Submission Guidelines

Current Status

We are currently CLOSED for story submissions.

What we are looking for

We are interested in speculative fiction stories. Whether your story is character-driven or a painstakingly-created world that reverberates with unknown adventure…we want to read it. More importantly, we want to publish it.

We want stories with some meat on their bones. We aren’t interested in flash fiction. We want something we can sit down and sink our teeth into. We want to read stories with a minimum of 5,000 words. We don’t have a maximum word count cap, although if someone ever sends us a 30,000 word novella we might have to worry about it.

The way we see it, stories are what they are. We aren’t here to tell you that your story is too long, that you need to shave 500 words off of it to make it “sell-able” to the mass public. You don’t tell your kids how to grow up…you just guide them the best way you can and however they end up is how they end up. Stories are the same way.

We publish to an adult audience. Keep in mind that while we generally don’t want to censor authors we won’t publish anything with gratuitous violence, sex, or language. If it’s part of the story that’s one thing, but we aren’t looking to publish any “shock and awe” stories here. Just quality, well-rounded, speculative fiction.

Things we will automatically reject

There are a few things which will get your story sent to the rejection bin without an actual read-through.

If your story reads as if it were cut straight from a Dungeons and Dragons campaign with your weekend buddies, we aren’t interested. This is a speculative fiction zine, not a hack-and-slash adventure magazine. While we may publish adventure-type stories from time to time, there needs to be a strong speculative element to them that moves them away from the typical hack-and-slash. Keep in mind that I’m a massive D&D fan, and I’ve read the Fafhrd and Gray Mouser stories from beginning to end dozens of times. That being said…we are not an adventure magazine. We are a speculative fiction zine.

Vampires and werewolves. If your story has anything to do with vampires or werewolves, it will be automatically rejected. Why? There are plenty of vampire and werewolf stories and movies and TV shows on the market. We aren’t interested in publishing another take on the age-old legend. If you need a vampire or werewolf fix I suggest you watch True Blood on HBO or pick up the Twilight series of books that are currently taking the world by storm. Or the Evernight books. Or read Anne Rice. Or any other vampire/werewolf author. There are thousands these days.

If you don’t know your way around a word processor, then chances are you shouldn’t be writing in the first place. While we aren’t going to throw a fit if your story is missing a tab indent here or there or has an extra space after a period on accident, if your story comes through looking like it was chopped up with a meat grinder and then sent to us…we aren’t going to read it. Our eyes are far too valuable.

What about art work?

We are OPEN in terms of considering artwork. We are not accepting unsolicited submissions of art, however.

Please send us a link to your online portfolio (blog, website, DeviantArt, whatever) as well as a detailed cover letter. If we like what we see via your online portfolio, we will contact you about creating art for our publication. Please send your cover letter and portfolio information to queries@marginalboundaries.com.

ALL ARTISTS MUST HAVE A PAYPAL ACCOUNT TO BE ELIGIBLE. We do not pay via any other method.

We pay $10.00 per interior art piece. Each interior art piece will be black and white and relates to a specific story.

We pay $100.00 for full-color cover art.

Artists will be contacted on an as-needed basis and commissioned for original art.

Publishing schedule

Marginal Boundaries publishes on a quarterly schedule.

• March
• June
• September
• December

Reading schedule

While we initially set out to use a reading schedule, we decided it was in our best interests to build up a backlog of stories for our future issues. With that in mind, we are currently remaining open to submissions until further notice.

Our process

Marginal Boundaries is a quarterly publication that is strictly published in the digital world. As such, we only deal with clients via e-mail. Each issue that comes out is strictly in PDF format. We accept speculative fiction from people in all corners of the world. It doesn’t matter where you live, so long as your story is in US English. (UK or Australian English is fine as well, but keep in mind that our format is in US English, and there is some difference in punctuation and spelling)

Our process is very simple. We have a one month submission window (although that is suspended at present until we build up our backlog). During that window we accept submissions, read stories, and get back to the authors as quickly as possible. At the end of the reading period we close submissions. The following months are spent finalizing decisions regarding the stories we feel are the best for our publication and getting them ready for publication, which includes getting rewrites from the authors, polishing the stories, and getting them sent out to our art department. Every story comes complete with its own original artwork. The third month is spent putting any final touches on the stories, doing the layout for the issue, and getting it ready for sale. Then, at the end of the third month, we publish. The process repeats.

One of our goals is to keep interaction with you, the writers, as high as possible. By keeping a strict reading schedule, we can avoid being overrun by submissions. We endeavor to get back to our authors within 2-6 weeks of their story being sent in. It all depends on the number of submissions coming through our door, and how quickly we can get through them. One thing we can promise you is that we will never take several months to get back to you. One of the major reasons (we have many!) we founded this publication was to provide a place for stories to find a home quickly, rather than dealing with 6+ month waiting lists that are common with other publications. We will be holding true to that promise, no matter what. We urge our authors to keep track of their submissions through Duotrope, and report our response times accordingly.

