Writers Wanted! (The Pro Se Open)

It has taken a while, but for the first time in a long time, the Pro Se Open Writers Wanted Page is completely Full! Thirty open calls! And as one fills up, another will be posted! Opportunities abound in both original concepts and public domain/licensed concepts for You to leave Your mark on Genre Fiction!

This is a list of anthologies and imprints that are open to writers to submit to.  We like to call it The Pro Se Open.  If you're a writer interested in the possibility of writing for Pro Se, bookmark this page and check it regularly to see if projects are still available and to keep up with all the new concepts open for submission from Pro Se Productions.

HOW YOU CAN SUBMIT TO A PRO SE OPEN PROJECT IS AS FOLLOWS-

1. An upcoming Collection or Imprint with openings is listed in the Pro Se Open. 

2. Submissions are accepted following a 2-3 paragraph proposal for the story and at least a four page writing sample if you are a new writer submitting to Pro Se, unless the specific call states otherwise. Proposals should be mailed to submissions@prose-press.com

3. Submissions will be reviewed and those writers whose proposals are accepted will have 90 days from date of acceptance to complete their story  Anthologies will remain open, however, until the Publisher determines enough stories are collected to go forward for publication.

4. Submissions to the book will be closed when all open slots in the listed work are filled. Editing will not begin until that occurs. Contracts will not be issued until the book is full, as royalties are determined in most collections by how many authors are in the anthology.

5. All projects, unless otherwise stated are royalty pay projects.  An amount is set aside for each anthology that will be divided amongst the accepted writers for each project. Royalty rates will normally range from 5% to 15%. Royalties are paid on every dollar made by Pro Se Productions, payment is not restricted until production costs are covered.  Pro Se Productions pays semi annually currently, in January and July, and sends payments when royalties for a particular author have reached a ceiling amount or exceeded that amount.

6. Editors assigned to these projects will follow up, monitor, and make sure work is being done. Steps will be taken to move the anthology along as planned if work is not being done in a timely manner.  

The Pro Se Open will be updated periodically as to adding new collections and removing ones that have been filled. Some of the collections have story bibles to go with them and are listed so. 

If proposals have been accepted for anthologies below, the number of openings remaining will be listed with the anthology. Anthologies with all slots still open will also be noted as such.

Please Note: These collections will NOT be scheduled for publication until all stories resulting from approved proposals are submitted for editing. 90 Day deadlines will be given with each accepted proposal, but until a minimum of three stories are received, anthologies will NOT be published. Final number of stories included in an anthology will be determined upon response to submission calls and by the Publisher. 

Email submissions@prose-press.com to request bibles when appropriate and to submit all proposals.

Read the full list of current opportunities: http://prose-press.com/pro-se-open

PRO SE PRODUCTIONS OPENS NEW SUBMISSIONS CALLS

FEMME FOUR COLOR! HEROINES FROM COMICS' GOLDEN AGE 

Wonder Woman may be the first heroine people think of when the Golden Age of Comics is mentioned, but she in no way was alone, or even the first woman to take up the quest for justice in illustrated fiction of the day! And with an open call for submissions, Pro Se Productions wants to bring some of the forgotten females who carried the banner for right in the eary days of comics back to life in prose and New Pulp in the anthology FEMME FOUR COLOR! Heroines from Comic’s Golden Age.

Stories for FEMME FOUR COLOR must involve a character that originally appeared in comic books before 1950 and is, by all possible means and understanding, clearly in the Public Domain. That character must also be a woman. Pro Se Productions will make the final call on whether or not a character meets these criteria when submissions are reviewed. A partial list, by no means complete, of available heroes is below. Information, although limited in some regards, is available on each of these characters from various online and print resources.

Characters available for this collection include (only suggestions):

JANE MARTIN
MAUREEN MARINE
CAMILLA, QUEEN OF THE LOST EMPIRE
MADAME STRANGE
LADY SATAN
BLACK VENUS
MARGA THE PANTHER WOMAN
THE WOMAN IN RED
THE SPIDER QUEEN
THE SORCERESS OF ZOOM
MYSTA OF THE MOON
GALE ALLEN AND THE GIRL SQUADRON
THE VEILED AVENGER
PENNY WRIGHT, FEATURE WRITERS
JILL TRENT, SCIENCE SLEUTH
THE MAGICIAN FROM MARS
AMAZONA, THE MIGHTY WOMAN

Stories for FEMME FOUR COLOR must be 10,000 words in length. A proposal of 100-500 words must be submitted to submissions@prose-press.com. Authors not previously published by Pro Se Productions must submit a writing sample of at least two pages with their proposals. Authors whose proposals are accepted must submit the first four pages of their accepted stories as quickly as possible for review by Pro Se staff. Final deadline for completed stories is 90 days following acceptance of proposals. This anthology is a royalty pay opportunity, percentages to be decided upon once all proposals are accepted and stories are submitted for final review.

