefying Stories… (F.O.S.S.? Sounds like a 12-step group. We’ll have to work on that.)

Our friends have come through admirably, including quite a few folks we haven’t heard from in years, and the pipeline is now almost full. We’ve received enough flash fiction to choke a horse, or at least a Shetland pony, and all the horror we can use. We could still use a few more hard science fiction and fantasy stories, in the under 1K-word range, and specifically a few more “first contact” SF stories and a few more “fractured fairy tales.”

Therefore, if you were thinking about sending us something for this submissions call, be advised that the window is just about closed, and will definitively close on Wednesday, July 5th. After that we’ll be focused on publishing, publishing, publishing, and also watching our readership metrics very closely. If things go as we hope they will, we’ll have another open reading window for short fiction (under 1K words) from August 6th through August 12th, but will likely focus and refine our requirements before then. Watch this space for more details.

Until then, I’ll invite you once again to either become a Follower of Stupefying Stories (using the Follow button in the gadget in the left column, follow us Twitter (@StupefyingSF), follow our “official” page on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/StupefyingStories/), or if you have a very high tolerance for weird, befriend me personally (https://www.facebook.com/bruce.bethke). No, we’re not on Snapchat or TikTok right now. I suppose we should be. (Grumble, grumble...)

[Grumble? Is that another social media platform we need to be on? If not, it should be.]

And of course…

If you like the stories we’re publishing, subscribe today. We do Stupefying Stories out of pure love for genre fiction, but in publishing as in tennis, love means nothing. To keep Stupefying Stories going at this level we need to raise at least $500 USD monthly, and rather than doing so with pledge breaks or crowd-funding campaigns, we’d rather have subscribers.

 

If just 100 people commit to just $5 monthly— (No obligations! Cancel anytime!) —we can keep going at this level indefinitely. If we raise more, we will pay our authors more.

Sounds pretty crazy, doesn’t it? But I have a hunch, it just might work.

Thank you,
Bruce Bethke
Editor, Publisher, and Executive Cat Herder in Chief,
Stupefying Stories | Rampant Loon Press