Submission Guidelines
Hell Itself is a journal for speculative fiction short stories (under 7,500 words) words that no one else would publish.
Stories should be unpublished and must either have been rejected by a minimum of 10 paying markets or be a “market killer” (a story that was accepted somewhere that ceased publication or was cancelled by the publisher before the story came out) to be eligible. We consider stories that were accepted for publication but which were subsequently withdrawn by the author due to onerous contract terms, inappropriate edits, or other bad behavior on the part of the publisher as having been rejected for counting purposes. Please query if the situation is so egregious that you feel it hurt the story’s viability such that hitting 10 rejections is no longer practical.
Our emphasis is on science fiction, fantasy, and weird horror, but we will consider other genres if there would be some appeal to our core readers.
We are a token-paying market. If there’s still any chance that someone will give you more money for the story, please send it to them first. Our current rate is US$5/story.
We will be taking first worldwide English-language rights. Stories will be published both on the website and in an ebook digest, both of which are free to read online.
We are not looking for bad stories to laugh at. (Though, please be aware that with our mission statement, you are opening yourself up to that criticism by publishing here.) Rather, we’re hoping to find great stories that just don’t fit well in any other market. There are a lot of those out there, so we believe that readers will spend every issue amazed that no one else would publish the stories we’re running.
We particularly want stories that are “unpublishable” because they come from members of marginalized groups and speak truth to power.
The publishing schedule might be erratic because this is not a paying job for anyone. We’re initially going to be publishing a new story weekly, but will increase or decrease that based on what our queue looks like down the line.
Simultaneous submissions (submissions sent to us while other publications are considering them) are fine, but please withdraw the story promptly if it gets picked up elsewhere. Know that you have our congratulations.
Multiple submissions (more than one story in our queue at once) are not accepted. Please wait for a response on your current submission before submitting another story. There is no “cooling off” period after a response; you may resubmit immediately. Please do not hop email addresses to get around this, even if you use multiple pen names. (We all know who you are, Kyle.)
Adult content in service to a story is acceptable. We do not want adult content for the sake of adult content.
We are not interested in works that promote hate speech or attack the marginalized.
We do not take translations of works that have been previously published in another language.
We do not publish reprints.
We cannot take any work that uses intellectual property that you do not own the rights to use. (No fan fiction. Sorry.)
All work must be 100% human-written. Use of basic tools like spell-check is fine as long as you, the author, are the one coming up with both the story and the language used to tell the story. We consider AI-outlined, human-written pieces to be partially AI-written and therefore ineligible. We also consider human-written, AI-edited pieces to be partially AI-written and therefore ineligible. Human-prompted, AI-written stories are 100% AI-written and therefore ineligible.
We do not use AI-generated artwork.
Submission Instructions:
Use our Moksha to submit. The form will ask how many paying markets have rejected the story. Feel free to name names in the cover letter. If it’s a market killer, please specify which market(s) it killed (we will name names for those, so don’t lie about it). Also include any information that may be pertinent to our selection process (especially if you are a member of the marginalized group you are writing about). We’re less concerned about things like publishing history, professional associations, life story, inspirations, etc., but we’re not offended if you include something you consider relevant.
We aim to keep our response time under 2 weeks.
Queries may be sent to hellitselfmagazine at yahoo.
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More About Our Tastes
The editor’s tastes have been described in various outlets as both “literary” and “weird.” He rankles at both descriptions, but craft does matter.
Astute writers might recall that the editor previously edited a magazine where there was a prohibition on stories that showed violence as the solution to a problem. That prohibition does not exist at this magazine, though the editor does still have a strong preference for stories where a successful resolution comes about through brains and empathy rather than force and coercion.
We very much want the emphasis of the magazine to be on science fiction and fantasy, but broadly defined to include such things as alt-history, spec-history, weird western, rural fantasy, urban fantasy, magical realism, and so on. Weird horror definitely fits in this category, but we’re not a good market for psychological horror or horror where the only speculative element is the existence of a monster. The editor does not consider dark fantasy to be horror. That said, some of the hardest-to-sell stories are those that defy genre definitions and blur the lines, and those are often the ones that excite us most.
Literary fiction that lacks a speculative element is not a good fit. Even with a speculative element, the editor will reject any story that is about a middle-aged English professor sleeping with a student.
All this said, we prefer that you do not self-reject and give us the chance to read it. (Unless it’s about a middle-aged English professor sleeping with a student, in which case please self-reject it.) We’re including this mostly so people understand that even with our very broad definition of what we’re looking for, some stories that may be publishable elsewhere still won’t be right for us, and a form rejection does not mean you should trunk the story.