Submissions
Mixtape Stories is seeking fresh short stories and novellas in the speculative and science fiction milieu.
What Kinds Of Stories Are We Looking For?
We are interested in engaging stories that pull an audience in through its characters and pacing. We are open to most sub-genres within science fiction and speculative fiction, be it offworld dramas, time travel, alternate realities, what have you. We particularly like absurdism and stories with humorous elements and that have deeper themes. Mixtape Stories eagerly welcomes voices from diverse ethnic and national backgrounds as well as those from the Pride (aka LGBTQIA) community whose experiences add to the human story.
Things we don’t like
Mary Sue or James Kirk (original series era) style heroes, Fantasy, or Horror.
Format And Length Of Story
The stories do not need to be in script format as we will work to adapt a short story/novella into an audio drama.
Short Stories Length
One episode stories are anywhere from 1,500 to 6,000 (preferably 3,000-4,500) words
Novella Length
Two to three episode miniseries between 6,000 and 20,000 words
How And What To Submit
Email your story as a Word document or pdf to juge.michael@gmail.com and in the subject state “Submission” and the title of the story. In the body of the email provide a one page query letter that includes the story’s title, word count, and an elevator pitch of about 4 to 5 sentences. You may also include your website and prior publications (if any) and contact information to include email.
Selecting The Story
We will read just about every short story we receive as it’s under 6,000 words (preferably between 3,000-4,500 words) and will read novellas if we believe the story is what we’re looking for based on the pitch. If we don’t select your story, it’s more likely that’s a good story but it’s just not for us.
Partnership
The way we think about it, whenever we work with another author, we’re entering into a limited partnership with them. If we believe a story will work well with Mixtape Stories, we will email you offering to adapt your story. If you accept our offer via response, Mixtape Stories will draft an audio drama adaptation to your story. You will have final approval on the script before it can be produced. Understand that in some cases, bits of exposition or dialogue may be compressed or changed. You will go over it to ensure the adaptation works for you.
While you, the author, has the final approval authority for the script, Mixtape Stories has full authority on the production itself to include the selecting voice actors, background music, and background sounds. If you believe you would be a good voice actor for one of the characters, we are open; however, Mixtape Stories will make that determination. Voice acting is a skill. Additionally, sound quality of recordings must meet our standards.
Win-Win Collaboration
Our limited partnership will be mutually beneficial. Mixtape Stories will receive new content from different perspectives such as yourself along with receiving your built-in audience and you will not only have a new audience introduced to you and hear your work, you will have a high-quality audio drama that you can post wherever you want and shop it around to prospective literary agents or Hollywood producers. NOTE: if you happen to have the ear of Hollywood producers to pitch a story, hook us up.
Legalese
BLUFF: You own the original story and Mixtape Stories owns the produced episode or miniseries with you given credit as author.
By agreeing to have Mixtape Stories adapt your story, we will provide the byline and short bio (see below) as well as list you as the author on our website. We own the finished episode/miniseries and have the right to post and maintain the story on our podcast, website, and social media for the life of Mixtape Stories, so you can’t later demand that you want it taken down. Here’s a wild example: Let’s say you make it big and Netflix wants to adapt the very same story we produced to a series but conditions that the Mixtape Stories episode/miniseries must be erased. Neither you nor Netflix can compel us to do so. The product of the episode/miniseries belongs to Mixtape Stories. Understand, we cannot produce the story until you approve the adapted script, so you get the final word on that. Naturally, you can post the episodes wherever you want and shop it around. That’s the point! You get a high quality audio production and Mixtape Stories gets more exposure.
Author Bio Feature Before the Story Begins
At the beginning of the episode (or episodes if it’s a miniseries), you will be given the byline to clarify that this is your story. Additionally, we will provide a brief bio (first episode if it’s a miniseries) that you want the audience to know. This may include your other works, awards, and where to find your work.
Do You Get Paid?
No. But neither do we (yet). Mixtape Stories hopes to one day grow into a vast military industrial entertainment complex spanning across the habitable reaches of this galaxy where all sentient beings will enjoy liberty, democracy, justice, and quality storytelling at reasonable prices. But as for now, we’re a passion project run by some rando Gen Xers with day jobs that have nothing to do with entertainment at all. We have kids––turns out they consume food and resources, and we just bought some windows. Did you know how expensive windows are? So, we can’t pay you.