Synthetic Reality Magazine

 Full details

Fiction Story Content

We are looking for a wide range of stories. And, although we mainly deal in Science Fiction, Fantasy, SHTF, Slipstream, Horror, Sword and Sorcery and surreal fiction, we are also open to other stories. As a bonus, we love the humorous tales as well! We are NOT interested in explicit sex. A good way to look at how we judge what comes our way is that everyone has a story to tell, but does that story hold our attention? We accept unpublished authors as well as published authors. We also accept reprints and simultaneous submissions.

Poetry Content

For poetry, we are looking for very similar genres as our story topics. We deal in the surreal. We do allow bundles of poems to be sent and there is no limit to the number of poems that can be sent within the bundle provided that is stays within the 5,000 word limit.

Article Content

When submitting an article, we are looking for articles pertaining to, and about, the writing process and helpful tips for writers (i.e. writer’s block, selecting topics, grammar, publishing, etc.). We also accept articles on topics that will help writers such as:

1. Poisonous plants of the Old West
2. Unique sailing ships of ancient Egypt
3. Tools of the trade for Ghost Hunters.

These types of articles should be couched in terms of how they can be used in ways to help authors.

Book Reviews

When submitting a book review, please be aware that we are looking for our main interests for Synthetic Reality: Science Fiction, Fantasy, SHTF, Slipstream, Horror, Sword and Sorcery and surreal fiction. Books outside this scope will have to be approved by our Editor-in-Chief and are very rare indeed. So please keep that in mind when submitting a book review.

Electronic Submission and Format

Writers can now uses our an Online Submission System to submit their stories. We also accept email submissions. We do apologize, but we do not accept mail in submissions. Currently we only accept file sizes no larger than 2MB.

Our online submissions form asks for your name, email address, cover letter, story title, and story. Your cover letter should include:

• Story Title / Article / Book Review Title
• Subtitle or Tag Line
• Author’s Name
• Brief Author Bio
• Story / Article / Book Review Word Count

Format Layout

• Font: Calibri
• Size: 11
• Space: Single
• Story Word Count: No more than 5,000
• Poetry Word Count: No more than 5,000
• Article Word Count: No more than 3,000
• Book Review Word Count: No more than 2,000

NOTE: Some email providers occasionally treats our email as spam, please keep an eye on your spam folder.

Reply Process (UPDATED)

Our average response time runs about six weeks. If you have not heard from us in 60 days, you can query us about the submission at query@syntheticrealitymagazine.com We receive about 300 submissions a week and we do our very best to give each one the detailed attention it deserves. Because of the Holiday Season we are running a little slow, but we are doing our best to keep up as well as give your work the consideration it warrants. Keep in mind we do assemble issues FAR in advance. We are working as far as eight months ahead. So, if you receive a notification from us that we are looking at your story for a future issue, rest assured that we truly are. We read and evaluate every submission that comes through and base it on where it might have a place. We also look at the ones that could have have a place with a little polish and we send out notifications to the authors with, what we hope, are helpful suggestions. Thanks for your interest and good luck!

Compensation

As the new kid on the block competing with many other publishers it can be daunting to compete with market pay rates. What we have done is to boost our pay rates each issue. We let each of our authors know via email when they are accepted as to the pay rate for this issue and explain what the pay rates will be moving to as we continue. For example, Issue 2 (Our Current Accepting) the pay rate .01 per word. The increase will continue until we hit market rate. We also offer up 3 Contributor’s Copies per accepted submission. We also realize that, while this isn’t much, we have to start somewhere. We want to be able to put out a quality print and digital magazine and since we’re not an established name yet, we do have our work cut out for us to get there. We are working on advertising sales as well which will help boost our pay rate. We want our policies and procedures to be open. We know there are those that will not want to submit because of the pay rate right now and we understand that. But like any building project, construction starts from the ground up.

BEFORE YOU HIT SEND

SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT: We will post updates about submission windows, writing contests, and other information that will be of interest to writers on our Social Media pages. It might be worth taking a minute to follow us on one (or all) so that you don’t miss this information. We only post to three Social Media Sites and they are listed below. should you choose one, you can click it and it will open a new SEPERATE window. The submission form will still be open. Thank you and good luck!

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