Submissions

• Email queries to shortsharpshock@hotmail.com
• S3 only accepts electronic queries.
• Send a cover note, and the first thousand words of your novella IN THE BODY OF AN EMAIL (do not send attachments or entire manuscripts). If we like what we read, we'll request more. If the decision is made to ask for an entire hard (paper) copy of the the manuscript, you will need to send it via snail mail to a Canadian address which will be provided.
• If you are invited to send in a hard copy, the actual manuscript will be discarded, not returned.
• If you receive a rejection email, this is not an invitation to engage in a debate about the merits of your writing. Decisions are final, but writers are always welcome to submit a different work.
• When it comes to the format of manuscripts, clean paper, clean fonts, good spacing and margins are preferred. Important: make sure your name and the novella's title are in the header of each page, and the pages are numbered. Spelling and grammar matter, and skip gimmicks (colored paper, funny fonts, etc).
• When a manuscript is accepted for publication, a Word document will need to be provided by the author.
• Word count must be 20,000 to 35,000.
• Submissions are invited from anywhere in the world (English only, please), and simultaneous submissions are welcome.
• All work must be original and unpublished. Don't send anything that will land us in court.
• Each issue of S3 contains three novellas (by different authors).
• Authors can only be published in S3 once. We want our contributors to move on to book deals.
• Payment is $20 (Canadian) and one comp copy. We'll also send one copy and a press release, at our expense, to a media outlet in your market. We are purchasing first print rights, with a one-year exclusive. Each issue of S3 is sold online for one year after which it is "de-activated" and no longer available for purchase. All of your rights revert to you at this time. We reserve the right to stockpile up to 100 copies of each issue for future sales.