Guidelines Updated 8-9-08
Submissions are open. Please check our guidelines often as they change as our needs for fiction change. We are a royalties paying publisher and there is never a fee charged to our authors.
Erotic Romance:
Shadowfire Press is currently open to all genres except Inspirational which we do not publish. Stories may be from mildly sensual to super hot, but our need for mainstream romance is very limited. We're looking for erotic romance stories and novels from 8000 to 80,000 words in length.
We love bad boys and kick ass heroines. Sexy take no crap from any man fem doms are welcome here too.
Erotic Romance Special Call: In addition to our regular submissions we are looking for stories of Big Beautiful Women, m/f, m/m, f/f or menage (any combination of pairings) in the following subgenres-Paranormal BDSM from 15,000 to 65,000 words. Stories for this call may be contemporary, historic, scifi or fantasy, but the main theme must be paranormal. Vamps, weres, shifters, ghosts, witches and warlocks or psychic powers unleashed are all within the scope of paranormal plot lines.
To see our call for Holiday and Special Theme submissions go to Holiday Themed Submissions Guidelines.
At this time all stories with strong erotic content must be romance based. Our needs for non-romantic erotica have been met, and no more pure erotica will be accepted at this time.
We are accepting queries for m/m, f/f, Big Beautiful Woman, paranormal, yaoi, historical and paranormal fiction reprints. Reprint queries should include prior publication information or acceptance and release of rights information in the case of closed publishers. We would like to see a brief synopsis of your story, roughly what you'd use as a blurb about the book. Also include a 1500 word excerpt from any point in the story which should be sent as an RTF attachment. This information is only for reprints submitted to Shadowfire Press, not for new, original work.
To see our Heat Ratings and Content Warnings go here.Mainstream Submissions
Science Fiction & Fantasy-20,000 to 55,000 words.
Mystery or Suspense from 8000k-24,500k.
Horror from 5000 - 20,000 words. Certain topics that are not suited to Erotic Romances are acceptable in Horror stories. If you are uncertain if a topic or content might not be suitable to us, feel free to send a query to our submissions address listed below.
What we don't want to see:
Mainstream Scifi should not be a clone of Star Wars, Star Trek, Stargate or any other movie or tv show. Fantasy shouldn't be yet another Lord of the Rings imitation.
Please do not submit stories of people/soul eating roads, soil, beaches or other similar situations for our Horror line. We've seen it done far too many times. The same goes for possessed dolls or toys and for the same reason.
Erotic Romances:
Sex should not be the plot. More should happen than the characters meet and have sex. Give our readers a reason to cheer as the characters overcome whatever obstacle to love they may face. Need some ideas on what we're looking for? Read Christine Feehan, Sherrilyn Kenyon, Linnea Sinclair, Angela Knight, or other top authors in the specific subgenres of erotic romance.Uninspired sex scenes. Try to be creative. If you are writing about hot, sexy people the sexual content should be hot and sexy.
No Bestiality, this does not include weres.
No necrophilia, this does not include vampires.
No Pedophilia! All characters must be 18 years old or adults of their species if dealing with alien races.
No scat, golden showers or sharp or dangerous things put into bodily orifices. No felching. No snuff.
Sorry, but we cannot accept fanfiction.
General Editorial guidelines are as follows:
Stories must be finished. No partials or proposals will be accepted at this time.
Authors should send only one submission at a time.
Formatting your submission:
Times New Roman 12 pt, double spaced.
POV changes marked by two line spaces between one character's POV and the next. Scene changes should be marked with three centered asterisks.
No headers, footers or page numbers.
RTF files only. No wordpad or .doc files will be read.
Authors must include their real name along with a pen name if used, as well as their return email address.
Submissions should be sent as an attachment in RTF format.
We do not accept snail mail submissions.
Send your submissions and queries to:
Submissions and please put Submission or Query (depending on which you are sending us) and the title of your story along with your last name (or pseudonym's last name) in your subject line or we might accidentally delete it as spam. If you do not hear back within 48 hours that we have received your submission please send a follow up query.Examples: Submission-Called by Power-Auburnimp-Barnette
Or: Query-Called by Power-Auburnimp-Barnette
Authors must be at least 18 years of age, or of a legal age to buy adult material in their state of residence. There are no exceptions.
Why submit to Shadowfire Press?
We are a royalties paying publisher. Payment to authors is 40% of net paid monthly, with no minimum before payment is made. We define 'net' as the balance of funds minus point of sale fees charged to us by our merchant services, or third party sales venues such as Fictionwise or ARe. Editors receive 8% of net, under the same terms. Artistís fees are negotiable.
Authors work with the artist to create their cover art.
We edit all books submitted to us.
We provide a release date at the time the contract is signed.
Our contract is based on the EPIC model and is for two years on ebooks, or for three years if we plan to publish your work in both ebook and print.
There is never a fee to our authors, not even if we opt to take your book to print.
We take only the rights we plan to utilize and have an escape clause that returns rights automatically should we go out of business or fail to publish your book in a timely manner. We define timely as within one year of the book or story being contracted.
We do not have a clause that allows us to sell your work as an 'asset' should the company be sold. Many publishers do.
Nervous about submitting your work to a new publisher? We are too. Why not try us with a shorter work if you're uncertain about us? We're willing to accept short stories of 5000 to 12000 words in the genres we are interested in publishing so you can try us out. Just make a note in your subject line of: Short Submission, and then follow the rest of the formatting instructions given above.
Thank you for your interest in Shadowfire Press, we look forward to reading your work.