PLEASE NOTE: DRAGON TOOTH FANTASY IS
OPEN
FOR SUBMISSIONS!
Authors can create a new life with a few paragraphs, remake history with a
short story, bring hope with a poem and knowledge with an essay. The art of
writing can offer love eternal, a journey to the stars, or a flight on the
wings of a dragon... Writers are the true magicians of the world.
Dragon
Tooth Fantasy Ebooks is a strictly fantasy ebook publishing imprint. I am
interested in reading manuscripts of any type of fantasy: heroic, mythic,
sword and sorcery, urban, contemporary, magical realism, dark fantasy and
any other stories in which magic plays a pivotal role.
Types of Fantasy
I do
not read horror or science fiction manuscripts.
We are
not interested in any form of fanfic -- that is a story based on any copyrighted
material, whether that is television, movie, comic book, game, novel, or
anything else of this type.
At
certain times of the year I will open up submissions to short stories for
specific anthologies, but I will not accept short story submissions at any other
time.
Please
follow these guidelines:
We have very few
guidelines that must be followed, so please pay attention to them.
Submissions that do not follow these short guidelines will be rejected.
-
All stories must have
magic as a key factor in the tale, as well as interesting characters and a
plot that reaches a logical conclusion.
-
Your
manuscript must be presented in Arial or Times, 12
point font, and double spaced. Please make sure your manuscript is
spell-checked and grammatically correct. Do not justify the margins.
-
NEW! Please make certain that
your name and title of the work is on the first page, and that you have your
name and the title in the upper left hand side of each page and the page
number on the right hand side. This should be done in the 'header' part of the
document. Example:
-
Manuscripts
must be between 35,000 and 150,000 words long. You can use the word
processor count for this purpose. (35,000 is technically a long novella,
but that's part of the joy of ebook publishing -- we have a far wider range of
accepted lengths.)
-
Your
manuscript MUST be saved in Rich Text Format (RTF) and sent as
an email attachment to
Double Dragon Fantasy Imprint.
No other format is accepted.
-
The subject of
your email should be Submission: (title of novel).
In the body of your email Include a
short blurb, no more than 250 words, that gives a taste of your story.
This is not a synopsis. Think, rather, of a TV guide review of a show -- it's
just enough to whet the interest of the reader.
-
Do
not send a zip file. I will not open it. If your manuscript is too
long to send via your account, break it into two or more pieces, but let me
know in the first email that there are more parts arriving.
-
For more information about submissions and contracts,
check out the
Double Dragon
Guideline's Page
So to recap what you put in your
submission package:
- The full manuscript in .rtf format as an
attachment
- A short blurb of no more than 250 words
Beyond these guidelines, what will help you get published in Dragon Tooth
Ebooks?
-
I am
not interested in first person present tense stories. (I go out
into the street and walk down to the corner. I see my friends coming
to join me.) This is a personal dislike, and no matter how strong
the story, I fear that I will not overcome that dislike to judge the
material well. However, if you feel that you want to try publication
at Double Dragon, you can submit
here.
-
If you have trilogy or longer, the first novel must be compete and I will
want synopsis/outlines for all the remaining books in the series. However,
if you write stand alone novels with the same characters and backgrounds
these manuscripts can be presented as single submissions. And, to be upfront, they will
likely have a better chance of selling, unless you have the entire
trilogy/set completed.
-
Watch
out for that pesky passive voice. Make your characters active.
For instance:
Mary was going to the store when she saw there was a robbery at the house
next door. (Passive)
While heading for the store, Mary spotted a robbery at the house next
door. (better)
Mary slammed the front door shut and stalked down to the sidewalk, annoyed
that she had to walk to the store again, and in the dark. She barely
noticed the noise next door until she realized she heard whispers, not
cats, in the driveway. Mary paused by the huge oak and watched with
dawning apprehension. Someone had broken into the house next door.
(Not great, but we have a better idea of emotions and sounds.)
Fantasy and sf share
the tools of creativity that move beyond the limitations of reality. They also
have the same rules. In order for fantasy novels to work best and capture the
interest of the reader, they must not only have solid plots and good characters,
but the world itself must be built on a believable and logical system. Cause,
effect, cost and payment are all important considerations for the writer looking
at creating a magic system and the world in which it exists.
Limitations
may be one of the most important words that a fantasy writer learns. I have
seen people show disdain for the fantasy genre with the claim that it's
unbelievable because anything is possible. And if that were true it would be a
boring genre. However, we create limitations for the powers that exist in the
stories. These limitations come in many forms, are not only items that sometimes have to be found, but also
payments of a more personal type that will weaken the character and make him
vulnerable in some way.
No power - - whether mundane or magical - -
comes without a cost. If someone wrote a book about a man who came to rule the
world, but never had to give up any thing or pay anything in terms of personal
choices to achieve that spot, the reader would likely find it unbelievable and
probably boring. The most popular stories in fiction deal with people facing
their limitations.
Magic is a tool. Use it wisely
in your books.
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