FEMME FOUR COLOR! Heroines from Comic’s Golden Age is a part of the Pro Se Anthology Project, THE PRO SE OPEN, and is scheduled to be published in the 2016-2018 calendar years, depending on submissions and other factors.

POLICE PULP!

One of the most popular character types in Genre Fiction is the policeman. Paid too little to do a job too big for just one man, heroic men and women in uniform go out each and every day in reality to face crime and lawlessness so the regular citizen does not have to.

Likewise, the Police Officer is a character that many writers have adapted and now Pro Se Productions is putting out the call for submissions for an anthology featuring policemen and women in tales worthy to be called POLICE PULP!

Stories for POLICE PULP! must feature a police person, someone employed by a police force of some sort, as the primary character and in a reasonably heroic, albeit realistic light. The tales can be set in any period up until the present that would have had a police force and must be set squarely in reality, with no supernatural or extranormal influences included. An equal emphasis must be put on action and adventure as well as accuracy. Research will be a benefit for stories submitted to this volume.

Stories for POLICE PULP! must be 10,000 words in length. A proposal of 100-500 words must be submitted to submissions@prose-press.com. Authors not previously published by Pro Se Productions must submit a writing sample of at least two pages with their proposals. Authors whose proposals are accepted must submit the first four pages of their accepted stories as quickly as possible for review by Pro Se staff. Final deadline for completed stories is 90 days following acceptance of proposals. This anthology will be a royalty paying anthology, a percentage to be decided when final number of authors for the collection is determined.

POLICE PULP! is a part of the Pro Se Anthology Project, THE PRO SE OPEN, and is scheduled to be published in the 2016-2018 calendar years, depending on submissions and other factors.

THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF NED LAND!

The most remembered character from Jules Verne’s classic 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea is of course Captain Nemo. A favorite of many readers, however, from the book is sailor and master harpooner Ned Land. And now Pro Se Productions wants to give readers a peek at what came after his time on the Nautilus for this man of the sea by opening a submissions call for an anthology entitled THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF NED LAND.

Stories for THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF NED LAND must be set in a period reasonable to when Land would have lived, according to Verne’s novel AND must be set after the Nautilus adventure. Any elements of any genre will be considered appropriate in submissions and left to the discretion of Pro Se Productions to allow. This means that the supernatural, monsters, aspects of science fiction and fantasy, and so forth are allowed to be included in submissions.

Stories for THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF NED LAND must be 10,000 words in length. A proposal of 100-500 words must be submitted to submissions@prose-press.com. Authors not previously published by Pro Se Productions must submit a writing sample of at least two pages with their proposals. Authors whose proposals are accepted must submit the first four pages of their accepted stories as quickly as possible for review by Pro Se staff. Final deadline for completed stories is 90 days following acceptance of proposals. This is a royalty pay anthology, percentage to be negotiated upon story acceptance and determination of number of writers involved.

THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF NED LAND is a part of the Pro Se Anthology Project, THE PRO SE OPEN, and is scheduled to be published in the 2016-2018 calendar years, depending on submissions and other factors.

Pro Se Press announces new submissions at the Pro Se Open!

The Pro Se Open is a list of Anthologies that Pro Se plans to do in the future. This is an open call on all the books listed in the Open, that is anyone can submit a story for any of the books in the list. For some of the anthologies, there is no deadline essentially, that is until all the slots open in any given book are filled. However, some will have deadlines attached and these will be noted by each individual title.

The Process will be as follows-

1. An upcoming Anthology is listed in the Pro Se Open.

2. Submissions are accepted (a 2-3 paragraph proposal for the story and at least a two page writing sample if you are a new writer submitting to Pro Se)

3. When the slots for the collection are all filled, a deadline for story completion will be set of approximately ninety days from the closing of the anthology. This will give writers time to complete their tales, artists time to do covers, etc.

Even though the deadline will be 2-3 months out once a book is closed, Editors assigned to these projects will follow up, monitor, and make sure work is being done. Steps will be taken to move the anthology along as planned if work is not being done in a timely manner. This means, however, that until all the slots are filled on an anthology in The Pro Se Open, it will remain open, but it is Pro Se's commitment that once all the works are in for a particular collection, that that collection move into high gear toward publication, regardless of current publishing schedule.

The Pro Se Open will be updated periodically as to adding new collections and removing ones that have been filled.

PLEASE NOTE THAT THE ANTHOLOGIES LISTED BELOW MAY NOT PUBLISH UNTIL 2014 UNLESS THEY FILL QUICKLY.

