Living Dead Press

Working Title: The Book of the Dead (tentative title)
Publisher: Living Dead Press
Release Date: Summer 2009

What we want:

Original stories about standard zombies that have not been printed anywhere before.
Only slow, Romero-type zombies. Keep the plot true to a world where the dead walk.
All the stories need to be set during either Night of the Living Dead or Dawn of the Dead timeline. Therefore the zombies are not rotting and purtid just yet, but do have wounds or have just left the funeral home.

No viruses, the dead walk and we don't know why, just like the movies. Its not airborn ect. you die, you come back, period.

In this world, the dead walking is new as people deal with it in their own ways, be it fight or run.

No werewolves or vampires, its the world we live in but the dead walk, otherwise everything is the same.

We want action, save the intelligent stories for someone else. We want blood, gore and guns.

Also, we are not fans of first person stories so unless your story is absolutley fantastic, only a few will be picked that are in first person.

Here's the deal folks. If we start reading and the story goes of in any other direction than what we are looking for, it gets rejected for this book on the spot.

Your story only needs two things to qualify:

• a unique story about the walking dead
• needs to be basically finished and edited other than small, copy-editing done by us.

Stories are to range from 3,000 to 6,000 words. The story can be up to 10,000, but you only get paid to 6. Nothing under 3,000 will be considered, they are too short. We want real stories, not flash fiction.

Location of author:

You need to be in the U.S or maybe Canada. We aren't set up to do international business right now but will be in the future.

So if you don't live in those two locales above, then please don't send the story right now.

What rights do we want?

First print and electronic rights to your story and exclusive rights for 1-year after publication. After that you can resell it. But we do have the right to use the story for as long as there is demand for the book.

What we don’t want:

• No repetitive coarse language. (All swears are fine but in normal moderation.)
• No poetry
• No Fast Zombies!!!
• No Porn. (Sexy scenes are fine if tasteful and relevant to the story.)
• No reprints. New stories only, please.

Multiple submissions are allowed, but only up to two at any one time.

What we’re making:

The Book of the Dead will be published as a trade paperback and perhaps as an e-book.

What you get:

1 cent a word and a contributor’s copy of the book. The paperback copy of the book will be sent to you upon or shortly after the book’s official release date. Payment is based on final word count from the final edited copy of the story, so once your story is ready for print, payment will be sent to you via check.

What to send:

Please send your story in standard manuscript format:

Courier, arial or baskerville, 12pt, it really doesnt matter because the first thing we do before reading your story is change to Georgia 12 point, then we read and edit the work at the same time in hopes we are going to take it.

Make sure any italicized words are underlined. Also include your name and contact information, phone number, on the first page as well as your name in the upper right corner of subsequent pages. Don’t forget to also number your pages.

We don't want double spaced, we want to see the story how it would look in a book so as we read it we can get the full feeling of the story.

We also would rather not see the story indented. Keep it flush to the left with no double spaces. If we take your story, its easier to format into the book if its like we just described. When we get them tabbed, it all has to be taken away again, agravating to say the least.
If you dont underline what you want italizied then dont complain if its not like that in the book.

Where to send it:

Send all submissions via email to livingdeadpress@yahoo.com

Please also use the same address for any questions not addressed here.

When to send it by:

Reading period starts right away and will end at the end of June/July, 2009. You will be notified by early June if your story is accepted, possibly sooner. We are very excited to start this project so all dates can be sooner depending on volume of submission.

Even if your story isn't accepted this time around it's possible we could use it later, so make sure you know how long you will let us hold onto it before you do anything with it.