If for some reason you have not received a physical communication from the staff after 6 weeks, please query us at queries@marginalboundaries.com.

Marginal Boundaries will never, under any circumstances, publish work from its staff (other than forewards and editorials). Everyone on staff here is an author in some form or another, and we are selling our stories in other markets. We started this venture as yet another branch into the industry. While some of the other ‘zines on the market reserve up to half of their ‘zine space for staff writers, thus reducing the chances that writers actually have at getting published, we don’t believe that’s fair to you, the authors. Marginal Boundaries is all about your stories, not ours.

All contributors receive a free copy of the PDF upon publication.

Submission guidelines

• We accept submissions in e-mail format only. In addition, authors need access to a scanner in order to get us signed versions of their contracts. We do not accept hard copy in any form.
• All submissions should be sent to submissions@marginalboundaries.com
• Submissions must be sent as an attachment in U.S. English. We accept most formats (doc, docx, txt, rtf, odt), and if you send in something we can’t open, we’ll be sure to let you know. 
• Submissions must be in Standard Manuscript Form (see the SFWA for more information).
• The subject of your e-mail should read Submission: Story Title, Approximate word count.
• Do not use double spaces after periods. This is an archaic and old-fashioned method that was used when dealing with type-written documents. Please use the TAB key for indentations of paragraphs, not 5 spaces or 7 spaces or any any other function of the spacebar button. Most of the word processors these days have default settings that are close to perfect for submitting manuscripts, so just adjust as necessary.
• Do not, for the love of all things holy, use spaces to indent. Tab key is there for a reason. Use it.
• Your e-mail should include a brief cover letter detailing who you are, where you’ve been published (if anywhere), and a little bit about you. We aren’t just interested in your stories. We want to know you.
• We do not accept multiple or simultaneous submissions.
• We do not accept unsolicited reprints.

Payment and rights

We pay 20 USD ($20) per story upon acceptance. We’d love to pay more, but we are currently still in our infant stages (with the March Issue being our first). The best way to get better rates for your stories is to help us get more subscribers. The more copies we sell, the more money the ‘zine has to spend on production costs, which means we can afford to pay our writers, artists, and editors better. We would love to move to a per-word payment plan, and you can help us do that by promoting our ‘zine and getting your friends and family members to support your career as a writer, and generate a fan-base in the process.

Beyond that, we also offer an Affiliate Program to our contributors. This is only available to those who have sold us stories and art, or have worked in some way with the magazine. Once a contributor has signed up, every sale referred to Marginal Boundaries will earn that contributor 50% of the sale price. In short, once you become a contributor you sign up with our Affiliate Program, we give you a link and banner that you put up on your website/blog/web presence, and every time someone clicks on your link they will be brought to our Basement page, where our products are listed. If they then make a purchase you earn 50% of that sale. That means if you refer 10 people who purchase 10 copies of an issue set at $10, you earn $50. If you sell 100 copies you make $500. The limit is only on how many friends and fans you know who would purchase an issue. There are NO fees associated with this program, other than the business fees associated with PayPal, which are pennies.

Affiliate programs are used in the freelance and blog words regularly. Person A sells Person B’s book on their website and shares in the profit. That’s what we are doing here. It’s a way for us to show our contributors that we aren’t just some faceless entity out there to make thousands of dollars off your hard work. We want you to get paid fairly for your time, and while we can’t afford to pay a large up-front fee just yet, we can prove to you that we are thinking of you by allowing you to share in the profits of any sales you make. 50% of every issue you sell, every time. And this applies to future and past issues, not just the one you are published in. It’s a way for us to exponentially increase our subscriber base by allowing each author and artist to act as a merchant, while at the same time promoting our belief in forming a lasting relationship with our contributors. Everyone wins.

We understand that professional markets pay 5 cents per word. We are not a professional market. Yet. We are a small press founded primarily on passion. What that boils down to is this: if you are looking to get paid top-dollar for your time, we aren’t going to be the publication for you. If you are regularly getting published by the pro markets, we likely aren’t going to do you any favors because you’ve already made it to the top. If you are used to getting paid hundreds of dollars per story and having a marketing team already in place to help get the word out about your story…we aren’t for you, at least not with our up-front payments. However, if you happen to be a professional author who has a story that’s been kicking around for awhile that you just haven’t been able to place anywhere else, or you don’t mind spending some of your time on a publication that is getting its legs underneath it, we’d love to talk. Furthermore, if you are a professional author who is used to getting paid several hundred dollars per story, our Affiliate Program could work to your advantage, because you can sell our issues directly from your website/blog and potentially make far more, depending on your fan base. If you have 500 people who will buy your stories no matter what, every time…well, you can see the potential. It depends entirely upon your base of readers.

We pay via PayPal, only. We will not pay via wire transfer, and we will not send checks. PayPal. Only. Period. This also applies to the Affiliate Program, as you must have a valid and working PayPal address to receive your monthly payments.

