A STARRY NIGHT PRESS

A Starry Night Press is not a vanity or self-publishing press. We are a new royalty paying press publishing authors residing in the USA. All of our books will be printed-in-America by a “green” USA printing company. We will strive to be a responsible user of natural resources. We will not use papers containing fiber from Endangered Forests. We will use Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified paper for our books.

First Apology: We’re crazy enough to start a publishing company. We’re sane enough to realize that its survival will depend on very slow growth.

Second Apology: We won’t be publishing nonfiction except for occasional solicited benefit book projects.

Third Apology: All novels, novellas, novelettes, and poetry that we publish will be solicited. Please do not query us about novels, novellas, novelettes, poetry, or nonfiction.

We will accept email queries for SHORT STORIES only.

Thirty Day "SHORT STORY" Query Window: We will accept email queries for thirty days beginning March 30th (Vincent van Gogh’s birthday) and ending April 30th each year.

Published Submissions: We will accept queries about previously published short stories if the author exclusively holds the rights.

Simultaneous Submissions: We will accept queries for simultaneous short story submissions. Tell us if your short story is a simultaneous submission, and immediately inform us if it is contracted by another publisher.

Multiple Submissions: If you intend to query us about multiple stories we prefer for you to do so in one email.

Our Authors: In an ideal world authors write and leave book promotions in the hands of publicists. In today’s world most small publishers cannot survive if they don’t partner with their authors. Our authors will never pay us a fee to read, edit, or to publish their work. They will help sell their books and will receive a fair royalty percentage for their marketing efforts.

Agents: Although preferred, we don’t require authors to have a literary agent.

Review: If, after reading your query, we request your short story manuscript; then, we will accept or decline it within three months. We regret that we cannot provide editorial remarks, but we will carefully consider each manuscript. We require email queries and email attachment submissions to reduce wastage of paper, ink, and postage costs. Do not email us a short story attachment file submission unless we request it.

How to Query: In the body of your email include a short synopsis, title, word count, genre, reader-age-group per story, and brief information about any published works and previous reviews. Please put in the subject line: Story Query

When we say “short synopsis” per story we mean it.

Manuscripts: All short story manuscripts we request must be finished and proofread. We do not expect submissions to be flawless, but they must not need extensive editing. We urge you to ask a skilled person to proofread your work before you submit it. Do not send art illustration images.

Advice: If you do not know how to email a query or how to email an attachment file, ask someone to help you.

Submission Instructions

Send your entire REQUESTED short story manuscript in one RICH TEXT document attachment file, double-spaced, with one inch margins on all edges, in Arial 14 point size black bold. Be sure to use Arial, not Arial Narrow. Some of our volunteer readers are dyslexic. Arial 14 point size black bold is the easiest font for them to read.

Your real name should be listed, followed by a street or mailing address, email address, website address (if any) and telephone number in the upper left side of the first page.

The upper right side of the first page should include the total word count of your short story/stories submission. About halfway down the first page put the first short story title typed in all capital letters. Underneath the title, have the word “by” on its own line. Put your name below the “by” line. If you use a pseudonym or pen name, put it instead of your name.

Confirm the end of each story with the words THE END and start your next story on a new page.

For each subsequent short story go about halfway down a blank page and put the next story title typed in all capital letters. Underneath the title, have the word “by” on its own line. Put your name below the “by” line. If you use a pseudonym or pen name, put it instead of your name.

Confirm the end of your final story with: THE END OF SUBMISSION.

Please do not use the tab key paragraph indentation.

We prefer italics to underlines.

Grammar, style, and punctuation must follow normal English usage with American spelling.

Use centered/bottom page numbers on all pages of your submission, including page 1.

Fourth Apology: Submission attachment files containing viruses will be put in our File 13.

Our Heartfelt Appreciation: Thank you for following our submission guidelines.

Please read Short Story .

A. What grabs our attention?
A fantastic first paragraph and a magnificent last paragraph will thrill us. We love insightful, intriguing, suspenseful, and intense stories with a unique flair. We like interesting characters. We relish natural sounding dialogue, and we want a lot of it. Storytellers with vibrant imaginations enthrall us.

B. Children and Young Adult (YA) Stories:
We have a soft spot in our hearts for stories that begin with “Once upon a time,” and they are the stories we’ll usually reach for first. We favor life affirming, environmentally conscious, and stories with apositive-message for children and young adults. We want challenges, conflicts, obstacles, and problems to be resolved, and for stories to have unfolding dramatic tension. We like girl/women characters to be strong, capable, resourceful, and positive role models. Boy/men characters must be responsible, brave, daring, and positive role models. We especially want good to eventually triumph over evil, kindness depicted toward animals, a respectful attitude evident for all ethnic groups of people, a sense of playfulness, wonderment, enchantment, and humor demonstrated.

