Abandoned Towers Writer's Guide

Please read all the guidelines before submitting.

PLEASE NOTE: There are two parts to Abandoned Towers Magazine. They are:

Online content - free to everyone

Print/pdf content - not free, but not expensive.

None of the print/pdf content ever appears on the website.

None of the online content ever appears in the print issues.

The online content submission process is the same as for the print mag and carries the same requirement for excellent writing. We reserve the right to offer acceptance for a different format than you originally requested.

What we want:

We are looking for fiction, poetry, and non-fiction. Our mission is to provide good, quality entertainment to a wide audience. Rather than give you a long list of what we want, we'll provide you with a short list of what we do not want. If you're not sure whether your submission fits our not-wanted list, write and ask.

What we will not accept under any circumstances :

Fan-fiction.

Content rated "PG 13" or above.

Blood, guts, gore or slasher horror.

Religious material.

Gratuitous Sexuality.

Cursing and Obscene Language.

What we're not too interested in:

Anything that the market is currently saturated with.

We accept all genre and literary fiction, both poetry and prose. We also accept non-fiction articles about almost anything as long as it’s an interesting topic.

Word Count and Line Limits:

Free-verse poems

We do not accept anything with less than 3 lines or more than 30 lines.

Structured Poems

We require that the poet state what form is used, and provide the structure rules if the form is uncommon.

Prose - Fiction and Non-fiction

Minimum word count - 1 (but boy that better be one really good word if we're gonna pay you 10 bucks for it!)

Maximum word count - 4500

Alt-history

We accept alternate history, however be aware that if your story is too far into the alternate we may reclassify it as something else.

RPG and game based stories

We do accept these; however your submission may not violate the game's copy written, or trademarked, content. As an example, you might have a character running around in one of the popular online multiplayer games. You might want to write a story about your character's adventures. That, in itself, is fine. But before you mention the game world, or use the names of any of its creatures or characters belonging to other players, you must first get permission from the gaming company and the other players. It's usually easier if you create your own world to set your story in.

Reprints

We accept previously published work as long as you have the rights and can provide proof if necessary. We define previously published as any work presented to the public by a professional entity in any format. Professional entities are: E-zines, podcast sites, print publications and others like these, whether such organizations pay for the work they publish or not. We do not consider work posted to a crit group, in a personal blog, an online forum, or other places where the intention is not to publish professionally to be previously published.

Simultaneous Submissions

We do not accept simultaneous submissions. If you have sent your work out to another publisher, please wait until they have made a decision before sending us your manuscript. If you feel you can't wait on the other publisher any longer, then contact them and withdraw you manuscript before sending it to us.

Multiple submissions to us

We're more than happy to have you send us several stories or poems at the same time.

Query Letters

Query letters are a frightening beast for a lot of authors, so we're going to make this easy on you. We want your query letter to contain your name, a description of what you'd like to submit and which genre you feel it would fit best.

Don't go to a lot of trouble trying to write the perfect elevator pitch or boil your story down into five sentences. Just tell us what it's about. Make it simple. Pretend you're writing to a friend and don't worry so much. We're not judging your ability as an author on your query letter, we just want to know if your work sounds like something that would fit what we publish.

Please do not include a bio or a list of your publication credits with the query letter.

Please do not send email attachments with your query letter.

Please make sure your contact information is correct and that your email spam filters will not prevent our communications from reaching your inbox. We try to send acknowledgements the day we receive your submission. We will make every possible effort to contact you; however, life and internet gremlins happen to everyone. If you have not heard from us within three days, assume we didn't receive your email and contact us by posting in our online forum. We do have an email gremlin catcher on staff, but the sneaky things sometimes get past him anyway.

Payment terms

For content accepted for the print issues, we pay:

5.00 per poem

10.00 per article or story

Additionally, all print issue contributors get a complimentary free pdf version of the issue their work appears in.

We do not pay for content accepted for online.

For more information, email us at atsubs@gmail.com