Morpheus Tales Publishing
Writers Guidelines
Morpheus Tales: Bugs Special Issue Writers Guidelines
They crawl. They skitter. They swarm. They fly.
Bugs. Insects. Spiders. Sure, some are cute, like ladybugs. But most of us don’t want them on our skin, in our hair, hiding in our clothes before we get dressed, or creeping out of our sheets when we’re sleeping.
There are many bug movies and stories out there. Who could forget THEM!, Mosquito, They Nest, Kingdom of the Spiders, and of course, Slither.
The Hephaestus Plague by Thomas Page was the basis for the 1975 movie Bug. Kelli Owen wrote about killer flies in Waiting Out Winter. And giant mutated insects threatened the world in The Swarm by Christopher Pearson.
Morpheus Tales is looking for such tales for their upcoming special issue. We want lots of bugs. Gross, scary, spine-chilling, and even a little humour. If you think you can make our skin crawl, inspire us to grab the insect repellent, or make us laugh even as we shiver, then send your story our way!
Deadline 30th June.
Max word count 5000.
General Guidelines
We are currently looking for writers and artists to submit their work. We are a non-paying market, but all successful submissions will receive a complimentary pdf ebook copy of the magazine. Unfortunately our printer has now closed down, and from Morpheus Tales #19 we will no longer print our own copies of the magazine. All copies will be available through lulu.com print-on-demand services and as ebooks.
It will unfortunately be prohibitively expensive to provide printed contributor copies and so we will send you a link to download the ebook version of the magazine. All contributor copies will now be in downloadable format.
Please be aware we are looking for 1st British serial rights, 1st online rights. We no longer accept previously published work. Your work may also be published online.
Artists please contact us regarding our current needs. We are always looking for regular illustrators.
By submitting your work you are agreeing to these terms.
Please send submissions as word documents. All material should be in standard manuscript format:
12 point Times Roman, left justified, 1" margins all around, double spaced, paragraph indents, no space between paragraphs, with a header on each page giving your name, the title or a short form of it, and the page number.
Please send all submissions to:
Single Submissions Only.
One submission maximum at a time, please.
We DO NOT accept simultaneous submissions.
Fiction:
Must be horror, science fiction or fantasy, or a mixture of those genres. We are looking for high quality work with plot or character driven stories.
Fiction: Maximum 3000 words.
The Morpheus Tales Review Supplement
Non-fiction:
Articles and interviews on horror, science fiction and fantasy related subjects may be accepted. Please contact us with your idea first to avoid disappointment.
Articles/Interviews: up to 2000 words.
Reviews on horror, science fiction and fantasy related products, including books, films, dvds, graphic novels, comics, toys, websites, etc.
Reviews: Maximum 500 words.
Mini Reviews: Maximum 100 Words.
Non-fiction material is published in the online reviews supplement. Contributors can download copies from the website.
Tips for Writers
To give you some idea of what an editor has to go through, we've read through over a hundred stories in the past few weeks, and about eight to ten stories will appear in the next issue.
It's not that the other stories weren't any good, obviously some of them weren't, but some of them very good, they just weren't right for us.
So what makes a story useable?
Unfortunately it's difficult to say. We're not looking for one particular thing, otherwise it would be a lot easier. But there are a few simple rules that can help.
READ the writers guidelines. Sending in a submission that's well over the maximum word limit will not endear you to an editor. Sending in a type of story that the magazine doesn't publish is not much good either. Do your homework and, if you can, buy a copy of the magazine before submitting your work.
The easiest way to get rejected is to make mistakes. If an editor has to work hard to read your story then it's much more likely to be rejected. Make sure you check your submission for spelling errors and grammar, typos happen, but good proof-reading should remove most of them.
Try to stick closely to the Standard Manuscript Format when submitting work, for more details:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Manuscript_format
Make your story stand out. You've got limited words, so make every one count. Make sure your story has something that makes it different, the plot, characters, style, anything that raises it above the level of the other stories the editor is likely to read that week. We sometimes read five or six stories a day, so you need to make your work memorable.
The best type of story is one that makes the reader feel something, whether it's amazement, fear, horror, joy… Think about the stories you remember and why you remember them, then set out to create something like that.
Good luck!