Fantasy Scroll Magazine
Our mission is to publish high-quality, entertaining, and thought-provoking speculative fiction.
We want to publish approximately 100,000 words every year, a balanced mix of fantasy, science fiction, horror, and paranormal in stories between 100 to 5000 words.
This allows us to cover a wide spectrum of interests and to create a magazine that will appeal to everyone.
In addition to great fiction, we will feature author and editor interviews, movie and book reviews, and other interesting and engaging content. For example, our first issue will include exclusive interviews with award-winning writer Ken Liu, KJ Kabza, and editor Neil Clarke of Clarkesworld fame.
As we mention on our website, our goal is to pay our writers pro-rates. A magazine comes with various costs, the larger of which should be the amount we compensate our writers.
Stretch Goals
- $2,500 - this is the bare minimum that allows us to run 4 issues in one year and bring you more than 100,000 words of great speculative fiction, and lots of non-fiction, including interviews with your favorite authors.
- $4,000 - at this level we can afford to pay the writers a little more and provide you with more content.
- $6,000 - at this level we are are able to pay Pro-Rates to all of our writers. This is where we want to be and with your help we can get there soon!
- $9,000 - this would be a dream come true; at this level we are fully funded for two years, paying our writers Pro-Rates.
But, where are your funds going to go exactly?
Estimated Funds Usage
- Stories - This is where the bulk of the funds is going - to pay the writers. Our goal is to be able to pay our writers pro-rates, but before we are able to self-finance, we are depending on your kind contributions to give us the extra push in that direction.
- Art - A good magazine comes with fine art, so a part of the funds will go to the artists designing our covers and inside graphics.
- Administration - These are miscellaneous costs related to the publishing of a magazine, including things such as the ISBN and other fees and licenses we must cover.
- Advertising - By and large we will do our own advertising using social media and word of mouth. However, to reach a much wider audience we might need to use some third party services for things such as search engine optimization and public relations.
We want to amaze our readers and to do so our editorial team works hard going through the slush pile, looking for those elusive diamonds in the rough. We want to promote new writers and discover new talent, and we are going to work hard to achieve that.
On the other hand, we are constantly reaching out to the big names in speculative fiction, doing our best to bring you some great stories from your favorite writers.
Read below to see the names of the authors we have already accepted.
Our magazine is open to submissions year-round, and our aim is to respond fast. We understand that time is precious, so we will not waste yours.
If we find a story that we like, we will work closely with the author to make sure the story is in the best possible shape before publication. Our editorial team is made out of writers and editors who understand and love this process.
We'd love to read your stories, so please stop by and read our submission guidelines.
Here are some of the writers you will see published in our first few issues.
Ken Liu
Ken Liu is an author and translator of speculative fiction, as well as a lawyer and programmer. He has won the Nebula, Hugo, World Fantasy, and Science Fiction & Fantasy Translation awards, and been nominated for the Sturgeon and the Locus.
Mike Resnick
Mike Resnick is, according to Locus, the all-time leading award winner, living or dead, for short fiction. Adding together his novels and related non-fiction, he stands fourth on the all-time list, ahead of Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Sir Arthur C. Clarke, Robert A. Heinlein, George R. R. Martin, and Philip K. Dick.
KJ Kabza
KJ Kabza has sold over 50 stories to venues such as F&SF, Nature, Daily Science Fiction, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, AE: The Canadian Science Fiction Review, Buzzy Mag, Flash Fiction Online, and many more.
Alex Shvartsman
Alex Shvartsman is a writer and game designer. Since 2010, Alex sold over 60 short stories to a variety of magazines and anthologies. His fiction has appeared in such venues as the journal of Nature, Daily Science Fiction, InterGalactic Medicine Show, Galaxy’s Edge, and many others.
Hank Quense
Hank Quense writes humorous and satiric sci-fi and fantasy stories. He also writes about fiction writing and self-publishing. Hank has 14 books and 50 short stories currently published, as well as a few dozen articles.
Rachel Pollack
Rachel Pollack is the author of 36 books of fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and art. She is the winner of the Arthur C. Clarke Award and the World Fantasy Award.
Seth Chambers
Seth Chambers is an ESL teacher, and the author of SF, fantasy and absurdist tales. His work has appeared in many publications, including The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Alien Skin, Isotropic Fiction, and Perihelion.
J.W. Alden
J.W. Alden has always had a fascination with the fantastic. As such, he's made speculative fiction his domain. lden is a graduate of the 2013 class of Odyssey Writing Workshop and a member of Codex Writers
Michelle Ann King
Michelle Ann King was born in East London and now lives in Essex. She writes mainly SF, dark fantasy and horror. Michelle’s stories have appeared in various venues, including Daily Science Fiction, Penumbra Magazine, and Drabblecast.
Cathy Bryant
Cathy Bryant worked as a life model, civil servant and childminder (among other jobs) before writing full-time. She has won nine literary awards, including the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Prize in 2012, and blogged for the Huffington Post.
We are constantly accepting new stories, so please check our author page to learn more.
Your generous contributions help us create a great magazine. However, we do realize that this has to be a win-win for all, so we put together a few rewards for you.
Most of our rewards are comprised of free issues of our magazine and our e-books. Even though our stories will be available on-line, the PDF versions will include exclusive formatting and graphics.
If you are able to contribute a little more, we put together various levels of cool stuff that we created and customized with our logo, such as a 3-in-on pen/USB drive/laser pointer, T-shirts, hats, and IPhone covers.
Of course, it is your choice to donate to our cause and not claim any rewards. In that case we will send you a whole lotta love!
* Disclaimer: if any of the SWAG items becomes unavailable, it will be replaced with another item of similar value and functionality *
We are a team of enthusiastic readers and writers. We know the struggle of young authors, and we want to create a venue where they can feature their work, and maybe even launch their career.
With your help and donations, you can be a part of that!
Read more about us on our team page.
Also, Jim Harrington interviewed Iulian on his Six Questions for Editors blog.
One last thing: If you are unable to contribute, remember that you can always help us spread the word. Post about this Kickstarter campaign on your blogs and social media sites and you will be a huge help.
Thank you!
Risks and challenges
The biggest challenge we have is dealing with the large amounts of stories that come in continuously, and dig through them to find the best. We wanted to keep our submissions open year-round, and we try to keep that promise.
To overcome this hurdle, we have a number of passionate professionals who donate their time and effort to this cause. With their help, we are able to comb the slush pile fast and respond quickly to our writers.
The second obstacle is technical: our goal is to release our magazine on all the possible electronic devices and all possible e-book platforms. This means a lot of hours in converting the files into the different formats and abiding to the various rules and regulations of each publishing platform.
Iulian is a programmer and web designer with over 20 years of experience. He is convinced that with his knowledge and with the help of a few consultants, he will be able to overcome that challenge as well.
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Funding period
- (31 days)