C. Kids Influence Us:
If we (adult editors and adult volunteer readers) decide that we love your children stories, we will read them out loud to groups of age appropriate children. If they love your stories, we will probably publish them.

D. Eye Catchers:
Original/strong writing, inspiring/stirring stories, a celebration for diversity, multicultural stories, the unstoppable power of love and compassion, main characters from underrepresented ethnicities, and female main characters.

E. Turnoffs:
Point-of-view (POV) shifts, one-dimensional characters, plots that aren’t intriguing, excessive stereotypes, offensive/vulgar language, Harry Potter wanna-be characters, overly used dialogue tags, pronoun confusion, inconstancies, and worn-out clichés.

F. Pet Peeve:
Exaggerated absolutes. If something is not an absolute, do not write that it is.

G. Sexual Content:
We accept sexual content in adult stories. It should be sensuous, refined, and not graphic/explicit. We are not interested in pornography, incest, bestiality, necrophilia, or in material portraying rape or murder as a sexual turn-on.

Our Word Count Guides

Young Children: Stories for five-to-eight-year-old children do not require minimum or maximum word counts. Your submission should contain a minimum of five stories and a maximum of seven. Artist Billy Merryman will illustrate our books for children.

Tweens: Stories for tweens (9-12-year-olds) do not require minimum or maximum word count requirements. Your submission should contain a minimum of five stories and a maximum of seven. Artist Billy Merryman will illustrate our books for children.

Teen and Young Adults: Stories for teens and young adults (YA) must be a minimum 1,000 words and a maximum 7,500 words each. Your submission should contain a minimum of seven stories and a maximum of nine. Ideally, your total submission should not be less than 40,000 words. It cannot exceed 65,000 words.

Adults: Stories for adults must be a minimum 1,000 words and a maximum 7,500 words each. Your submission should contain a minimum of seven stories and a maximum of nine. Ideally, your total submission should not be less than 40,000 words. It cannot exceed 65,000 words.

Children-Adult: Some stories can be for most age groups, and it is fine if your stories fall into this category. Your submission should contain a minimum of seven stories and a maximum of nine. Ideally, your total submission should not be less than 40,000 words. It cannot exceed 65,000 words.

Our Genre Definitions

Fantasy:
A struggle between good and evil. There can be magic and characters/objects can do things that cannot normally happen in real life: talking animals, “unreal” creatures, alternate and other world settings, other world characters, exaggerations, unrealistic elements, make-believe, supernatural, and fiction that suspends reality.

Fairy Tales, Folklore, Fables, and Tall Tales:
These can be “once upon a time” and “they lived happily ever after” tales with make-believe, supernatural, legendary characters. There may be enchanting fairies; magical creatures, songs, and goodness will often fight/defeat evil. Themes can employ useful truths, proverbs, positive messages, and humor.

Science Fiction: Fantasy based on factual or imagined science that utilizes futuristic ideas, innovative technology, and sometimes includes space travel. Challenges and problems are often resolved by a combination of scientific fact and fiction.

Mysteries:
Mysterious, suspenseful, often realistic, and interesting events, crimes, puzzles, or problems that must be investigated, deciphered, unraveled, and are not fully explained or solved until the end. Clues are often revealed along the way. Mysteries can be who-done-its.

Contemporary Romance:
A focus on love and relationships in a modern time setting. Obstacles and problems may (and often do) challenge the couple, but most (not all) couples will eventually get together.

Realistic Fiction:
Takes place here and now. The events could truly happen or have happened. The characters live in modern day societies, have present-day life experiences, difficulties, challenges, and dilemmas. Realistic fiction can include mystery, adventure, humor, etc.

Additional Interest

Native American Indian:
We use the term “Native American Indian” intentionally. We appreciate that many people believe the term should be “Native American,” and we appreciate that many people believe “American Indian” is the correct term.

We think it is absurd that Native American Indian characters continue to be underrepresented in mainstream fiction. We especially welcome contemporary fictional stories featuring Native American Indian characters.

We’re interested in creative, sophisticated, and entertaining submissions that feature multi-dimensional Native American Indian characters that can be as ordinary, as amazing, as perfect, or as flawed as any other fictional character in contemporary literature.

No Interest
We have no interest in erotica, horror, or gothic stories.