Sword & Scandal Call for Submissions
The anthology funded. Now it's time to get writing!
Sword & Scandal: An anthology of NSFW heroic fantasy
NOTE: Sword & Scandal funded on Kickstarter with $3,188 in backing. The submissions call can also be found on Kickstarter here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/j-manfred-weichsel/sword-and-scandal/posts/4119037
Hi! My name is J. Manfred Weichsel, and I am an author and editor who has self-published twelve really wild books. I would like to invite you to submit your scandalous adventure story to my latest anthology.
“Sword & Scandal” is a play on the popular Italian sword and sandal genre of epic films. These will be stories with traditional historical and mythological settings from heroic fantasy, but they will have a lot more nudity, sex, and gore than what you usually see published. They will be subversive without becoming Grimdark and will retain the sense of fun you would want from a pulp adventure, and the sense of wonder you would want from a weird tale.
If you have read my books, then you know that I am an experimental author who takes big risks with everything he does. Unlike other publishers who tend to play it safe with their selections, I am looking for the wild, strange, and outrageous. So, if you have an off-beat or off-the-wall idea rattling around in your head, but which you have been afraid to write because you don't think you can place it, now is the time! I believe that literature should be dangerous, and I want to provide you with a safe space to write unsafe fiction.
Humor is also a big part of what I do. I am actively looking for stories that incorporate a similar sense of humor as mine: dry, sardonic, and satirical. But any type of humor is acceptable and encouraged, from farce to surreal humor, to character humor, to black comedy.
Sword and Scandal is not an anthology for genre purists. It is for thrill-seeking readers who want something different and outrageous. The tales in this book are adventures to scandalize.
So, if the above describes what you want to do as a writer, then get writing and submit your short NSFW heroic fantasy story to Sword & Scandal!
Technical notes:
Stories should be between 2,000 and 7,500 words, but the sweet spot is probably 5,000
I will be buying 60,000 words of fiction
Payment is one cent a word upon acceptance
Submissions will open July 1st and close July 31st. Please only submit during this window
Please use standard manuscript format. Submissions that do not at least make an attempt to do this will be deleted unread: https://www.shunn.net/format/classic/
Send files in .doc or .docx
Send submissions to: j (dot) manfred (dot) weichsel (at) gmail.com
(remove spaces and change (dot)s to “.” and (at)s to “@”)
No previously published stories, no simultaneous submissions
Look over my website https://j-manfred-weichsel.mailchimpsites.com/. If anything on it makes you uncomfortable, you probably shouldn’t submit to this anthology. On the flip side, if you want a better idea of what I am looking for, then read one of my books!
This might seem like a silly question, but does the setting have to be a strictly historical one or a mythological one? Would it be fine as long as the tale takes place in a world simply inspired by history or myth without adhering to known place names or the like? Can I create a secondary world just for this story?
I feel ready to do a paid substack. Now all the doubts set in. Am I being greedy? Would anyone pay for a first look at my books as they are being written/polished? Can I keep up a schedule to satisfy my subscribers? Do I really want to add MORE work in terms of advertising?
And yet, I quit my job to write more (along with taking care of my mom, leading the writers’ guild, carting old dogs to the vet…)
I set today (after writing time) to create a launch campaign. If I can get past my doubts, it will be fun.
Self-promotion is hard.