# Black Library Submissions Window Reopens!



## Mossy Toes (Jun 8, 2009)

...briefly.

Read the first section here:

http://www.blacklibrary.com/Getting-Started/FAQ-Working-For-Black-Library.html

Interested in the big 4's Champions? Get writing!


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## Vaz (Mar 19, 2008)

Chears for the news matey. Ahriman, I think for me.


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## Lord of the Night (Nov 18, 2009)

Hmm very interesting. It'll either be Khârn or Lucius for me.

More than 1,000 words of synopsis and 500 words of sample text. What are those exactly?


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## Turkeyspit (Jun 11, 2010)

Did the specify a timeline for the story? The anthology is reported to be titled "Treacheries of Space Marines", but does that preclude us from using a pre-heresy setting?


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## Commissar Ploss (Feb 29, 2008)

neat, i'll have to give this a go, since i no longer am writing full time. lol

CP


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## Mossy Toes (Jun 8, 2009)

Lord of the Night said:


> More than 1,000 words of synopsis and 500 words of sample text. What are those exactly?


500 words just to show how well you can write--a sample of the story that you're pitching. Pay super extra attention to really making this shine--this is the more important section of the submission, according to Christian Dunn at Games Day (and that link has a WHOLE bunch more good info, too). You can fix a plot far more easily than a poor quality writer, he sez.

The synopsis is your story in a nutshell. Explain the plot, and *don't leave any major twists out!* He needs to know everything that happens in the story, or he's rather less likely to buy it! Summarize the plot, condense it down to a 1/10 scale, and prove that your awesome idea can be fleshed out in such a way that he'll have no choice but to buy it.


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## Mossy Toes (Jun 8, 2009)

Turkeyspit said:


> Did the specify a timeline for the story? The anthology is reported to be titled "Treacheries of Space Marines", but does that preclude us from using a pre-heresy setting?


He's already vetoed a heresy and pre-heresy setting. Khârn at Skalathrax is too early. Even stories set soon after the Heresy--e.g. Ahriman sacking the Anethaeum of Kallimauks 1,600 years later--are probably off-limits. It has to be set in fairly modern 40k...

(as to whether is can be in the 13th Black Crusade? Your guess is as good as mine)


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## Lord of the Night (Nov 18, 2009)

Mossy Toes said:


> He's already vetoed a heresy and pre-heresy setting. *Khârn at Skalathrax is too early*. Even stories set soon after the Heresy--e.g. Ahriman sacking the Anethaeum of Kallimauks 1,600 years later--are probably off-limits. It has to be set in fairly modern 40k...
> 
> (as to whether is can be in the 13th Black Crusade? Your guess is as good as mine)


Are you 100% certain of that?.


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## Mossy Toes (Jun 8, 2009)

Here. I'm afraid so... (and I saw your post on the Bolthole, so double-sorry for crushing your dreams)


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## Lord of the Night (Nov 18, 2009)

Aww. Oh well its good practice. Kharn won't be easy though, he hasn't done anything since Skalathrax that we know of, and writing a made up story for him would be hard without direction. Ill compile some ideas and try again, perhaps Lucius this time.


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## Worldkiller (Jun 16, 2010)

Is there a sin against a submission being just a little bit above 500 words? Probably should have asked that earlier because mine ends mid sentence.


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## Mossy Toes (Jun 8, 2009)

In the past you've been able to fudge it, say, ten or fifteen words. They aren't _that_ draconian about the wordcount. Just don't send in a 650 word sample...

Really though, trying to hold yourself to the wordcount is good. If you reread your sample, compress and condense overly loopy phrases and sentences, remove unnecessary adjectives, and/or whatever, it should end up pressurized and jumping off the page for the reader--as well as within the proscribed wordcount, giving Cristian one less reason to get irritated at the submission at all. And giving editors less reasons to get irritated and to reject your story is _gooood_.

Edit: I don't mean to advocate dryness and starkly simple prose, by any means. I just mean that by cutting out circular phrases, being more conscious of word choice, and really looking to convey the most powerful image as swiftly as possible makes the story better than simply writing and sending it away. Don't rewrite for the sake of having shorter sentences or simpler clauses. Rewrite to let the message sing uncluttered by more words than necessary.


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## Commissar Ploss (Feb 29, 2008)

stuck.

CP


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## zAngle (Oct 2, 2010)

I know this question I'm about to ask may seem somewhat idiotic but I'm asking it anyway. Since Black Library changed submissions to being e-mailed what font size / font type and word processing program do they wish your entry to be submitted in? I prefer writing in Microsoft Works rather than Word.


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## Commissar Ploss (Feb 29, 2008)

12pt Times New Roman


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## donskar (Apr 8, 2010)

OK, we're now in 2011. Anything known about 2011 submissions? Reading BL has reawakened my Muse (recently released from a halfway house).


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## demonictalkin56 (Jan 30, 2011)

It says on the website it's May at some point; hope it helps. My idea for Ahriman last time unfortunately didn't get through but hey that's why theres May lol


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## Dicrel Seijin (Apr 2, 2011)

The submission guidelines can be found here: FAQ-Submission Guidelines for Black Library. And I'm assuming the window opens on May 1st.


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