Submit Your Fiction for
Killing Time - Horror E-Rag™

Battered Spleen Productions™ is now open to submissions of short horror fiction to be published in the bi-monthly Killing Time - Horror E-Rag™. I seek stories between 3,000 and 5,000 words in length. At this time I am not accepting reprints. Do not send simultaneous submissions to other publications while your story is up for consideration here. I hope to have a turn around time on accepting stories of 4 to 6 weeks once the publishing year is moving. It may be longer right now with the first issue scheduled for an early October 2011 release.

Sadly, at this time I cannot pay for submissions. I understand that this can be a major turn off. If Battered Spleen becomes financially capable of paying authors I will let new submitting authors know before publication. I will accept submissions from previously uncredited authors. I may accept stories for one issue ahead of the current one being assembled.

I will email you a free download link to the completed issue so that you may download a copy. I will also promote you in the promotional blog post I make to kick off the issue on release day. I will tell you what I require for that upon acceptance. Likewise you will be listed as an author in the credits on the sale page, and receive a mention in the Letter From the Editor (the first article in every issue), and of course your name will be listed with the story.

Rights

If you are still willing to submit, I ask for worldwide exclusive electronic format rights for 3 months. That means after 3 months you can send your story to anywhere else that accepts reprints. Beyond that time frame I ask for worldwide non-exclusive electronic format rights. That means I will sell my magazines as is with your story included as it appeared in the issue it was published in, for as long as I sell magazines. This may include different electronic formats and required formatting changes (in the future), but always as the issue it appeared in--not split into pieces or spun off into collections or the like, without seeking permission to do so. I may also make compilations of multiple issues without requesting further rights as long as the issues remain whole. At all times you will still own the copyright to the work and can do with it as you please outside of what I do with it after the 3 months. All stories submitted to me will be protected by international copyright law.

Battered Spleen holds no responsibility for your work in any, and possibly more, of the ways described: if it is rejected, whether it and the issue it is in doesn't do well, or your story is not liked by my readers, or you break some kind of law and get in trouble over it, or whatever any reader(s) may say or do in response to your story. I am not responsible should your story be stolen or otherwise plagiarised, though of course I will try to protect it as I do my own works. By submitting your work to me you agree to accept the terms of the contract I will send you upon acceptance--essentially the same as here except in less personal terms. I will ask for express agreement to the contract at that time.

Content Advice

Let me tell you a little about for what I am looking. I have always maintained that Killing Time is not about what I called "gee whiz horror". A lot of the episodes of the TV show The Outer Limits were gee whiz horror, meaning you sat at the end and said to yourself, "Gee whiz, I guess that might be scary if it was me."

I am looking for harder edged horror. Something creepy. Something disturbing. Something that stands out and says, "Wow, that was straight out of a nightmare. If I had that I'd sure wake up screaming with the cold sweats." Or makes the audience feel, "I'm going to have nightmares about that." Or leaves the audience likely to jump at their own shadow for hours afterward.

I am not looking for anything too sick, or gross, but of course those are very subjective lines. Killing Time has included sex, violence, not much gore necessarily--being text that's hard to do well--and occasionally brushes with sex and violence mixed.

Sexual violence is particularly sensitive, and frightening innuendo beforehand or fast forwarding to the aftermath, and the lasting psychological damage it does, is preferable if you even have to go there at all--have a very good reason for including it. If you question whether to send something like that in the slightest, don't send it to me. I certainly don't want anything even approaching the level of Wes Craven's Hills Have Eyes in the matter of this kind of depravity, let alone Last House on the Left.

Now for the other kinds of nasty business. If your story includes racism, sexism, religious hatred, or any other kind of offensive subjects and bigotry make sure you are clear that it is the view of the antagonists, the evil, no-good, nasty people. As a matter of taste, and in deference to taste, I do not want those kinds of traits in the protagonist(s), the majority of the people/population, or especially the narrative voice. I also prefer such villainous characters pay excessively for such attitudes, but there is a lot of leeway in that. You still might be treading on rejection with it from the bad people. Again if you have doubts don't send it. These kinds of hate issues can ruin your reputation, and I won't be party to anything that smacks of their purposeful propagation.

Profanity is permissible, but I prefer if it is not persistently throughout. I know some people swear as frequently as every other word but do not believe it is necessary to convey that directly; it just turns people off if it is excessive/pervasive. It is more effective if used to convey strong emotion or illustrate someone past the breaking point. On a tangent, I do not shy away from naughty slang for body parts or medical terms for them, but again, less is more without good reason--a certain amount is needed and wanted in sex scenes, as an obvious example.

I'm not going to ask for topic limits like some places do. If you want to send vampire stories go ahead, as long as they are horror and not fantasy/romance without a heavy dose of horror. Same thing for werewolves. I have no problem with slashers either. I would like to see lots of supernatural stories such as ghosts, devils, zombies, magical mayhem, beings from beyond this reality with eldritch powers or the like, and monsters. Again keep with the horror. It's easy to take a monster story into action and adventure genre stylings. I'm not looking for that unless you bring home the horror too.

Formatting

I require all submissions to be sent by email. Please use old Word .DOC format or .RTF or plain .TXT or a Google Docs document (basically you will share the document with me through Docs). Please attach your document to the email, or link to the Google Doc, or in the case of plain text you may include the story in the email body itself. If your document uses fonts and advanced formatting such as with Word then please use an easy to read font with black text on a white background. I will accept double spacing, but prefer single. Make certain your story is as edited and polished as it can be. While I will proof read and make small edits to your submission, it should as be as complete and perfect as it can be, as if it were going to be published without any changes at all. I am not going to specify any specific style guide; I will follow my own in editing and formatting your story. I may also change a word here or there, or ask you to make changes yourself if I feel the story warrants it.

Please include at least a brief cover letter containing a little bit about the story, the word count, and a small sample list of any previous publication credits you may have, if any.

Send your submission to rgmale@batteredspleenproductions.com and include the subject "KT Submission" so that it doesn't get lost.

One Last Suggestion

If you have been accepted it is because you have met or exceeded my own expectations of what is beneficial for my publishing reputation. I am not doing people favours or stroking their egos. If I could pay you I would. I would like nothing more than to be pro-rate paying publisher. Now, if I published you, paid or not, I consider you a real author. As such, if you were not already aware, you should promote the publication that has published you. Promote it everywhere and anywhere you feel comfortable promoting it. Do not spam people with it, though, or cause controversy with it. Keep in mind your reputation and mine when promoting. Raising my sales figures can only be good for you as well, and it will contribute toward paying for submissions in the future.

Good luck and send me your best work.