New Anthologies to the Pro Se Open are as Follows-

ONCE UPON A SIX GUN- Jesse James and the Three Bears… The Little Gunfighter….The Sheriff and the Pea… Little Billy the Kid…Get the picture? Blend REAL western characters in with ACTUAL fairy tales, we don’t care what country the tale comes from, but it must be authentic and it must include a real Western cowboy type. These are not retellings in a Western setting….We want Fairy Tales meets Cowboys! 10,000 word stories, 3 slots open. TWO STORIES SUBMITTED/APPROVED, ONE MORE SLOT OPEN

PULPTERNATIVE!- This is your chance to write Pulpy tales based in completely alternate histories! Have Julius Caesar discover America. Have a milk truck run over Hitler when he’s three. Have Montezuma take over most of the known world. Whatever you want to have happen that isn’t what our history says it is, do so…but here’s the rule…These have to be clearly Pulp tales. No grand philosophizing or comment on society today (unless you can slip it into a pulp cover and get it past us), just pure grade Pulp in histories that might have happened. 10,000 word stories, 3 slots open.

THE DAME DID IT- This is an anthology aimed at Writers interested in the Hard Boiled and/or the Noir. Time period and setting do not matter, but these stories must be two fisted, gun shooting hard core action with one other rule. The Hero and/or the Villain must be female. In other words either the Dame solves it or She is the source of the crime/problem. And no gals playing second fiddle to the male hero or villain either. A woman must take center stage as either the protagonist, antagonist, or both. 10,000 word stories, 3 slots open.

For more info, visit prosepulp.com or prose-press.com.

Submissions: The PRO SE Open is... well... open!

 

A leader in New Pulp Fiction, Pro Se Productions announced today openings in several upcoming anthologies and a new way that the company would be soliciting writers to participate in  upcoming collections.

"One of the thrills," stated Tommy Hancock, Partner in and Editor in Chief of Pro Se,  "of being a New Pulp writer and publisher is the need to write and offer opportunities for others to write all the cool ideas that could possibly fit between the covers of a book. This fact is something that publishers, small and large alike, recognize.  As Pro Se's presence increases at Conventions/Conferences, one question more than any other comes up constantly. And it's the question a Publisher wants to hear, one that, fortunately for Pro Se, has been unsolicited. That is, writers and artists seeking out Pro Se and asking this most favorite of questions- "You got anything open for submissions?" or the very similar "What anthologies can I submit to?"

"After giving this some thought and looking at how not only the New Pulp crew does it, but also at how larger presses and even the largest of the Publishers handle such things, Pro Se has decided to change up its anthology process a bit. This will not affect how PULP OBSCURA or future 'invite only' anthologies are done at all. There will still be special projects, of course. But there will also be the PRO SE OPEN."

"Essentially," explained Hancock, "The Pro Se Open will be a list of anthologies that Pro Se plans to do in the future. This is an open call on all the books listed in the Open, that is anyone can submit a story for any of the books in the list. There is no deadline essentially, that is until all the slots open in any given book are filled."

The process will be as follows-

1. An upcoming Anthology is listed in the Pro Se Open.
2. Submissions are accepted (a 2-3 paragraph proposal for the story and at least a two page writing sample if you are a new writer submitting to Pro Se)
3. When the slots for the collection are all filled, a deadline will be set of approximately ninety days from the closing of the anthology. This will give writers time to complete their tales, artists time to do covers, etc.
4. The book will be published within approximately 30 days following the passing of the deadline.

Even though the deadline will be 2-3 months out once a book is closed, Editors assigned to these projects will follow up, monitor, and make sure work is being done. Steps will be taken to move the anthology along as planned if work is not being done in a timely manner.  This means, however, that until all the slots are filled on an anthology in The Pro Se Open, it will remain open, but it is Pro Se's commitment that once all the works are in for a particular collection, that that collection move into high gear toward publication, regardless of current publishing schedule.

The Pro Se Open will be updated periodically as to adding new collections and removing ones that have been filled.

Anthologies currently listed in the Pro Se Open are as follows:

PULPOLOGY- It has been said often that Pulp has its origins in ancient tales, legends, the mythologies of many lands. Taking this to heart, this anthology will feature stories starring characters from mythologies around the world! Actual mythological characters in new adventures set in their own era, the ancient world of heroes and monsters, or updated takes on classic myths (Jason and The Argonauts in the Old West, for example). Either way, these stories will spotlight the characters and strengths of mythologies world wide and put a two fisted, high octane Pulp spin on the legends themselves! 6 Stories, 10,000 words each.

