Black Library looking for more new writers

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**hungryp**

With the "Write for GW" job posting gone, now BL is having an old-fashioned anthology-focused submission window.

http://www.blacklibrary.com/Home/write-for-black-library.html

SEEKING SUBMISSIONS!
Writers take heed! The Black Library is running an open submissions period for short stories.

We are looking for new and talented writers to pen a 10,000 word short story to be published in forthcoming anthologies.

Your story should be set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe, be driven by exciting and evocative characters and adhere to the theme ‘The Imperium of Man’.

SUBMISSIONS PROCESS
1. Your story must adhere to the theme ‘The Imperium of Man’. This could mean stories about Space Marines or Astra Militarum, or even Imperial Assassins or the Adeptus Mechanicus. You can interpret this in any way that you like but the story must fit with Games Workshop’s intellectual property, its mood and tone, and be driven by strong, interesting characters that inhabit and are a part of the Warhammer 40,000 mythos.

2. Pitch us your idea by sending a one-paragraph summary of what happens in the story and who the main characters are.

3. Write a sample of the story no longer than 500 words in length, in English. This could come from any part of the story and doesn’t have to be set at the beginning (we’d recommend not sending us the ending, however…). At this point we are not looking for fully written stories.

Just to be clear, everything you submit to us must be original and entirely your own work. Do not send us anything that you have copied from a third party or that has been created by someone else.

4. Send your story pitch and sample in an email to blacklibrarysubmissions@gwplc.com as an attached Microsoft Word document and include in the subject line ‘Short Story Submission’. We will only accept electronic submissions, so please do not send us physical copies of your work as they will not be read or returned to you. If you would like to send a submission but you do not have access to facilities to send us an electronic copy, please get in touch with us to discuss an alternative means of entry.

Please make sure you include your contact details in any email or contact you send to us.

We will respond to all of the submissions but because of the sheer volume of entrants we cannot reply to requests for additional information or updates on the process. Unfortunately any emails sent by you enquiring as to the progress of your submission will result in your entry being automatically pushed to the back of the queue for reading by our IT systems, so please be patient and we will be in touch as soon as we can.

If we do wish to take your story further, we will contact you and send you a set of our standard author documentation, which includes our author commissioning form, supplier set up form and a non disclosure agreement. These together will set out all the terms and conditions which will govern our relationship with you going forward.

Please note that all published stories will be paid as per Black Library’s standard short story rate of 5p per word.

Closing date for submissions is 29th April 2016.

**Bottle**

Cool, I'll give it a shot :-)

**Necroagogo**

Yeah, why not

**Chikout**

£500 to write a short story. Not sure if that is a good rate or not.

**AlexHolker**

Chikout wrote:
£500 to write a short story. Not sure if that is a good rate or not.

Where did you see that?

Edit: Never mind, I see: 5 pence per word.

**Chikout**

AlexHolker wrote:
Chikout wrote:
£500 to write a short story. Not sure if that is a good rate or not.

Where did you see that?

In the op it says 5p a word. A 10,000 word story would net you £500.

**AlexHolker**

After having a quick look on Google, 5 pence per word seems to be slightly below the usual rate - ~7 cents per word rather than 8 cents per word. But that might just be down to a difference between UK and US rates or currency fluctuations.

**hungryp**

Well, if you're going to write to get rich, or even just to pay the bills, you might as well go sell oranges on a turnpike, but that's not really point of the thread. FWIW, that is about in line with entry level fiction rates though, if you discount the fact that most markets pay little to nothing.

**VeteranNoob**

what have we got to lose?

**Scourged**

They could ask me to do it for free and I'd still consider it (but the money is a better alternative, yes). I look at it as more an opportunity for fun than anything else. A shame it's Imperium-only.

**OrlandotheTechnicoloured**

You could always go down a POW or infiltration route (with or without glorious escape), so focusing on the imperium but also with plenty of input from another perspective too

**Cleatus**

I couldn't help thinking of this:
https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/05/19/the-song-of-the-sorcelator-part-one
Just replace a few words (wands -> lightning claws) and you've got a novel.

**Scourged**

OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
You could always go down a POW or infiltration route (with or without glorious escape), so focusing on the imperium but also with plenty of input from another perspective too

I like that idea, thanks. Could make for a very fun guard or Inquisition story. Besides, I'm sure I could use a break from writing all about CSM anyway.

**Gamgee**

Holy hell I've been waiting for something like this. I've had the perfect human centric story to submit. Yet it still involves the Tau for a change.