As a digital publication in its infancy, we strive to make our guidelines for submission competitive and equal to what you would expect from veteran publications today. Below are the basic guidelines true of any fiction or nonfiction submissions, followed by more detailed information. Please, read them carefully, as failure to follow these guides can result in refusal of your submission:

• Arial Font 12pt.
• Use justification on your entire document.
• 1.5 space between paragraphs.
• Do not indent paragraphs.
• Do not put your name or title anywhere in your submission.
• English only!
• Two submissions per contributor, per issue.
  
• Use proper spelling, grammar and syntax. Use the “spell check” on your word processor before submitting. Google Docs is FREE!
• Submissions are accepted ONLY via our Google Form link on our Submissions page. Do not send any submissions via email or Direct Message on Discord.
• You must provide a Title and Pen Name when filling out the Submission Form.
• Do not submit a continuation or piece of a larger whole (aka novel). Each story should have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Self-contained!
• Absolutely no sexuality, violence, or profanity. Extreme use or depiction of any of these things will result in a submission rejection.
• Do not resubmit the same story again if it has already been rejected. All submissions are checked. Submit the same story twice and we will no longer accept your submissions.
• No fan fiction of any kind. No exceptions. Even with permission, we DO NOT accept fan fiction material. Only IP owned by the writer.
• Additional formatting (such as italics, bold, or underline) will be applied to submissions within reason. Overuse of these devices is frowned upon.
• By submitting to Storyzine Magazine you agree to have your story printed in our publication as well as on our website. Should you wish to have a story permanently removed, you must use our CONTACT FORM to make this request.
• The rights to all submissions are retained by you, the writer. Storyzine holds no claims over ownership. Be sure to read rules of subsequent publications you decide to submit a story to if it’s one you submitted here first.

DETAILED GUIDELINES

Statement on Diversity: 

We believe that all genres have their own unique diversity and it can be a great strength. We also believe that not every story needs to be fully diverse to have a great storytelling experience for our readers. We welcome submissions from writers of every race, religion, nationality, gender and sexual orientation.

Stories must be:

1. Well-written. We have a volunteer team that reads over all submissions to give comments and advice, but we rely on the writer to look over their work for grammar and spelling errors. If a submission has too many red or blue underlines on their submission it will be rejected.
2. Original Content. We want stories that will capture the readers imagination and pull them into your world that you created. We believe that storytelling is something that can always be essential throughout history and we hope your story will prove us right.

What we don’t want:

1. Unoriginal content such as Fan-Fiction or any story based on a world or character you did not create yourself. Even if you have permission to use it, we will not accept it.
2. Original content that is a “to be continued…” for a larger whole (such as a novel) that you have it tied to. It can be a part of a universe you’ve already created but it MUST have a beginning, a middle, and an end.
3. Extremely graphic scenes or language of any kind. We understand fiction is artistic and interpretational, but we rely on readers to take the time to read every page of our issues. Therefore we reserve the right to reject any story we deem too graphic.

Fiction Submission Process

Do NOT email your submissions. Do NOT use our Contact form as a means to submit a story. Do NOT use our Discord Server to submit a story. The server can be used to discuss ideas for a story and share a possible story to submit with other members. We do NOT accept submissions in any of these ways. No exceptions. Storyzine ONLY uses the following Google Form for all of our submissions at this time. You do NOT need to have a Gmail account to submit a story but you do have to have a working email account and you must be a member of our Discord Server.

Our submissions form asks for your Full Name, Pen Name, email address, word count, genre, story title, and story. All stories should follow our standard manuscript format and can be submitted as a .DOC, .DOCX, or .PDF format. Do not combine two submissions into one file.

After you have submitted a story you will be added to our tracking system which will display your Discord user ID number (the 4 numbers that appear after the # symbol). Use your Discord User ID # to monitor the status of your submission via our website.

All submissions initial status will say “RECEIVED” and won’t change for some time. If your submission is accepted it the status will change to “ACCEPTED” on the tracker. We ask that you:

• Don’t send queries about pending submissions until a period of 14 days have passed. Use our tracker to check the status of your submission prior to contacting us. Use our Contact page for inquiries.
• Don’t send a revision to a submission through the normal submission channels. It WILL count as your second submission and if you submit three times all your submissions will become ineligible. Instead, use the Contact page to alert us that you have a revision.
• If your story has been rejected, do not submit another story without first discussing and sharing it in the Storyzine section of our Discord Server.
• Don’t resubmit stories that have been rejected. Do not ask for special permission to resubmit a rejected story. Doing this can result in a permanent ban from submitting a story.
• Don’t argue with rejection emails.

If your submission has been rejected your status will be updated to “REJECTED” and you will receive an email within 7 days from when that status changed with an explanation.

NOTE ON REVISIONS: We caution against having a revision as our volunteer proofreaders will likely be in the middle of reading your submission. But if you absolutely must submit a revision, it must happen BEFORE our open call for submissions. Any revisions sent afterwards will not be accepted.

Confidentiality

A contributor’s personal information (real name, pen name, email) will not be shared with anyone outside our staff, except in the following situations:

• If compelled by law
• If threats are made against are staff and law enforcement must be contacted
• If author has instructed us to do so