[Readers Digested] Presents: “Rabies and Germs: An Anthology”

   Rabies and germs, I hope all of you are staying safe as we are amid a Corona virus epidemic that has seen much of civilized society come to a near standstill. I know it has been rough and I can’t imagine the horrors faced by medical staff and personnel in the outbreak (and I run a horror site).

   Readers Digested has been developing a horror anthology for a while now (gathering contributors, finding writers who can help the brand in its infancy) and I think we are ready to start accepting submissions in a more formal manner (a lot of submissions I have taken have been through conversations on social-media, which I’ll still do).

   Readers Digested (with Mishmashers Publishing, our parent-company) attends Comic Cons and book conventions throughout Midwestern America and prides ourselves on supply regular online content to our readers.

   We are hopeful to launch a dual Anthology of stories called Rabies and Germs in October of this year, depending on our landscape around then.

   Below, I have attached a “Submission” section, it is meant to answer questions you may have and to fill out the template included. Don’t copy-and-paste your whole story into our submission box. Believe me, an un-formatted brick of text won’t come off well anyways. We will contact you for more information!

   As you can anticipate, the genre we are looking for, is horror or horror-adjacent. For example, if you wrote Silence of the Lambs, that’s cool, but you might want to shop your anthropomorphic erotic somewhere else. The word count can vary from flash fiction (we consider that anything below 1,000 words), short-stories (we consider that anything between 1,000 words and 6,000 words), or novelettes (we consider that anything between 7,500 words and 17,500). If you have anything longer than that, it might not be in the horror anthology‘s wheelhouse. 

   Don’t fret though, we might be interested in the publishing and distribution of your novel as a solo project. Specify that’s what you’re looking for in the submission and we will discuss it as soon as we can. This comes with its own set of details and information that we will dig deeper into later on. Still feel free to ask about it though. 

   All stories accepted and published with the Rabies and Germs Anthology are considered timed-exclusives. If it is published with us, then we expect it not to be published elsewhere until after a six month period. The story will still appear in the Rabies and Germs book, but you’ll be free to publish it anywhere (on your website, other anthologies, etc.). This isn’t a contractual obligation. But, if you break that, we will think twice about including you in later publications.

   If a six month period is too long, then, maybe consider specifying you want it included in the Rabies & Germs magazine, a smaller publication we do that includes interviews and articles as well. We only have a thirty day exclusivity period for that.

   Currently, Readers Digested pays in exposure and experience (unless you’re publishing a solo book). The brand is only now outta the gate and is trying to etch out a certain niche. All income made from magazine sales and book sales go straight back into the company. Every convention we attend, (we did Kentucky, Illinois, Indiana, and Missouri last year) it cost money for the books we order, the vendor fees, the hotel cost, and so on.

   We take that weight off of you and carry it ourselves, and bring your name directly in-front of the eyes of a consumer (we will be certain to snap shots of people with the Anthologies in-hand for the website and to update you on sales). We are hoping to find ourselves a tightly-knit group of writers, ones that will commit themselves into building the brand, their brand, as well as ours, and it will be those ones that reap the benefit of what we know Readers Digested can become.

Wash your hands and give hazmat hugs,
McConnaughay