Browse our ebook store and visit our publishing website www.booksmugglerspub.com.
Presenting Book Smugglers Publishing
Since 2008 we have been reading, commenting on, and sharing our thoughts about stories. After the amazing experience of curating Speculative Fiction 2013, we Book Smugglers want to continue to find and publish the best and brightest voices in SFF.
Book Smugglers Publishing looks for English language original speculative fiction and speculative fiction commentary from all around the world.
Short Stories
Current 2017 season:
Gods and Monsters
Six tales of gods, monsters and everything in between: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror, Ancient Egypt, and more
Past publication seasons include:
Subversive Fairy Tales – 2014
Six subversive retellings of fairy tales from diverse international voices, including classic western fables, and folklore from New Zealand, Japan, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East
First Contact – 2015
Four tales of first encounters, including traditional science fiction, experimental short fiction, historical fantasy, and science fiction romance
Spindle City Mysteries – 2015
Three interconnected novelettes by Carlie St George – mystery noir meets fairytale retellings with a wide range of diverse characters
The Year of the Superhero – 2016
Five super stories of superheroes, including urban fantasy noir, traditional superheroes, science fiction, and fantasy
Halloween Tales of Horror
Annual tales of horror, published every Halloween
“Fighting Demons” by S. L. Huang
A sequel to “Hunting Monsters”, the first ever story published by Book Smugglers Publishing
“The Beatriceid” by Kate Elliott
A stunning new short story, written in verse, set in Kate Elliott’s Spiritwalker Universe
“The Little Homo Sapiens Scientist” by S.L. Huang
A dark, flipped Science Fiction retelling of The Little Mermaid. Available as ebook and limited print edition.
Hurricane Heels series by Isabel Yap
Five interconnected novelettes by Isabel Yap – magical girls, friendship and saving the world. Available as ebook and paperback
Novellas
We officially kick-started our Novella Initiative for Halloween 2016. The award-winning The Convergence of Fairy Tales by Octavia Cade is available now.
2017:
Keeper of the Dawn by Dianna L. Gunn
Reenu-You by Michele Tracy Berger
Bearly a Lady by Cassandra Khaw
More about the Novella Initiative and upcoming novellas.
Novels
The Extrahuman Union is a series of four interconnected novels, featuring a group of superheroes struggling to survive in a dystopian future under the oppression of a totalitarian regime. Over the course of these books, we watch these very human superheroes fly, fall, and dream of freedom.
Out now:
Broken
Sky Ranger
The Spark
Extrahumans
The Book Smugglers’ Quarterly Almanac
Launched in June 2016, The Book Smugglers’ Quarterly Almanac collects original short fiction and selected reprints, plus original essays, reviews, and other assorted goodies. The Almanac is available in both print (in a sweet, collectible almanac-sized book) and electronic formats, and sold via all the usual online retailers as well as directly from our website. We also offer it through Weightless Books.
More information about the Almanac is available here.
Speculative Fiction Series
Speculative Fiction is a not-for-profit, Hugo Award-winning publication that collects the best and most provocative online reviews, essays, and commentary from across SFF fandom.
Speculative Fiction 2015, edited by Foz Meadows and Mark Oshiro, is out now
About us: What We Look For & Submission Guidelines
- DIVERSITY. We want to read and publish stories that reflect the diverse world we live in, about and from traditionally underrepresented perspectives. It should go without saying that we’d hope for a respectful and responsible approach to creating diverse worlds and characters.
- Middle Grade, Young Adult, and Adult audience submissions are welcome. Good speculative fiction is ageless!
- Creativity & Subversion. We love subversive stories. We want you to challenge the status quo with your characters, story telling technique, and themes.
Guidelines for Fiction Submissions:
- We are looking for original speculative fiction, between 1,500 and 17,500 words long for short stories, and between 17,500 and 40,000 words long for novellas.
- These SFF offerings must be previously unpublished; we do not accept simultaneous submissions.
- Profanity, sex, and other explicit situations are fine as long as they fit within the context of the story.
Payment and Terms:
We are a small independent publisher, and fund all publications ourselves because we are passionate about finding new and diverse voices in SFF.
For Short Stories, we pay $0.08 per word up to $800 (although we welcome stories from a minimum of 1,500 words and up to a maximum of 17,500 words long).
