Just as you can't kill a zombie, project Dead
Space, an anthology of short stories about zombies in space is stirring and about to rise again.
In 2007 we had lined up most of the authors we needed to fill the anthology but a series of delays and various personal scheduling conflicts resulted in many of our potential authors to bow out. In 2008 we will be starting over with new authors and move our publishing date up to the moment we have the book filled out.
Subject: The story should be about zombies or some form of animated/un/dead or generally zombie like creature and should be set somewhere off planet. The tone can be horror, adventure, comedy, romance or whatever, but preferably science fiction.
Length: We believe the story should dictate the length, but we're looking for stories in the 5-10 thousand word range. Shorter is ok, but lengths much past 10 or 15 thousand may be problematic and will be judged on a case by case basis. In general one should tell the story as efficiently as possible.
Standards: Given the subject matter, we expect gore, but excessive lingering on the details will actually diminish its impact rather than enhance it. Zombie stories are not for the squeamish, but just make sure it enhances the story rather than detracts from it. As far as sex and profanity goes, keep it PG. My mom and my kids may be reading this, besides, how sick do you have to be to add sex to a zombie story!?
Rights & Royalties: We are only asking for non-exclusive rights, which means that while you are giving us the right to publish your story, you still retain the right to republish it or do whatever you want with it. As far as royalties go, we're not in this for the profit. We consider this a collective effort and will be dividing up any profit that may occur during the year between all contributors based upon their contributions. Some CTMB members have chosen to donate their profits to help cover CTMB expenses and other authors are encouraged but certainly not required to do the same.
Submissions: Please query first by submitting a short one paragraph summary of your story idea. If you are not already published, please include a sample scene that you've written for a story you have submitted or that you think is ready for submission.
The final manuscript should be submitted as a word (or .rtf) file in standard manuscript format, meaning double spaced 12pt serif fonts with one inch margins on all sides. Also, being old fashioned, we prefer that you double space after periods.
Send Queries to: editor@ctmb.us