Additional Guidance

WE ARE CURRENTLY CLOSED TO SUBMISSIONS, except for four anthologies. See the “Open Anthologies” page.

The open anthologies include:

Trafficking in Magic/Magicking in Traffic

Greek Mythology/Urban Fantasy

Ghost Stories

When we re-open, the following guidelines will apply.

Please submit online. We believe this new system will help us manage our submissions process more quickly and efficiently, and will mean quicker response times and better file management. If you have a question about our online submission process, please email us by removing the extra spaces from submissions @ drolleriepress . com. If the upload system does not work for you for some reason, please feel free to submit by email, but follow all other guidelines and be sure to tell us why you are submitting by email. Whether submitting by email or online, if submissions are closed, your submission will be discarded.

Review the submissions guidelines carefully and read the FAQ if you’re still not sure what to do. We are still receiving works that are formatted with unusual fonts and spacing, without page numbers, author name, and title on every page, and that do not fall within our guidelines. If you made a mistake and it’s a minor error, please don’t concern yourself. We do not reject submissions because of minor errors in submission format. However, we no longer read submissions that do not demonstrate that a reasonable attempt has been made to follow our guidelines.

Formatting Your Submission

Start with a short cover letter (one page or less) at the beginning of your submission. Your cover letter will tell us that you not only know what your story is about but that you can present that idea in a way that interests a reader. The letter doesn’t have to be longer than a paragraph or two and should not be longer than a single page, but it should contain complete sentences. Submissions without a cover letter will not be read.

The most important piece of information your cover letter should contain is why you think your work is right for Drollerie Press. We are very strongly committed to our mission of publishing mythic fiction. We don’t want to waste our time or yours reading the latest Sexual Escapade Tell All, Self-Help Handbook, or Memoir, and we get tired of writing “no thank you” letters. Is your story a form of Cinderella? A wisdom tale? A supernatural mystery with quest overtones? Is it a trickster tale? An epic sci-fi with archetypal characters? Let us know where it fits within our niche. We are always interested in unique characters, diverse viewpoints, and unusual settings. If your story contains those things, please let us know.

The rest of the information your letter might contain, in no particular order: whether or not it’s a simultaneous submission (important), if it’s been previously published and why we should reprint it (important), the word count of your work (only particularly important if it falls above or below our guidelines), and may also contain your experience with marketing your work, your organization memberships and relationships, and your previous publishing credits. If you don’t have previous credits or for some reason you’re embarrassed by them, don’t apologize for it, just don’t mention them at all. If you have ideas to market your book, we want to hear them. We are not grading your work. We just want a way to get to know you and your writing a little better to help us make a decision about which books to publish.  We publish about 5% of the works we read. Make your work stand out.

After your letter, you should provide a short synopsis. We don’t want to read more than a couple of pages at most (and one is better) to find out that you’re capable of telling a coherent story. If you don’t know how to write a synopsis, this is a good place to start. Please don’t worry about being excessively formal, but do explain the entire story.

Following your cover letter and synopsis, please provide the first three and the final chapter of your longer work. If for some reason you feel that another chapter within the work will demonstrate an important style or plot point, please feel free to include it as well, but no more than 5 chapters in total. For works of 20,000 words or fewer, please provide the entire manuscript.

Format the entire document in Courier or Courier New, 12pt. double-spaced, with one inch margins. Provide your name, the name of the work, approximate word count, genre, and your email address on the front page of the actual submission. Include your last name, the name of the work, your email address, and page numbers in the header on the top right of each page. Please do not style your headers in any unusual way. 10pt. Courier, single-spaced, is best. (Read the FAQs for additional detail, and See William Shunn, Proper Manuscript Format, for an example.)

Save the entire document in RTF (rich text format). Name your file by your last name, one word from the title of the work, the first three or four letters of the imprint to which you think it best suited, and whether or not it is a full or partial manuscript in the following format:lastname.title.imprint.full.rtf or lastname.title.imprint.partial.rtf.  Example: fisher.sea.droll.full.rtf.

Choosing the Right Imprint

Drollerie Press publishes our stories through a number of lines or imprints to help our readers better find the books they want to read. Books that are appropriate to more than one imprint (i.e., a fantasy mystery with a romance), we list in multiple places  but each book must have a primary imprint for record keeping purposes.

While your story must always contain some mythic fictional elements, please choose the most appropriate imprint to receive your submission. If the submissions editor for the imprint you chose feels that your work is better suited to a different imprint, he or she will forward it to the appropriate editor, so don’t worry about making a mistake. It may take a little longer, but it will be reviewed.

Drollerie Press: For fantasy works, including high, paranormal, urban fantasy, myths, legends, and fairy tales.

Chrysography: Chrysography publishes literary works, non-fiction, experimental fiction, and special projects. We are open to considering poetry, but please query by email first.

Expressions: World/multicultural speculative fiction written by or about one or more persons of color and/or from a non-western and/or non-caucasian perspective.

Flyleaf: Speculative fiction containing characters who are gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, transgendered, or queer. Officially opening in January, 2010.  Submissions prior to that date are welcome.

Gauffer Press: For works of mythic fiction written in the primary genres of suspense, thriller, and mystery.

Grotesqueries: for mythic works of a horrific or dark speculative bent.

Illuminated Press: For fiction works of an inspirational nature, with strong, realistic characters whose lives demonstrate a reliance on or acceptance of deep spirituality, and that include a compelling storyline.

Kettlestitch: For works intended for audiences between the ages of 14 and adult with sophisticated conflict and intelligent, engaging characters between the ages of 16 and 19.

Pen Flourish: For works of romance, erotic romance, or erotica.

Quadrivium: Science fiction and science fantasy.

As you can see from the above, many works will cross boundaries. Don’t worry too much about choosing the right imprint. If you have a story that does not fall within the guidelines of the imprints described above or you’re not sure where to submit it, submit to Drollerie.

Submitting

Upload your submission with our contact form, unless for an open anthology that specifically requests emails to the editor.

Please fill out all available fields. You’ve already provided a cover letter and synopsis, so the fields requesting additional detail can be short sketches to help us place the work. This may be a different way of doing things for you and sometimes it’s difficult to change, but we believe this will be more secure, more efficient, and faster than email. If you make a mistake, you receive an error message, or you just can’t get your file to upload properly, email your submission to submissions @ drolleriepress .com and explain, if you can, why the uploader didn’t work for you. If you received an error message, it would be very helpful if you could paste it into the email, but that is not required.

The Submissions Process

When we receive your submission, it is placed in the queue and read in order of receipt. We are still somewhat behind, unfortunately, and are currently working at a turnaround time of about 6 months. We hope to improve drastically as we put our new system into place.