We typically publish short stories for free in their entirety on thebooksmugglers.com. We also sell these stories in ebook (and possibly limited print editions) at a 50% net royalty, with potential inclusion in future anthologies (royalty to be negotiated). We typically ask for exclusive rights for one year, and non-exclusive rights following that.
For Novellas, we typically offer a few options to our authors, depending on a number of factors including length of story, genre and commercial outlook.
We ask for exclusive print, digital, audio worldwide rights, and we plan on publishing the novellas in both electronic and print formats.
How to Submit:
Submissions should be emailed to submissions@thebooksmugglers.com. We are currently open for short story submissions for our 2018 season. Submissions close on December 31, 2017. Full guidelines here.
Please attach your full story as a document (.doc, .docx, .rtf). Do not send your story as text in the body of an email; we will ignore any manuscripts that are not attachments.
A cover letter is not strictly necessary but recommended, and we would love to learn a little bit about you and the inspiration behind your work (or anything else you think is relevant to your story submission).
We are happy to answer any of your questions! Email us (contact@thebooksmugglers.com), and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible.
Gregg Chamberlain
June 6, 2014 at 1:24 pmJust a query re: submissions. If responses to submissions follow after August 15 or if there might be any responses sent out prior to that date?
Ta-merci for your time.
harvin sing wazir
June 7, 2014 at 8:58 amI wrote a fiction with the main efflux of magical realism. My word count is near 30,000.
could you direct me to the exact.
thanks
Tarl
June 21, 2014 at 2:15 pmI may just have something for this. 🙂
Rebecca Ann Jordan
July 9, 2014 at 4:58 pmThis looks like such a cool collection. Can’t wait to read it!
The Eurocentricity of Disney | Sierra Dawn, Write On
July 22, 2014 at 7:05 pm[…] out today’s post, I present to you: The Book Smugglers. They’re currently accepting fairy tale submissions for their upcoming issue. And they’re specifically looking for diversity. Needless to say, I […]
Catriona
August 1, 2014 at 5:39 amI submitted a story yesterday, but did not receive an automatic acknowledgment. I would appreciate some reassurance that this doesn’t mean something went wrong!
Ana
August 4, 2014 at 5:15 amHi Catriona – we’ve got it, thank you!
Hi Greg! Sorry about the delay replying – we will start sending out replies after we finish reading all stories. We aim to have all done by August 30
Ayan Pal
August 31, 2014 at 12:47 amI submitted my entry “Thank the Gods for a Fairy Tale Ending” on 31st July, a few minutes before midnight – India time. I am yet to receive either an automatic acknowledgement mail, or and response about the story. Would really look forward to your inputs on this. Thanks a ton in advance!
Ana
August 31, 2014 at 1:06 pmDear Ayan,
We received your story, thanks for submitting it. An official reply was sent to you this morning at 10:34am GMT and we also replied to your email today. I fear our communications might be getting lost or trapped in a junk folder!
Best of luck,
Ana
sarmila
September 30, 2014 at 3:03 amThank you so much for submitting it.This is a great post really i like it and thanks a lot for sharing for these interesting post.
sexywin
Tyler
November 12, 2014 at 2:32 pmi am just entering this for fun and do as a starter thing and I was wondering if there was any age restrictions to this?
Ana
November 15, 2014 at 6:54 pmHi Tyler, thanks for the interest. There is no age restriction to submitting a short story.
Hannah
December 19, 2014 at 11:29 pmDo you accept multiple submissions?
Jesse
December 26, 2014 at 4:27 amHi, I submitted a story for First Contact a few weeks ago but have not received an automated response. Could you confirm receipt please? Thank you!
Update update update update | MISSHALLELUJAH.NET
January 9, 2015 at 12:47 am[…] an anthology edited by Zen Cho. Submissions close Dec 31st. ? The Booksmugglers are looking for First Contact stories for their fiction series. Submissions close December […]
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Mary
January 10, 2015 at 8:51 pmI, too, submitted a first contact story, and am anxious to know if you received it. Thanks so much for doing this, btw!
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Bruce Walther
February 6, 2015 at 1:48 pmI am sorry I missed this site to late. I am writing a series of books called “The Voyages of Seadog” This is a true story of 20 years of smuggling marijuana in the Carribbean. The good times and the bad times in a chronological order. Let me know if there will be anymore opportunities to use your site. I would appreciate a reply.
Thanks Seadog
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