Deadline: 30 October 2010
Geographical coverage: undisclosed
Reading Fee: none
Accepts (genre): dark stories
Prize/Payment: pro rate of pay, plus publication in issue #4 of Shock Totem
Contact: blunted@cafedoom.com
This year we are teaming up with Ken Allen Wood and his staff at Shock Totem Magazine cheers
Ken will choose the winning story from our top ten, publish it in Issue #4 and pay the author the princely sum of five cents per word. In addition he will choose the second and third place runners-up, whom I will award Amazon vouchers to the value of $100 and $50 respectively. To sweeten the pot a little more I'll be giving away copies of Shock Totem, issues #1 and #2 to the authors of my personal favourite top three, which may or may not feature in the overall top ten.
Word limit is 5,000 and the closing date is 30th October 2010. For a full list of details please read on:
We’re sticking with the same format as the past couple of years, which is a fairly unusual way to run a comp, because all the entrants get to have their say about the stories and pick their favourites.
What happens is each entrant has to join the Cafe Doom forum (if they’re not already a member), then send their entry to blunted (at) cafedoom.com via an e-mail attachment in .rtf or .txt format, single spaced, line breaks instead of indents to denote paragraphs, and use BB Code to format any italics, etc.
In the body of the e-mail, they must state their forum name and the title of their story. DO NOT POST YOUR STORY IN THE BODY OF THE E-MAIL.
On 31st October, the day following the closing date of the competition, all the stories will be posted anonymously on one forum thread by the forum admin. Thereafter, and for the following seven days (may be extended to fourteen if we’re swamped with submissions), the entrants must read the entries, and vote for their top three favourite stories on another forum thread. Failure to vote will result in the entrant being disqualified and their story being stripped of its points. Ken Allen Wood will choose the winning stories from the top ten entries.
To summarise –
Prizes as follows:
1st place - Pro rate of pay, plus publication in issue #4 of Shock Totem.
2nd place - $100 Amazon voucher.
3rd place - $50 Amazon voucher.
In addition to this I will give issues of Shock Totem #1 and #2 to the authors of my three favourite stories.
Theme – open, but dark.
Word limit - 5,000
Closing date – 30th October 2010
Be aware that Shock Totem may require the author of the winning story to make changes to it in order to meet their editorial standards. As with any other market, the magazine will sometimes ask their authors to make a few edits and additions to keep the editor happy.
More information here.
