They publish new work as soon as they accept it. For this reason you should not simultaneously submit to this market. Even though officially they allow simultaneous submissions as long as you notify them immediately if your work is accepted elsewhere.

They have a very quick turn around time. Most of the time responding to submissions within a week. Although because it is a one person operation, they make no promises about response times, and they can be much longer than that.

They have no set publication schedule. They update their website whenever they receive new work that they like and want to publish. Each piece that they publish is paired with an image. The pairings are usually very apt.

They accept previously published pieces as long as you submit them as reprints and make it clear where they were originally published.

A Quiet Courage is still a very new publication, but they seem to be off to a strong start, and it helps that they are in a niche area.

They accept all submissions via email. Submissions must be made as attachments.

To learn more about their submission guidelines visit their submission page here. To get a better sense of the kind of work that they publish, visit their main page here.

Below are two opportunities to get your work published in an anthology. Each of these anthologies are looking for a very different kind of writing.

One is multi-genre but focused on speculative fiction, the other on music.

Deserts of Fire

Night Shade Books an imprint of Skyhorse Publishing, is publishing a new anthology edited by Douglas Lain. When you submit, you query him directly. The anthology is of new work as well as reprints. The deadline for submissions is June 1st.

Deserts of Fire is an anthology of fiction that takes place in or during the Iraq War. The anthology will feature a range of stories, some will be action oriented military stories and others will be polemical stories of dissent.

Authors of reprints will be paid $50 to $100 depending on the length of the story and authors of previously unpublished work will receive $100 to $200 depending on the length of the story.

This is a horror, fantasy, and science fiction anthology but it will also include experimental work. To learn more visit Douglas Lian’s website here.

Stories of Music

Stories of Music is a new anthology published by Timbre Press focusing on collecting poems and creative non-fiction that relate directly to music and the power of music.

Poems can be up to 100 lines long, and works of creative non-fiction can be up to 9,000 words in length. They are also looking to publish a number of other mediums including art, audio recordings, and video.

All submissions must be made on their website by June 1st. They will respond to all submissions by June 15th and July 16th they will publicly announce the proposed line up of authors and artists.

They will pay all contributors $200.

To learn more or to submit click here.

Five Star is an imprint of the publisher Gale which is a part of  the large academic company Cengage Learning. Cengage Learning, Five Star, and Gale, are all respected publishers, with established track records, good distribution and many ties to schools, colleges, universities, and libraries.

They are a large company and they do not focus on online sales for their Five Star imprint, so the website is a little unwieldy and it can be difficult to navigate. If you did not know in advance that they were open to unsolicited submissions, it would be hard to find that out from their website.

Fortunately, Five Star is open to unsolicited submissions of Western and Frontier Fiction. Unfortunately their current submission guidelines on their website are out of date and mostly focus in great detail on the sub-genres of romance, a genre they are  currently not accepting. So keep that in mind.

Make sure to list the sub-genre in your query email. Additional guidelines for all genre submissions are outlined on their introduction to submission guidelines PDF (link available below). It is important to note that if you have never been published by them before and do not have an agent, you have to query first, to a non-genre specific editor.

Five Star will consider manuscripts from 65,000 to 120,000 words in length, with some exceptions made for work that is a little longer or shorter. Do not submit your manuscript to them until they request it, but make sure it is completed and falls within their guidelines.

All queries should be made via email. In the query letter, request their full Five Star submission guidelines and make sure to include your name, address, and the genre guideline (Mystery or Expressions) you would like to receive. Then one of the editors will send you all the information and forms that will allow you to submit your manuscript properly.

They do not accept simultaneous submissions but respond to all manuscripts as promptly as possible.

You should first visit their main catalog page here, to get a better feel for what they have published in the past. If you are interested in submitting a PDF that includes an introduction to their guidelines is available here. Also their Facebook page is a good indicator of what they are currently looking for. Also to learn more you can email them directly at fivestar@cengage.com.

Bio: Emily Harstone is the pen name of an author whose work has been published internationally by a number of respected journals. She is a professional submissions adviser. You can follow her on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/emilyharstone/