Status Update • 09 September 2023

 

Hi. Here’s where we’re at as of this morning. 

» STUPEFYING STORIES 26 is now closed to submissions and on-track for an October 1st release. All stories selected for 26 are in the contracts & copy-editing stage. If you submitted a story for 26, you should have received either an acceptance or a rejection by now. If you haven’t received one or the other, please query—unless you tagged your story as being for either 26 or SHOWCASE, in which case your story is likely still in the SHOWCASE queue.

» Speaking of SHOWCASE, we continue to be open for flash fiction (1,000 words or less) stories for SHOWCASE. Telling a complete story—not a scene, not a vignette, not a dismembered and mutilated fragment of a story—in fewer than 1,000 words is a lot harder than it looks. You should give it a try. Click here to see our shopping list, payment rates, and how to submit a story.

» Also speaking of SHOWCASE, the STUPEFYING STORIES 25 release coupled with the Labor Day Weekend knocked us off our stride more than we thought, but we should be back on our “new stories daily” publication schedule as of 6AM Monday morning.

» STUPEFYING STORIES 25, 24, 23, and 22 are now out and selling, at least on Amazon. Click the MAGAZINES button in the top bar for more specific information. Getting 24 out in print and 23 out on Nook, Kobo, et al has been hampered by our need to change software tools in the middle of the process. If you’re ever tempted to use Kindle Create to format and publish an e-book, one word of advice: don’t. Using KC will hamstring you later.

» Speaking of the buttons in the top bar, we’re still populating the landing pages, but please try the LATEST NEWS button. The plan is update this every Friday. Doing so should reduce the need for these Status Update posts.

» On the submissions front, submissions for issues 27 and 28 continue to come in. Again, click here to see our shopping list, payment rates, and how to submit a story. Note that this list includes cutoff dates for submissions, but that these are “soft” dates, and we will close submissions early if we get enough stories to fill the issues. What this means to you is, don’t wait! We select longer “tentpole” stories first and build the issues around them. The closer we get to the cutoff dates, the less likely we are to accept a long story and the more likely we are to need just a few more 1K- to 2K-word short stories to fill in the gaps in the table of contents.

» Finally, note the CROWD-FUNDING button in the top bar. Right now we are in what is essentially the first stage of the relaunch of Stupefying Stories magazine, and we could really use your help. If you like what we’re publishing, want to see us do more like it, and want to help build this thing, this is your chance! » Read more »

There, that seems like enough for one morning. Now to pour myself another cup of coffee, and then, back to work.

Per aspera ad astra,

Bruce Bethke
Editor, Stupefying Stories