SUBMISSIONS ARE CURRENTLY CLOSED

Submission window: November 1, 2023-November 30, 2023 (Do not submit stories before November 1 or after November 30. Stories sent outside of this time frame will be deleted.)

This past spring DMR Books released Die By the Sword, an anthology of brand-new sword-and-sorcery fiction. Due to popular demand, a second volume will be on the way soon! In November we will be open for submissions for Volume II.

For clarification, sword-and-sorcery is a genre that combines swashbuckling adventure with supernatural elements (usually of a horrific nature) in a pre-industrial setting. The stories can be set in an invented world like Zothique or Nehwon, or in the past of the real world. Some of the best-known characters of the genre are Robert E. Howard’s Conan the Cimmerian, Michael Moorcock’s Elric, and Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. If you’re familiar with them, you should have a good idea of what we’re looking for. If you’re not, you probably definitely shouldn’t submit a story to us. (That being said, that doesn’t mean we want you to simply copy what came before. Put your own spin on it.) Of course, the best way to learn what types of stories we prefer is by reading the first volume of Die By the Sword.

While there’s no specific theme to Die By the Sword, feel free to crank up the violence and make it live up to its title.

What we’re not looking for:

  • Stories written in the present tense or in the second person. Present tense stories will automatically be rejected.

  • Modern, casual, or overly sarcastic prose and dialogue. These are supposed to be tales of far-off times and places, and writing that evokes the present will make it seem incongruent with the setting. If a line would fit in a Joss Whedon script or Marvel movie, it wouldn’t fit in Die By the Sword. This is one of the most common reasons why we reject stories, so pay careful attention to your tone.

  • Characters with names that were common in the 19th century, like Clara, Beatrice, or Irwin. Look to Stormbringer and The Dying Earth for inspiration for naming your characters, not Gone With the Wind or Little Women.

  • Settings created by other authors, such as Robert E. Howard’s Hyborian Age. Use your own imagination to devise a setting.

  • Urban fantasy or anything with a modern-day setting.

  • Tolkien-style epic/high fantasy.

  • Stories with little or no supernatural elements. The name of the genre is sword-and-sorcery, so don’t skimp on the sorcery.

  • Anything with orcs in it. If your story has orcs, it will automatically be rejected. I’m not kidding.

  • Badly written amazon warrior women. If your idea of a great female character is a typical Conan clone with different pronouns, don’t send me your story.

  • Profanity, specifically “fuck” and “shit.” As a rule of thumb, if a word would get censored on network TV, I’m not going to print it.

  • Explicit sex. Keep it R-rated. I’m not a pornographer!

  • Young adult/children’s stories. Keep it R-rated.

  • Reprints. Unpublished material only, please.

Story length:
Between 4,000 and 8,000 words. That’s not a strict limit, but the farther your story goes over 8,000, it’s less likely that it will be accepted.

Payment and rights:
A one-time payment of one cent per word (to a maximum of $80), plus one copy of the paperback edition. In exchange, you will grant DMR Books global first print and digital publication rights. You'll be giving DMR Books the rights to publish and use the purchased material in perpetuity. The rights will be exclusive prior to and for six months following the publication of those materials. After that period, the rights become non-exclusive.

If you’ve read all that and think you can come up with a story that fits our criteria, email it to DMR at DMRBooks dot com with “SUBMISSION” and the title of your story in the subject of the email. Simultaneous submissions are OK with us, as long as you let us know as soon as your story is accepted elsewhere. Do not submit more than one story. Cover letters are optional. If you choose to include one, it doesn’t need to be more than one or two paragraphs. Attach your story as a .doc or .rtf file, and be sure to include your name and email address in the file. If you have questions about how to format your submission, go with the Shunn Manuscript Format. (Two things that aren’t mentioned in the link but I insist on: dialogue must be in double quotation marks, not single; and don’t underline words that should be italicized.)

Submissions will open on November 1, 2023, and close on November 31, 2023. Die By the Sword Volume II is scheduled to be released in May 2024.