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Double Dragon Publishing is pleased to present the new fantasy imprint, Dragon Tooth Ebooks.Watch for the launch of our new line in early 2005! |
Authors can create a new life with a few paragraphs, remake history with a short story, bring hope with a poem and knowledge with an essay. The art of writing can offer love eternal, a journey to the stars, or a flight on the wings of a dragon... Writers are the true magicians of the world.
Dragon Tooth Fantasy Ebooks is a strictly fantasy ebook publishing imprint. I am interested in reading manuscripts of any type of fantasy: heroic, mythic, sword and sorcery, urban, contemporary, magical realism, dark fantasy and any other stories in which magic plays a pivotal role. Types of Fantasy
I do not read horror or science fiction manuscripts.
We are not interested in any form of fanfic -- that is a story based on any copyrighted material, whether that is television, movie, comic book, game, novel, or anything else of this type.
At certain times of the year I will open up submissions to short stories for specific anthologies, but I will not accept short story submissions at any other time.
Please follow these guidelines:
We have very few guidelines that must be followed, so please pay attention to them. Submissions that do not follow these short guidelines will be rejected.
All stories must have
magic as a key factor in the tale, as well as interesting characters
and a
plot that reaches a logical conclusion.
Your
manuscript must be presented in Arial or Times, 12
point font, and double spaced. Please make sure your manuscript is
spell-checked and grammatically correct. Do not justify the
margins.
NEW! Please make certain that your name and title of the work is on the first page, and that you have your name and the title in the upper left hand side of each page and the page number on the right hand side. This should be done in the 'header' part of the document. Example:
Manuscripts
must be between 35,000 and 150,000 words long. You can use the
word
processor count for this purpose. (35,000 is technically a long
novella,
but that's part of the joy of ebook publishing -- we have a far wider
range of
accepted lengths.)
Your
manuscript MUST be saved in Rich Text Format (RTF) and sent as
an email attachment to
Double Dragon Fantasy Imprint.
No other format is accepted.
The subject of
your email should be Submission: (title of novel).
In the body of your email Include a
short blurb, no more than 250 words, that gives a taste of your
story.
This is not a synopsis. Think, rather, of a TV guide review of a show
-- it's
just enough to whet the interest of the reader.
Do
not send a zip file. I will not open it. If your
manuscript is too
long to send via your account, break it into two or more pieces, but
let me
know in the first email that there are more parts arriving.
For more information about submissions
and contracts,
check out the
Double
Dragon
Guideline's Page
Beyond these guidelines, what will help you get published in Dragon Tooth Ebooks?
I am
not interested in first person present tense stories. (I
go out
into the street and walk down to the corner. I see my friends
coming
to join me.) This is a personal dislike, and no matter how
strong
the story, I fear that I will not overcome that dislike to judge the
material well. However, if you feel that you want to try
publication
at Double Dragon, you can submit
here.
If you have trilogy or longer, the
first novel must be compete and I will
want synopsis/outlines for all the remaining books in the series.
However,
if you write stand alone novels with the same characters and
backgrounds
these manuscripts can be presented as single submissions. And, to be
upfront, they will
likely have a better chance of selling, unless you have the entire
trilogy/set completed.
Watch out for that pesky passive voice. Make your characters active. For instance:
Mary was going to the store when she saw there was a robbery at the house next door. (Passive)
While heading for the store, Mary spotted a robbery at the house next door. (better)
Mary slammed the front door shut and stalked down to the sidewalk, annoyed that she had to walk to the store again, and in the dark. She barely noticed the noise next door until she realized she heard whispers, not cats, in the driveway. Mary paused by the huge oak and watched with dawning apprehension. Someone had broken into the house next door. (Not great, but we have a better idea of emotions and sounds.)
Fantasy and sf share the tools of creativity that move beyond the limitations of reality. They also have the same rules. In order for fantasy novels to work best and capture the interest of the reader, they must not only have solid plots and good characters, but the world itself must be built on a believable and logical system. Cause, effect, cost and payment are all important considerations for the writer looking at creating a magic system and the world in which it exists.
Limitations may be one of the most important words that a fantasy writer learns. I have seen people show disdain for the fantasy genre with the claim that it's unbelievable because anything is possible. And if that were true it would be a boring genre. However, we create limitations for the powers that exist in the stories. These limitations come in many forms, are not only items that sometimes have to be found, but also payments of a more personal type that will weaken the character and make him vulnerable in some way.
No power - - whether mundane or magical - - comes without a cost. If someone wrote a book about a man who came to rule the world, but never had to give up any thing or pay anything in terms of personal choices to achieve that spot, the reader would likely find it unbelievable and probably boring. The most popular stories in fiction deal with people facing their limitations.
Magic is a tool. Use it wisely in your books.
Lazette Gifford, |
Dragon Tooth Fantasy a Division of Double Dragon Publishing Inc. |
All
material © 2004, Lazette Gifford and Double
Dragon Publishing
(Unless otherwise noted)