We buy First Exclusive Worldwide Electronic Rights for three months. After that, you can publish your story where you like. We also purchase Reprint Rights, in the case that we decide to put out a “Best of” copy at the end of the year. We would also love to have Archive Rights to your stories to keep them up on our database even after they have moved on, but we will gladly refrain from doing so at the Author’s request.

Dealing with rejection

Just because your story was rejected doesn’t mean it’s a bad story, or that you are a poor author. All it means is that we didn’t feel it was the right fit for our particular publication. Our ultimate goal with Marginal Boundaries is to inspire people to write, inspire people to read, and inspire people to further their love of speculative fiction.

Dealing with rejection is something that every author deals with, even the highest paid authors in the industry. With that in mind, we will not publish a story simply because it is from someone who is a “name” in the industry. Sure, it might bring us more sales, but one of the major issues with publishing today is that there are far too many poor quality stories coming from people with a name, simply to generate sales for the publications in question, while truly amazing stories get passed over because the people who wrote them aren’t established authors. Here at Marginal Boundaries, we treat everyone equally. The merit is in the story itself, not the name behind it.

Rejection is a building process, a learning curve. The one thing that makes us different from the pro publications, however, is that we will always find the time to give you a critique of why your story didn’t work for us. You will never, ever, get a form letter from Marginal Boundaries. We hold a firm commitment to insuring that we are helping build up your strengths as a writer, not simply giving you a rejection letter and telling you “good luck”.

That does not mean we read each and every story that comes through our door in their entirety. We can and will reject stories which have beginnings that don’t jive with us. It might be that your story had a great middle and end, but its beginning was just too slow for us. However, we will let you know exactly why your story didn’t work for us, every time. Again…you will never, ever get a form letter rejection from Marginal Boundaries.

Remember, we are not here to crush your dreams, stab you in the back, or slaughter your babies. We want to see you write the best possible fiction you can, and we will do everything in our power to let you know exactly why your story didn’t work for us if we end up rejecting it.

What we want from our authors

Marginal Boundaries is an indy publication. What does that mean? Well, for starters, it means we don’t have the budget of a pro ‘zine. It means we don’t have the subscription numbers of a pro ‘zine. But it doesn’t mean we don’t have the passion, the professionalism, the qualifications, or the talent required of the best. Everyone starts somewhere. This is our beginning.

It is a well-known fact that there are literally hundreds of thousands of stories that go unread and unpublished every year. There are literally thousands of stories slipping through the cracks of the pro markets every year, not because they are bad stories, but because they don’t fit the statistics of the publishing industry at that given time.

We want those stories. We know they are good, and we know they deserve to be read. We also know that there is a difference between self-publishing them on your blog or forum and having an organization like ours pay you for them. It might only be an indy credit and a small paycheck, but a credit is a credit in this industry, and every step on the ladder is another step up.

But here’s the thing: being an indy publication, we can’t afford (yet) to spend thousand on advertising to generate readers. What we rely on is a grassroots movement. Rest assured, if we accept your story we will do our absolute best to promote it and market it as the best thing since sliced bread, but we expect our writers, our artists, and our editors to do the same. Even if you only mention it on your blog or your website, that’s something, because it motivates people to buy the publication. We don’t have a marketing team on staff, nor will we ever hire one. This is a passion project, fueled by the passion of those of us who are working to get your stories out into the spotlight. We are the marketing team, the editors, the PR team, the layout people, the printers, and the investors.

We also require our accepted contributors to provide us with a bio and a link back to their website and/or blog (if available), which we then put up on our Contributor section of the website as well as include in the PDF. The reason for this is simple: promotion of the author/artist. By showing other places your work can be found, as well as allowing readers a chance to connect with you on a more personal level by letting them know who you are behind the scenes, you establish a higher level of credibility and accessibility than if you are just some random name behind a story. We whole-heartedly believe in staying connected with readers.

We would also love if our authors could be available for interviews and behind-the-scenes features. It’s not mandatory, but keep in mind…the more press we generate, the more sales we get, and the more sales we get, the better we can pay you in the future, the more people read your work, the more chances there are for your work to be seen by the major publications and move you up the ladder.

Keep in mind that just because we have accepted your story for publication, doesn’t necessarily mean you are done. Some stories will be fine as-is, and will only require brief face-lifts to make them ready for publication. Others will be diamonds in the rough; that is, stories which show potential, but need some serious work to get them ready for publication. The simple fact that we have accepted your story means we loved it…but doesn’t mean your work is finished. Remember, an editor’s job is only to point out the potential flaws in your story, and ways it could be made better. We are not going to do that work for you. It is your responsibility as an author to craft the finest story possible, and we want to be able to help you reach that point. Just keep in mind that any editing changes done are a collaboration between you and our editing team, and we will be in contact 100% of the way helping you make the most out of your speculative fiction short story.