THE ADVENTURES OF MOOSE AND SKWIRL, TROUBLETAKERS- Trouble happens everywhere in the universe. Any time. Any place. And to make sure whatever cockeyed balance there is is kept, the universe takes care of itself, assigning special individuals to the unpredictable, unrewarding, and usually life threatening task of just being in the completely wrong places at the totally right times to hopefully keep everyone...or most everyone from dying. But the universe doesn't trust just one person to do this, no it works in groups of two. Moose-Stocky, barrel chested, two fisted, sarcastic, and ready to deliver a soliloquy over the bodies of whoever stands in his way... And Skwirl-Seductive, sexy, and with a sense of humor that could kill....literally. These two 'Trouble Takers' travel space and time very much at random, figuring out whatever issue they are thrown into and then fixing it. In their own unique, usually very destructive, bloody way. Five slots, 12,500 word stories ( If interested, request short bible for this one).

SIX GUNS AND SPACESHIPS- This is a wide open, do it as you want Space Western Anthology. The requirements- It's got to be a mash up between classic westerns and space opera (Firefly, Outland, Bravestarr, just a few examples). It doesn't take place on Earth at all, has to be off planet, but time period and location beyond that are up to the writer! 5 open slots, 12,500 word stories.

TO LOVE AND DIE- Pulp Romance is back! And its deadlier than ever! These stories will be set in any time period up until modern day and must feature two things-Romance...and Treachery. These stories may be mysteries, horror tales, adventure yarns, whatever, but there must be a strong core of romance mixed with danger throughout. Six Open Slots, 10,000 word stories.

NEWSHOUNDS! - Dogged reporters, crusty editors, copyboys and cub photographers with dreams of grandeur, Pressmen who know the city lives and breathes by what they print! One of the most fertile grounds for action packed pulp has always been the newspaper office. And all those wonderful character types and more all work for The Partisan, a 1950s paper partial to the common man, to righting the wrongs done against the innocent and the weak! And this gaggle of hard bitten, hard fighitng men and women are known near and far to those who love them and those who wish to see them dead! Do No Wrong in Their City unless you want it covered by the Newshounds! 5 open slots, 12,500 word stories (If interested, request short bible for this one)

THE NINTH CIRCLE-VOLUME ONE, This collection centers around a crime ridden precinct and borough in a city that shuffles its misbegotten and forgotten to THE NINTH CIRCLE. Six Slots-10,000 word stories (If interested, request short bible for this one)

DEAD MAN WALKEN- This western adventure has enough intrigue and mystery to choke a horse! A town is savagely attacked by a ruthless band of outlaws and most of the citizens killed, including the promising sheriff elect, Fitch Walken. A month after the massacre and all the bodies are buried, Fitch Walken stumbles into town, the last three months of his life gone from his memory! The mystery deepens when Walken's grave is exhumed...and he's IN THE COFFIN! What follows is the classic struggle of a man to find out who he is, what happened to him, and just which side of good and evil he will stand on! Five Slots Open-12,500 word stories (If interested, request short bible for this one)

THE BLACK FEDORA-A BOOK OF VILLAINS- This is just what it says it is, an anthology dedicated to stories about the bad guys we love to hate. These stories will focus on original villains and of course the heroes they face, these tales similar in style to the FU MANCHU stories of the past. But this isn't only for yellow perils!! Any type of villain that populates pulp is welcome to try on THE BLACK FEDORA! Two slots open, 15,000 word stories.

HIGH ADVENTURE HISTORY-Ever wanted a chance to write a masked man enforcing justice in ancient Egypt? Or a larger than life genius and his team of heroes righting wrongs in renaissance Italy? Or mad scientists terrorizing the Arizona desert towns of the Old West? Then here's your chance! HIGH ADVENTURE HISTORY will include stories of traditional pulp concepts and tropes plopped into our very own past, pre 1900! Take your favorite pulp stereotype and wrap it up in ancient or not so ancient places and people and join us in HIGH ADVENTURE HISTORY! Five Slots open, 12,500 words stories.

THE SHAMUS DIRECTIVE is a project actually founded in historical context. Just prior to and all during World War Two, The United States government via the FBI as well as members of the Armed Forces, developed dossiers on all licensed Private Investigators in the country. A list was then comprised of the ones deemed appropriate and 'good' and they were then considered to be 'cleared' to be used in espionage missions, mostly on the homefront, or missions that regular forces just could not deal with for various reasons. THE SHAMUS DIRECTIVE poses the theory that not only was this list compiled, but the people on it were truly the world's greatest detectives and they were formed into sort of a team to handle major issues in conjunction, even maybe saving major parcels of land and people in the process. Three Slots Open, 10,000 word stories (If interested, request short bible for this one)

If you're a writer or artist and are interested in these anthologies or have questions, email Hancock at proseproductions@earthlink.net! And check out Pro Se at www.prosepulp.com and www.pulpmachine.blogspot.com.