Guidelines

Ensure a Reading of your Submission

Read the guidelines (below) before submitting. For literature, read at least the Rates & Rights section and the Formatting section. Visual artists should also see the Visual Art section. By submitting anything for publication, you are accepting the terms below.

Media

We publish all short electronic media: Short Fiction, Flash & Micro-fiction, Graphic/Illustrated Fiction, Serials, Poetry, Reviews, and Essays. For visual art (see Visual Art below), we publish photography, graphic art, artwork scans, and illustrations to accompany our literature.

Genre

We publish all genres as well as cross-genre work. We're interested in story-telling, regardless of theme or setting. What we look for is universality of theme - something that adds to the tradition of story - the stories we have been telling since the beginning. A common misconception: this is not a magazine that particularly specializes in fairy stories, though we do publish them. We're interested in stories - Whether dark, bright, erotic, mysterious, adventurous, dystopian, folkloric, or fantastic.

Rates & Rights

Rates, Rights, & the Terms of Submission

Maximum Wordcount: 1000 words (as of March 21st).
Deadline: Autumn Submissions are closed. We're in our reading period. For future submissions, please try back again at a later date.
Feel free to view our Production Calendar.

The Pay Rates (upon publication):

• Short Short Fiction (501 - 1000 words) $5
• Flash Fiction (500 words or less - including nanofiction, drabble, micro-fiction, postcard fiction, etc.) $3
• Graphic Short Fiction $5
• Poetry/Verse $1
• Essay/Review $1
• Illustration/Photography/Theme Set $1
• Issue Cover $3

Paypal (www.paypal.com) is our preferred method of payment, but cheques can be sent if needed.

Simultaneous Submissions: We do not accept simultaneous submissions.

First World/Electronic Publications Rights We are buying first rights, with no distinction between print and electronic publication. Professional publications, whether electronic or print, recognize first rights as having been conferred upon initial publication in either type of venue. We are buying the right to consider any further publication to be reprinting, whether in print or electronically. The author has the responsibility to treat it as such, including proper attribution for MYTHOLOG as the original source for subsequent publications in any venue. MYTHOLOG cooperates with other publications, print and electronic, in holding writers accountable for sale of first rights.

Archives Past issues (back issues) and their contents are made available in their entirety to readers of the magazine. These issues are also indexed by issue, medium, author, etc. with hyperlinks to individual pieces. We reserve the right to refer, via hyperlink and/or description, to any section of previous issues, including the individual pieces they contain (e.g. to mention works we've previously published, as in a retrospective section of an issue). This is not considered a reprint. Current issues remain available as such until the appearance of the next issue, which generally occurs quarterly.

Reprinting: Authors may choose to reprint their work in any venue after six months from our publication date, provided proper credit is given, i.e. Originally published in MYTHOLOG (www.mytholog.com), [YEAR]. Reprinted with permission..

Work that appeared on the internet or in a chapbook: "Allowing your manuscript to be published on a Web site conveys first publication rights, no matter what the site says to the contrary." (Emily Vander Veer, "Everyone's a Critic" Writer July 2001, pp16-17.) We conduct a thorough multi-pronged search of the internet, including defunct web sites, for material that is substantially the same as submitted material. Items that have already appeared on the internet in open forum or on a web site are considered to have been published, even if they appear on a personal homepage, in a mailing list, newsgroup, or on a listserv. Work that has appeared in a printed chapbook has also been published. Generally speaking, we do not publish previously published work. It is perfectly acceptable for work to have been workshopped in a forum that required a login or other secure access and is not, therefore, indexed by search engines.

Theft and Fraud Policy: Electronic publication has been an immense boon to authors and publishers everywhere. With it comes certain pitfalls: those who have no fundamental belief in the professionalism of the medium, the dignity of the profession, and the ethics appropriate to the field, may treat electronically published material as mere digital ephemera. Plagiarism, copyright violation, and ignoring the guidelines to which one agrees through submission, are likely to result from such a deficient view. Persons engaging in this behaviour are asking to be collectively and permanently ignored by any decent publication out there but, in the meantime they can do a lot of damage to the community, the medium, and the field. This kind of activity undermines the work of other writers and publishers. MYTHOLOG exists to assert that electronic publication can lay claim to the same professional standards and dignity as print publication. Reducing electronic articles to the internet version of photostat copies threatens that very assertion. That is a sad thing, and it clear that it can only come from a lack of respect for what we do as a vocation. Out of respect for our community, and to reassure you that we take protecting your work, the credibility of the field, and the standards of the vocation, seriously enough to make a stand, we reserve the right to refuse consideration to a writer who violates the professional standards of the profession and may participate in similarly banning anyone, publisher or writer, who makes a nuisance of themselves by this kind of activity in the general web- publishing community.

