Cafe Doom's Seventh Annual Short Story contest

[Ed]

It was a real struggle getting things together this year, but we got there in the end. We are teaming-up with a promising and relatively new publishing company called One Buck Horror, for this year's competition. Here are this year's guidelines:

We're looking for the best in original horror fiction in 3000 words or less: classically-styled tales in the tradition of writers like Richard Mattheson, Stephen King and Robert Bloch, yet wholly original and modern. We're open to all themes and subgenres, as long as it's effectively written and, above all, scary. The winning entry will be published in a future volume of One Buck Horror, and receive a professional payment rate of 5 cents per word.

All entries must conform to our submission guidelines, which can be found at www.onebuckhorror.com/submissions.

We’re sticking with the same format as the past few years, which is a fairly unusual way to run a comp, because all the entrants get to have their say about the stories and pick their favourites.

What happens is each entrant has to join the Cafe Doom forum (if they’re not already a member), then send their entry to blunted (at) cafedoom.com via an e-mail attachment in .rtf or .txt format, single spaced, line breaks instead of indents to denote paragraphs, and use BB Code to format any italics, etc.

In the body of the e-mail, they must state their forum name and the title of their story. DO NOT POST YOUR STORY IN THE BODY OF THE E-MAIL.

On 31st October, the day following the closing date of the competition, all the stories will be posted anonymously on one forum thread by the forum admin. Thereafter, and for the following seven days (may be extended to fourteen if we’re swamped with submissions), the entrants must read the entries, and vote for their top three favourite stories on another forum thread. Failure to vote will result in the entrant being disqualified and their story being stripped of its points. Christopher Hawkins will choose the winning stories from the top ten entries.

To summarise –

Prizes as follows:

1st place - Pro rate of pay, plus publication by One Buck Horror.

2nd place - $100 Amazon voucher.

3rd place - $50 Amazon voucher.

In addition to this I will give One Buck Horror anthologies to the authors of my three favourite stories.

Theme – open, horror.

Word limit - 3,000

Closing date – 30th October 2011


Be aware that One Buck Horror may require the author of the winning story to make changes to it in order to meet their editorial standards. As with any other market, the magazine will sometimes ask their authors to make a few edits and additions to keep the editor happy.

Story thread -- http://www.cafedoom.com/forum/index.php?topic=4559.0

Voting thread -- http://www.cafedoom.com/forum/index.php?topic=4575.0

[Ed]

Please spread the word, everybody. This year's comp is a bit late starting, so we might struggle to get the numbers this year.

[delboy]

Excellent work, guys! 

I even have an extra story in my bottom drawer now - the one I've already written with the comp in mind is too long, so I'll just have to write another. Maybe I can drop the first one into a crit group session sometime soon 

Thanks again,
Derek

[marc_chagall]

I have nothing at all. I also have nothing at all for the Willesden Herald short story competition. That one wants strictly literary fiction. I'll write both stories and hope to goodness I don't accidentally mix them up and send them to the wrong comp. 

[ozmosis7]

Awesome! Put a post on my website that will share to all of my social apps. I'll also post on HWA and CD.

[Rook]

Duly posted to Twitter!

Now I just have to find/write an entry. *panics* 

[Ed]

Thanks, everybody

[chawkins]

Thanks everyone! I'm looking forward to reading your submissions!

Just a couple points of clarification:
1) Please be sure to send your entry to the email listed in Ed's post. Do not send your entry through the submissions process on One Buck Horror.com (if you do, they'll stil lbe eligible for publication, but not for the other prizes in this contest).
2) Please do not submit any stories which have been previously published.

And please continue to help spread the word!

Thanks!

Chris

[LashSlash]

 -- i write horrific poetry  --
        is that any good
                --?--

[Charlie In The Box]

I think I may throw the Jester's hat in for this one!!

[notsoscarey]

I'm in!  I've got a wicked idea now to do it up right!

[Ed]

Cool -- good luck, folks

[Rev. Austin]

Top banana! I'll pimp this wherever I can!

[Ed]

Top banana! I'll pimp this wherever I can!

Thanks, Rev I haven't received a single entry yet -- I usually get two or three within hours of posting the details. I won't begin to worry until about a week before the end, though. If we still don't have any by then I'll probably allow myself to fret a little

[ozmosis7]

I'm still working on several ideas myself. I can't decide which to go further with.