Submission Guidelines
Black Ink Horror



A Special Note to Authors:

BIH is now closed to fiction submissions.

BIH is closed to poetry submissions until further notice.

Great art takes time.
If you’ve picked up a copy of Black Ink Horror, you know that each issue is bursting with painstakingly-detailed pen and ink illustrations. Issue #3 alone contains almost three-dozen pieces of art. Because it takes our artists anywhere from a few weeks to several months to complete their assignments, I tend to fill issues up to a year ahead of their publication dates. If you’re an impatient author who can’t wait to see his or her work in print, we’re probably not the market for you.

Tim Manning
Editor-in-chief BLACK INK HORROR

FICTION GUIDELINES:

Submitted tales should be between 1000 and 3000 words. UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE: WE WILL NOT BE READING STORIES OVER 3,000 WORDS. STORIES OVER THIS LIMIT WILL BE REJECTED.

We believe that there are enough good, unpublished tales available to fill the magazine, so we’re not incredibly interested in printing previously published work. We will, however, consider running one reprint per issue, but that story will have to be extra special. If you have a reprint you would like us to consider, please query first.

All submitted fiction should be in manuscript format.



UPDATE: Now, if you choose to ignore these guidelines, you do so at your own risk (And doing so will certainly not earn you any brownie points with this editor.) We receive several submissions a week, and I’m always looking for ways to improve our response times. Stories that do not follow these guidelines will be promptly rejected.

All submitted fiction should be proofread and reasonably free of mistakes. Typos are an unfortunate part of writing, and a couple minor errors are certainly excusable. We do, not, however, want unpolished or sloppy submissions. Stories with copious errors, or poor use of grammar/spelling will be promptly rejected.

The subject line of your email should read: FICTION SUBMISSION / (Name of story)

UPDATE: After reading through several hundred submissions this past year, I have made a discovery; I find it annoying to receive a piece of fiction attached to a blank email. Now, I really don’t need a list of publishing credits as, for the most part, I don’t care where you were previously published. However, a brief greeting with your name and the name of your story would be very much appreciated. You can address letters to Tim and Amanda. Also, and this is new for ’08, all emails should contain your story’s word count. Too many times this year I’ve opened stories that were well over our 3,000 word limit. If you fail to put the word count in your introduction email, you run the chance of having your story rejected.

Stories should be attached as .rtf or Word files. DO NOT send your story in the body of an email. DO NOT send your story as a Microsoft Works document.

Submission should be sent to blackinkhorror@yahoo.com

UPDATE: Please, no multiple submissions. Send us only one piece of work at time. If an author sends in more than one story at a time, we will only consider the first story for publication; all subsequent submissions will be rejected unread. Simultaneous submissions are fine, but if your story is snatched up by another market, we do expect you to do the courteous thing by letting us know.

Payment for selected fiction is $10, paid via Pay-Pal.

Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions. For the fastest results—and to insure that your email isn’t lost in the slush pile—please put QUERY in the subject line of your email.

UPDATE: The staff at BLACK INK HORROR will endeavor to respond to submissions as fast as humanly possible. Upon receipt of your story, we will send out a confirmation email. If you don’t receive one within two days of mailing your sub, assume that we didn’t get it. Currently, we expect our response times to be 120 days. If 120 days have passed, and you haven’t heard from us, please don’t hesitate to inquire as to the status of your submission. At BIH, Amanda and I read and provide feedback to each and every submission we receive. Because some of our rejection letters are quite thorough, it has taken us extra time to get through the slush pile.

ART GUIDELINES

As mentioned earlier, BLACK INK HORROR will feature only pure pen and ink artwork. Although we currently have a staff of 15 incredibly talented artists, we will be happy to look at samples from an interested illustrator.

If you are interested in illustrating for BIH, please send us an email with the subject: ART QUERY/ (and your last name).

In the body of the email, please tell us a little about yourself. If you have a suitably themed online gallery or portfolio, include a link.

Submitted work should be pen and ink only and should have no digital or photographic components.

Because we are a horror magazine, we would like to see macabre art. If your gallery contains a variety of mediums and subjects besides horror-themed line work, please select three or four images that would best represent how one of your horror illustrations would look. These can be attached as jpegs to an email.

We currently pay $10 ($5 each) for two, 8” x 5” illustrations. All payments will be made via Pay-Pal.

POETRY GUIDELINES

BIH is closed to poetry submissions until further notice.

Poetry has been added only recently to BIH... it will be a permanent feature hereafter in this premiere horror magazine.

What would we like to see? We would like to see poems that take traditional subjects and throttle them to death. Make sure that it is quirky or off-the-wall. We aren't intending to be just another horror magazine with the same old same old same old...

Remember also--and this is important--that all poems and stories chosen for publication are illustrated, so the poem needs to have visual appeal.

Is this your bag? Can you do this? If so, then fire in your submissions to John Irvine at: blackinkhorrorpoetry@gmail.com. Poems should be sent as attachments and should use #12 Times New Roman, Ariel, or Courier New Fonts. Payment for accepted poems is $5, made via Paypal.

THE BLACK INK HORROR ART TEAM

We currently have a staff of 10 incredible ink artists eager to exercise their craft. Their quality impressive illustrations and distinct styles will showcase the diversity of this classic media.

Meghan Hakes: http://fragilewing7.deviantart.com/gallery/

Geff Bartrand: http://dr-twistid.deviantart.com/gallery/

Evangeline Doctolero: http://squidink.deviantart.com/gallery/

Glenn Edberg: http://fagertveit.deviantart.com

Jacob Parmentier: http://beardomcweirdo.deviantart.com/

Peter Brown: http://dragyourblood.deviantart.com

Tom Moran: www.grimamericana.com

Stella Danelius: http://devilry.deviantart.com

Jen Galasso: http://www.butterfly-graphics.net/artwork.html

Joseph Uccello: http://labornthyn.deviantart.com

Paul Groendes: http://www.nightmarefactoryart.com

Paul T. Sninchak: http://paulzuzust.deviantart.com

Tony Karnes: http://karnes.deviantart.com

Bret Jordan: http://bret-jordan.livejournal.com