Submissions

Submit Content for Grimoire Faire

Do you have something you'd like to submit to Grimoire Faire? This website was designed mostly for Pick-n-Mix Comix and the work done by TheAestheticMerchant for that universe's lore and storytelling, but we are more than happy to accept work from other writers for publication here, and in hopeful print editions of the website if a magazine should happen to come to pass of it.

One writer's work can sustain a publication for only so long, after all. At the moment, we're accepting the following types of submissions:

• Short stories of up to 5000 words in length; preferably, which fit the magical realist or pulp fiction vibe found elsewhere on this website, and/or which are part of their own original and/or interconnected universes
• Artwork, whether it be fanart of the events and characters from Sorrows Of Blackwood or the other original universes here, or horror-related pulp art in general
• Open letters, opinion columns, and letters to the editor; try not to be too overtly political, but these can be metafictional analysis pieces on the creative field in general, thoughts on pulp fiction or the genres you write in, and all sorts of things like that

Guidelines on short stories

Guidelines on artwork

This should be PNGs or JPGs of your own work in a reasonable size and format. As we currently have limited space here on the Neocities page, we can't post every piece we receive, but we do have a Tumblr and Bluesky page, and we're working on getting the Instagram page functioning as well, so we can show off your work there and give you some exposure if you want.

Please note: we're not asking for specifically a “fanart as free commission in exchange for free exposure” deal, as we're more than happy to make the appropriate commissions when funds and time allow. If your time allows, and you have something to show off because you like what we do here, especially if it's an original piece, we can “put it on the fridge” and show it off. This goes especially if you have open commissions, and we'll be happy to send folks your way for taking up your slots if we can!

We prefer Artwork with the following genres and features more than anything else, although all pieces will be considered equally:

• Horror, folklore, and magical realist vibes (think Gravity Falls, Twin Peaks, Supernatural — cryptids in the woods, fairies at Waffle House — the kind of stuff you'd find in the typical Pick-n-Mix Comix settings like Wicker Creek or Grimstead!)
• Pulp sci-fi — nothing too hard realistic — think space opera, planetary fantasy, “dragons on space stations, wizards on spaceships” sort of deal, as that's what much of the post-2100s settings for Pick-n-Mix Comix, especially where Akthorian and the Dragorean Language Center are concerned, are all about
• Eldritch horror and cosmic lore, especially in a new and interesting way; we love to see abominations from beyond the stars in a new and personable light, especially if they're the protagonists of the stories and artwork you're making, or are otherwise a strong central focal point in them

We can't generally accept fanart of properties we (or you) don't have the rights or license to. For obvious reasons, anything public domain or already licensed under CC-BY-SA-4.0 (or a similar CC license, including CC0) is acceptable, so you can just draw Cthulhu fighting the SCP Foundation and that would be acceptable so long as they resulting work is licensed under their preferred, earlier version of CC-BY-SA, the CC-BY-SA-3.0 license. (We know they don't generally accept preexisting characters, even public domain ones, over on the SCP Wiki proper so as to keep things generally pretty original. Although their content is licensed under CC-BY‐SA-3.0, we can still publish content related to said licensed content so long as that content is licensed under CC-BY-SA-3.0 — which is why this entire website doesn't have one permanent, all-encompassing CC-BY-SA-4.0 license in it, but rather, individual pieces do so that each specific piece can be licensed and published accordingly. We can have all rights reserved, public domain, and CC-BY-SA-4.0 content as well as CC-BY-SA-3.0 content and it should all, generally, be fine together. So, if you do wanna do a piece with the SCP Foundation, it'll just need that special consideration of a separate CC-BY-SA-3.0 license and not really be able to interact with the CC-BY-SA-4.0 stuff the same way.)

Guidelines on letters

If you have a letter to the editor, we can populate a Letters To The Editor column right here on Grimoire Faire, as well as solicited letters for specific issues of any published editions of the website (whether that be digital or in print at some point in the future). We'll have a response for you and you can comment on anything from what you think of the way Solemn Graces: The Series is going to which characters you think should meet up with each other in a future storyline or just share a strongly-worded opinion with the people who write this stuff for you in the first place.

Open letters and opinion columns are more open-ended, directed more at readers of the website than the writers/editors proper. If you just have a letter or call to action to share, we'll accept that, and if you have a pitch for a regular column you might like to see as a feature on this website or in a published edition at some point, please let us know and we'll give it a thought, but try and include a few sample columns with your pitch so we can tell what you're all about.

Compensation & Rights Management

Compensation

Unfortunately, at this time, we can't provide any financial compensation for the work you submit to us; however, should the website's financial concerns take off and we see activity on the Patreon or Ko-Fi pages or in sales of any published editions (or other potential sources of funding for these things), we'll be able to offer a better deal in this regard. The standard is usually around $0.03 to $0.08 cents per word, which works out to $30 to $80 dollars for every 1000 words, so maybe we'll be able to have this as a stretch goal or launch up Kickstarter for a series of print runs where we'll be able to accept submissions on a for-compensation basis and provide a better deal on our end than just sharing your content as well as ours for you.

Rights Management

You retain all applicable copyright for your content. However, we request you to consider only submitting content you feel comfortable licensing under Creative Commons using the CC-BY-SA-4.0 license the same way as Solemn Graces: The Series, The Lethericon, and everything else are licensed so that your work can be used and shared by more than just us here. We here at the Grimoire Faire Webmasters’ Association (that's not a real thing) believe in and follow the ancient tradition that pulp fiction and penny dreadful content is best when it can be shared and used by as many as possible, so all the lore and mythology published by Grimoire Faire pages should adhere to that central mindset.

We do make exceptions for this, but considering the hopefully-commercial nature of this publication, it's just best to make sure all the licensing follows generally the same terms unless you really want something included that has a good reason not to be included as Creative Commons content like everything else here.

Under CC-BY-SA-4.0, you retain the copyright but issue a license so that anyone — including Grimoire Faire, our readers, and any other party — can share, adapt, remix, repurpose, rework, perform, or otherwise transform your work for any reason and for any purpose, including commercial, so long as they license the resulting work produced by them under the same terms and license and attribute it to its source copyright-holder if desired, which in this case is you. “ShareAlike”, as they say, which means anyone would be able to repost or redistribute or adapt your work into new stories and formats so long as that work is attributed back to you and licensed under the same terms so the chain of creativity can keep going.

We're taking that leap in the name of old fairy tales and urban folklore, so it's best — although again, not necessary for every story published here — for that door to be open so others can try it out as well if they want to take that leap alongside us here.

Where to Submit

Fill out the Grimoire Faire Submissions Page here, including relevant Neocities buttons and file uploads, or send all that plus your pseudonym for attribution, preferred license type, pronouns, and any relevant social media pages/contact links/business cards/commission pages/advertisements/self-promos/etc and/or an author bio or other stories, worldbuilding, or lore projects to which you want attention drawn to our submissions email at grimoirefaire@proton.me.

NSFW and SFW content allowed, but anything of an AO3-equivalent Mature or Explicit rating might end up on an "after dark" page instead of the main one. This is a showcase for many different kinds of work, so try not to use your real names and try to make sure you're 18 or over before you submit something, as we prefer 18+ writers as a matter of course.