Formatting Requirements

Submission Header

Header: At the top of the submission, include the following:

• Title
• By-line
• Word Count
• "Subscriber" or "Non-Subscriber" (Subscription is currently free.).
• e-mail address (Use one you plan to check regularly until the next issue is published). We recommend you register the e-mail address (free) with paypal.com, if you've not done so, so we can pay you upon publication.
• Binder: The contractual words "First World/Electronic Publications Rights. Guidelines Accepted. Original work. Not previously published. Not simultaneous submission." (See RIGHTS, above)

Please Note: Each reading period we get a certain number of submissions where the author is shopping the piece elsewhere simultaneously, or has had it printed for distribution or else displayed it on the open web in the past. The header is an agreement made at time of submission that you don't have it submitted elsewhere, are submitting it only to MYTHOLOG, and that it hasn't appeared anywhere else except in closed forum. In short, you're granting us the rights indicated, should we wish to use them (provided we reimburse you for them as indicated in our pay rates). If you don't 'really' agree to the Guidelines, please don't submit.

The Style Sheet

_italic text_ or *bold text*

Checklist:

The Process

After Submission

Selection Process
When submissions are received, a "Submission Received" is sent - usually within a week. If you don't receive acknowledgement within one week, please notify us. Each submissions is screened for compliance with the guidelines and suitability for the magazine. Successfully screened submissions are placed before the Submissions Board. The submissions are discussed and voted on. A consensus model is used, with the Chief Editor having a tiebreaker vote, when a consensus cannot be reached. The Chief Editor also has a veto, but it has never been used. Notice is then sent to the author of either acceptance, conditional acceptance (request for revision), rejection, or request for rewrite (substantial revision). If accepted, the piece is made available to our illustrators, who may choose to illustrate it, and an editor volunteers or is assigned to edit the piece. It is edited, then sent to the copy-editor for corrections and formatting, who then turns it over to the proofing team for final corrections. It is then added to the upcoming issue. Upon publication, it is also placed in the indexed archives and the author is paid the amount specified in the guidelines.

Time: It takes varying amounts of time for the editors to confer on each submission. The length of time says nothing conclusive about the quality, content, or style of the work. Many factors contribute to short or long review periods. Generally, you can expect an acceptance or return of your work within 45 days - often much sooner than that. Relative to the time taken by magazines on the aggregate, this is reasonably brief.

Editing: We reserve the right to edit submissions for publication, but we will endeavor at all times to maintain the integrity of your work. Generally, we'll consult you about any dramatic changes or ask you to proof a print-ready copy.

Originals: Do keep your own copy of work you submit. Things can get lost in the mail or the shuffle, even on the internet. Machinery dies, media degrades. Keep your own copy in a private place.

Feedback: Rejections are generally handled, initially, by a form letter. Feedback is certainly available on request but, generally, we don't presume to offer it unless a writer specifically asks. We also make no guarantee about the quality or substance of the feedback and, legally, it is worth what you pay for it. If you'd like some advance guidance, feel free to take a look at Asher Black's essay on Flinching from the Reader.

Rejections: The most common reasons for rejection are:

• Editorial decision
• Previously published
• Simultaneous submission
• Returned for revision
• Other guidelines issues (attachments, header missing, etc.)

For Visual Artists

Illustrations, Theme Art, and Cover Art

If you're interested in some examples of past work, here they are:

• Graphic/Photographic by Teresa Tunaely
• Graphic Art by Teresa Tunaley
• Graphic Art by Teresa Tunaley
• Cover w. Masthead by Teresa Tunaley
• Cover by Teresa Tunaley
• Multiple Media by Mary Pat Mann
• Author Illustration by E.A. Gundlach
• Altered Photography by Kimberlee Rettberg
• Photography by Kimberlee Rettberg
• Colored Pencil by Kimberlee Rettberg
• Abstract by Kimberlee Rettberg
• The Ever Present Twin Tree by Kimberlee Rettberg
• Fairy Tale Art by Amanda Burkinshaw
• The Famous Dryad Cover by Amanda Burkinshaw
• Inked Cover by Mike "Warble" Finucane

Note: Theme art (a set of simple individual graphics: leaves, snowflakes, branches, flowers, etc.) can be submitted with a simple query. You must still possess and be able to transfer the rights expressed in the BINDER under FORMATTING REQUIREMENTS (above), and specify that binder in any submission.

Generally, we take on illustrators as contributors after an audition or trial run. It’s often helpful if a visual or graphic artist shows us a small portfolio of work. However, when we see the talent in such work, it’s still difficult to see how the artist would interpret and comment upon, through his work, literature in the magazine. So, the method we use is to ask the artist to do an audition.

To audition, the artist chooses and illustrates an un-illustrated piece from the current or a previous issue. We will either accept the submission, adding it to the issue, and then offering the artist access to the developing magazine to choose from upcoming work to illustrate, or else we’ll reject the submission as wrong for the piece, but still grant the artist access, recognizing that future submissions are likely to be a good fit, or else we’ll decline both the submission and future contributions. Sometimes artists tell us they don’t have time to do an audition, but this is really necessary for us to also gauge the degree to which the artist as illustrator and/or cover artist, is willing and able to work with us on illustrating upcoming issues. After a while, if the artist chooses to illustrate for us consistently, we may move the artist from contributor to regular staff status.

Submitted visual art may not have been previously displayed in any medium, including a personal web site or gallery, electronic or otherwise.