> STORY HOUSE
> Todd Cowing, Owner/Editor
> 4019 SE Hawthorne Blvd
> Portland, OR 97214
> U.S.A.
> Tel: 503/233-1144
> Fax: 503/232-2702
> E-mail (subs & info):
submissions@storyhouse.com
> URL: http://www.storyhouse.com
>
> Submission Guidelines
> If you would like to submit art, a story, a letter, an article, or
anything
> you think might be suitable for publication on our coffee labels, you've
> come to the right place. Hopefully, this page will give you a pretty good
> idea of what we're looking for.
>
> CURRENT NEEDS/NEWS:
>
> 1) We are open once more to fiction over 500 words. (see NEW PAY RATE)
> 2) NEED: "Flash Fiction" pieces - 500 words or less. Payment is
$25/per
> piece - regardless of word count. (We'd especially like to see SERIALIZED
> flash fiction!!)
> 3) NEED: strongly argued - OPINION/ISSUE pieces; we would love to see
some
> good essays on Ethics.
> 4) NEED: ROMANCES
> 5) NEW PAY RATES: from $.10/word to $.20/word. ($100-$200 per 1,000 word
> piece.) See details in "Money Matters and The Basic Deal" below.
>
> The Kind of Material We Want:
> Stories - all kinds: We especially like stories with humor, truth, or
> beauty. No suicide pieces. We tend not to take 'horror' pieces either.
We
> receive far too many angst-filled/tragedy-ridden pieces; we would prefer
to
> see well-written material highlighting hope or beauty - much more
difficult
> to do, we know. We'd even settle for plain old comedy. We favor
serialized
> material. But to qualify as usable serialized material for Story House, a
> piece needs to have truly suspenseful cliffhangers every 1,000 words or
> less. A quick recap (2 or 3 sentences) blended into the beginning of each
> new section is useful, too.
> Poetry: Anything goes here.
> Debate: If you have a response to a past story or a new issue to debate,
> we want to hear it. It really doesn't matter what the topic is as long as
> it is well thought out, interesting, and challenging. We look forward to
> reading essays on issues you feel passionately about. Our labels can fit
> about 1,000 words. If your piece is longer, put in logical, and hopefully
> provocative, breaks at each 1,000 words.
> Academic pieces: Do you have an old paper from college advocating an
> existential philosophy or describing the mating habits of wolf spiders?
Are
> you currently working on research that you can write about for the general
> population? We want to read it. Please keep in mind that our audience
is
> the general public; you may need to edit your paper to make it more
> compelling for a general audience as well as to remove jargon or highly
> specialized references. Please document sources rigorously. Again,
remember
> our labels can fit about 1,000 words. If your piece is longer, put in
> logical breaks at each 1,000 words.
> Graphic art: We can print in full color, but we have a size restriction.
> See below for the various label sizes.
> Currently we are also collecting answers to the question below. (We do
not
> pay for this one, though.) You must answer it in only ONE sentence - try
to
> keep the semicolons under control. :0)
> -- What is the most important thing you have ever done or seen? --
> Surprise us: Anything else that you can fit on our labels. See below for
> the various label sizes.
>
> Formatting Requirements:
> Please attach your submission to an e-mail message. Please put the word
> "submission" and the TITLE of your piece in the subject line of your
e-mail
> message. Listed below, in order of preference, are the submission file
> types that we can handle:
> Any Microsoft file. MSWord 2000 is our favorite since it has a great
> feature that tracks all our editorial changes and lets you easily see what
> suggestions we have made.
> Corel WordPerfect 6.1 for Windows or greater
> HTML files
> MS-Word for Mac 5.0/5.1
> An .rtf file
> Please do not send your material as text in the body of an e-mail.
> If you are submitting graphic art, here are the acceptable file types in
> order of preference:
> JPEG: Use this file type, unless you feel like your art absolutely can't
> stand to lose some resolution. Please scan at no greater than 300 DPI for
> our initial inspection. If we like it, we will have you re-scan it at a
> higher resolution. (Otherwise, the files sizes get too big and frequently
> can't be sent through e-mail.)
> TIFF Uncompressed: Use this file type if you feel your art will suffer
> unduly if subjected to any compression scheme. If the file size is
greater
> than 5MB, let us know and we will give you a password to our FTP server so
> you can upload it.
>
> Be sure to include your REAL NAME, your STREET ADDRESS, and a PHONE NUMBER
> with any submission. We cannot consider any work without these pieces of
> information.
> We do not accept SNAIL MAIL submissions.
>
>
>
> Money Matters and The Basic Deal:
> PAY RATES: General Fiction/Non-fiction (over 500 words) $.10/word;
> Opinion/Issue $.20/word; Romance/Mystery $.15/word. Poetry & Graphic Art
> based on space factors. We usually have to negotiate a price after
seeing
> the piece. We try to figure out about how much space they'll fill - in
> comparison to a 1,000 word story or essay. Frequently poetry has special
> formatting needs or is very short so we have to play with the actual
pieces
> a little to see how they'll fit on our labels and pay accordingly. We
also
> take into account that we will generally cycle poetry in and out every
week
> instead of running it for an entire month. For example, if a poem would
> fill half a label and would run for a week, we would probably pay about
$13.
> We will pay you within 30 days of our receipt of a signed contract. Terms
> of payment will always be clearly detailed in the contract.
> Upon publication of your material (time lines vary on this one), we send
you
> 3 sample copies of labels featuring your material. In addition, we send
you
> a complimentary can of coffee featuring your work. (Applies to mailing
> addresses in the U.S.A. or Canada only.)
> We reserve the right to make editorial suggestions and changes to your
> submissions, but we won't publish until we come to an agreement on any
> changes.
> Our standard contract is a licensing agreement. This means that we
reserve
> the right to reprint anything of yours that we've licensed. However, we
> don't want absolute rights to your work. You retain the copyright and the
> right to market your work to anyone else and to re-publish in any other
> forum and at any time you so choose.
> Please feel free to read our standard License Agreement.
> That's it. If that deal seems fair to you, then send us your submission
via
> e-mail. (See the formatting guidelines in the previous section.) The
> e-mail address where we accept submissions is: submissions@storyhouse.com
>
>
> The Submission Process:
> All authors must agree to submit to an editorial process. Usually, the
> process goes something like this:
> You submit something to us.
> We look it over and if we want to use it, we will tell you so and send
along
> editorial changes we want to make, if any.
> You consider our suggestions and, if you agree, you make the changes. If
> you don't agree, then tell us why. We agree to consider your arguments
and
> respond in kind.
> This continues back and forth until we are both satisfied. Nothing will
be
> published until we have reached consensus.
>
> We will make every attempt to dialogue with you about your work.
> We always tell you what we like about your work.
> If we do not accept your work, we will typically say only that. We have no
> desire to hurt anyone's feelings.
> If we have any constructive criticism to offer, we will include the
> electronically "marked-up" document for you to peruse or ignore. (We love
> our authors and definitely don't want to hurt any feelings, so please do
not
> open that file if you are not looking for feedback from us.)
> We also encourage you to respond if you think we have misunderstood your
> work. Tell us why. You are welcome to tell us if you think we are full
of
> crap. : )
>
> Please keep in mind that our submission volume tends to be quite high and
so
> turnover can be lengthy. (Plus, we're just plain slow at getting all that
> reading in between selling coffee!)