We're looking for short stories right now. Stories can be from 5,000 to 25,000
words in length. Check out the Submissions Guidelines section for more information
on what we're looking for. Then send us a short story. You can enter each
story only once, but you can enter more than one story. The stories will be
judged on plot, grammar, characterization, being true to genre, being true
to the way a person would follow the religion(s) you are writing about, and
if two stories are of equal quality in every other way, the deciding factor
will be Early Bird Points. By submitting early, you show that you can meet
a deadline, a very important thing to us publisher types. But if you think
that you can create a true masterpiece if you exceed the Early Bird time limit,
then by all means, ignore it and submit a masterwork. A better quality pen
will beat out a faster pen every time.
The prize: The winning stories will be included in an anthology of short
stories.
This contest to be published in our first volume has already begun! The deadline
to earn Early Bird Points has ended. G-d willing, the Early Bird submissions
will be reviewed and the winners will soon be announced. But one thing is
clear, there's still room for more stories!
We are being very selective, as are not planning to print just anything.
We are hoping to create a groundbreaking work that will reshape the definition
of Judaic Speculative Fiction. After a cursory review, only two or three of
the Early Bird submissions have a good chance to be accepted. Therefore...
The deadline for last chance submissions deadline has been extended! Submit
as soon as you can to have a chance to have your work included in our first
book!
One more thing. We do not believe in charging authors any fees to submit
their work. We are sincerely eager to read what you have to write.
Submission Guidelines For Authors
Our mission is to provide a forum for Torah Fiction. While religious Jews
are our main target audience, we intend to produce works that will be enjoyable
entertainment for all readers no matter their religion or background. At least
one of the main character(s) should Jewish and either be religious or become
religious by the end of the story. By religious we mean either Orthodox, or
not-anti-Orthodox. If you are submitting a story that may or may not fit this
mold, then please do NOT alter your creation on a doubt. First try your original
work by us. Artistic concerns with your work must be respected by both the
author and the publisher if we are to earn any reader's respect and loyalty.
Our focus is to publish the unusual. Whether frum (religious) Jews are in
space, or fighting dragons, these are the kinds of stories that can make a
reader’s imagination soar. And because the character(s) are decidedly Jewish,
it helps the reader feel, even while they relax to some fiction, that Hashem
(G-d) is truly everywhere. If a story keeps to the realm of the unusual, even
if it strays out of the realms of SF and Fantasy, it can still have a chance
to be published by us. For example, a tale about a religious Jew out in the
old west is rare enough to be our kind of story. Even speculative political
works may have a place with us. In brief… if it’s an unusual Jewish story,
it may have a home here. Give it a shot. Send us a summary of it and allow
us to review it for you. We currently require an emailed edition of your submission.
Make the situations and characters real. If a reader laughs, cries, or holds
their breath, you've done a good job. If you do that many times during the
course of your story, then congratulations, you are about to get published!
Remuneration Rates For our introductory volume, Avodah Publishing will be
offering an industry-unique form of remuneration to our writers. There are
two plans that we offer our writers: the Optimum Rights Plan and the Optimum
Compensation Plan.
Optimum Rights Plan
You would keep all copyrights, with a pledge on your part to not publish
the story in a written format in the immediate future, to avoid any possible
damage to our book’s marketability. For each book sold, we will pay the author
1 cent per each 1000 words in their story. So for a 10,000 word story, you
would get a dime for each book sold. If we sell 1,000 books, a 10,000 word
story would earn you $100.00. If we sell 10,000 books, a 10,000 word story
would earn $1000.00. If we sell 100,000 books, a 10,000 word story would earn
$10,000.00.
Optimum Compensation Plan
We would keep all copyrights. For each book sold, we will pay the author
2 cents per each 1000 words in their story. So for a 10,000 word story, you
would get 2 dimes for each book sold. If we sell 1,000 books, a 10,000 word
story would earn you $200.00. If we sell 10,000 books, a 10,000 word story
would earn $2000.00. If we sell 100,000 books, a 10,000 word story would earn
$20,000.00. Please note that these rates are only for books SOLD. Books that
are involved in free marketing distribution, including the free volume sent
to each author upon publication, are not included in the remuneration figures.
Remuneration Rates Explained
No money is given to the authors until a book is sold, but when books are
sold, the compensation rate is relatively high by industry standards. Consider
this industry-wide compensation fact: of the magazines that compensate (and
unfortunately not all do), an average fiction magazine gives a one time payment
of 1-5 cents per word for a short story, no matter how many copies of their
magazine are sold. If the company sells a million copies the author still
does not get one dime extra. There is no true sharing of profits after the
first couple thousand copies. For our introductory book, we are making this
project a true joint venture with our authors. We invest the marketing and
publishing costs while you provide the talent. The way we see it is, stand
or fall, we share it all. This is a complete partnership.
An added benefit of writing for Avodah Publishing is that we allow short
stories up to 25,000 words in length. While the industry average is a 8,000
or 10,000 word limit. And they almost always demand that you completely surrender
all of your copyrights to them if you publish. We give you a choice. Thus
you can see that you will have more artistic freedom by publishing your story
with Avodah Publishing. These compensation rates are our way of saying thank
you for entrusting your story to a new publishing house. We hope this will
be the start of a wonderful partnership!
