Submitting a Short Story to The Independent Fantasy and Sci-Fi Magazine

All submissions are to be emailed to: admin@ifs-mag.com

Please include in the email your legal name, author name (if different to your legal name), the genre of your story, and the word count of your story.

Submission requirements:

Your story submitted must not exceed 5000 words.
The publishing language of The Independent Fantasy and Sci-Fi Magazine is English. Submissions in other languages with accompanying accurate translations to English are accepted and encouraged.
Text only, do not include any images.
Your story must fall into the fantasy and/or science fiction genre.
You must hold all intellectual property and distributing rights relating to your submitted story at the time of submission and for at least the following 60 calendar days.
No artificial intelligence, machine learning, large language model (LLM), or any other generative A.I. techniques or programs may be used in the creation of your story.
Stories must be submitted in an editable format using a word processor file type (e.g., docx, odt).
You must not be contractually engaged with any book publishing company at the time of submission and for at least 185 days following submission. For guidelines on what counts as a literary publishing company, see the following Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English-language_book_... Note that this list is NOT exhaustive, we rely in part on your honesty in this case. The Independent Fantasy and Sci-Fi Magazine intends to publish only work from independent (or "indie") authors, i.e., those not traditionally published with a book publishing company. Having stories published in anthologies or with other fiction magazines is not a disqualifying factor.

Submission guidelines:

Your story should be suitable for readers ages 16+. We will contact you if this is an issue.
Please submit your story in a fully edited, final state (i.e., ready to be formatted for e-book and then published). The Independent Fantasy and Sci-Fi Magazine is a very small crew and this will help to accelerate the process of getting your story into an edition of The Independent Fantasy and Sci-Fi Magazine.
To help us process your submission faster, please name the file containing your story using the format [author last name]_[story title].
Stories written exclusively to shock or disgust are unlikely to be successful. Stories with horror elements are accepted, but this is not a horror magazine.
Sexual content guidelines:
- All stories are assessed on a case-by-case basis. You will be contacted regarding required edits.
- Fade to black scenes and mild sexual references are likely to be accepted.
- Direct references to genitalia will be assessed individually and may require editing or removal.
- Stories containing explicit sex scenes and/or explicit references to, or descriptions of, sexual harm will be rejected.

What happens if you are successful:

Your story will be selected to appear in one of the monthly editions of The Independent Fantasy and Sci-Fi Magazine.
You will be informed via email that your story has been selected within 60 days of submission. This email will also contain which month your story will appear in.
You will be asked to agree to give The Independent Fantasy and Sci-Fi Magazine's exclusive rights to distribute your story for 185 days from its publishing in the magazine.
You will be asked to provide details for payment.
You will receive AUD$0.50 per issue sold containing your story, paid monthly.
At the end of the 185 day period following publishing, distribution rights to your story will return to you and The Independent Fantasy and Sci-Fi Magazine will cease to sell magazines containing the story.
Hopefully, you submit your next one to us as well!

What happens if you are unsuccessful:

You will be contacted by the end of the 60 day period following your submission to inform you that you have been unsuccessful and distribution rights to your story have been returned to you.
Hopefully, you submit your next one to us as well!