Submission Guidelines

Guidelines for all our anthologies (psst! this is important!):

5,000 to 8,000 words. Length should be close to the wordcount bracket! Genre is negotiable, as long as the story fits the concept and is entertaining. 

Any submission should be in Times New Roman (preferred, but if you must we’ll accept Georgia or Calibri. Wingdings is a warcrime, and Comic Sans is just sad.), 12PT, double-spaced, with your name, title of the story, and your email in the document. Name the file as [STORYTITLE]-[YOURLASTNAME]—[ANTHOLOGYTITLE]. Send it in a .docx format as an attachment—no links. If you cannot submit in .docx format, please query to design [at] raconteurpress dot com.

Refer to the submission guideline graphic below for how to format your story—It has all the information you need!

Short story submissions should not contain chapters, and the title in your manuscript should be formatted as a ‘heading style.’ Novels should have chapters or chapter titles formatted in the document as a ‘heading style.’ Scene breaks in any manuscript should be indicated with three asterisks, centered. Paragraphs should not be indented using the tab, but by setting the first line indent.

Raconteur Press will hold the rights for one year after publication; after one year, the rights will revert to the author, but we continue to pay you as long as the anthology is selling. Authors receive an equal percentage share of the proceeds from the anthology, along with the Press, our editors, and administration. Yes, you read that right. We don’t take 80% off the top and split the 20% left over between all the authors. We’re all in this together. This is why our anthologies are limited to ten stories.

IMPORTANT: PLEASE do NOT submit stories until the date the call opens. We don’t want to hang on to your piece for longer than necessary. You might find another market for it, or it decides to grow into a novel, or…so go ahead and write it, but tuck it away, and revisit it before submitting. 

Raconteur Press uses Pubshare (pubshare.com) to distribute payments and handle tax forms for anthology authors, so authors who contribute must have a free Pubshare account.

IMPORTANT: when you set up your Pubshare account, you MUST choose the method by which you want to receive your royalties. There are currently two choices: PayPal at the beginning of each month, or paper cheque each quarter. BE SURE that you have chosen a method of payment and input the required information. If you don’t, Pubshare will hang onto your royalties until you choose a method of payment and input the required information.

DOUBLE SECRET PROBATION IMPORTANT: One story submission per anthology. And the counting of submissions shall be one submission. The number of submissions shall not be two. Three is right out. Please do not simultaneously submit your story to anyone else.

Submit to: racpresssubmissions[at]gmail.com

Questions about our publishing schedules can be addressed to Production[at]raconteurpress.com.