Tor.com Publishing will soon be reopening to unsolicited novella submissions! Starting July 30, 2018, Lee Harris, Carl Engle-Laird, and Ruoxi Chen will be reading and evaluating original novellas submitted by authors to https://tor.moksha.io/publication/tornovellas. You can find full guidelines here, and we highly recommend you read them before submitting. We will be open for two weeks beginning on July 30 around 9:00 AM EST (UTC-1:00) and ending on August 13 9:00 AM EST (UTC-1:00).
For those of you who held off submitting in May, this is your moment! If you did submit in May and have not yet received a response, fear not: we are still reading and will be responding to every submission.
Until the end of this open period, Tor.com Publishing will be considering novellas of between 20,000 and 40,000 words in both the science fiction and fantasy genres. If it’s speculative and fits the bill, we want to take a look at it.
Lee Harris, Carl Engle-Laird, and Ruoxi Chen all actively request submissions from writers from underrepresented populations. This includes, but is not limited to, writers of any race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, class and physical or mental ability. We believe that good science fiction and fantasy reflects the incredible diversity and potential of the human species, and hope our catalog will reflect that.
In addition to reviewing the guidelines, we also encourage you to take a look at our existing list to get a sense of the work our current authors are producing and Tor.com Publishing’s vision and tastes. Good luck—we look forward to reading your work.
The May submissions period was explicitly for novellas that were ready for or close to submission – is this the case for the July submissions period as well, or are pitches or unfinished work acceptable for this submission period?
Thanks!
Eleanor @@@@@ 1.
Novellas should be submitted only if they are complete and ready. We announced this second submission period at the same time as the May one in order to allow writers time to complete their stories before submitting, rather than send through a rushed version, too early. If you have one that’s not ready, do not submit it at this time. There will be future opportunities, and it’s best to not ruin a story’s chance by submitting it before it is ready, as we will not accept resubmissions of the same manuscript. Hope that helps.
The submission guidelines say science fiction and fantasy, but are you allowing magic realism?
Actually, I have a finished sci-fi novella, but it’s in Dutch. Does TOR have a Dutch subsidiary?
I suppose you wouldn’t be interested in a comic fantasy novel (80K words), by any chance?
The Sorcerer’s Lackey: “An unsuitable hero has to overcome adversities in order to show what he is capable of.”
Cheers,
Peter
Misty @@@@@ 3.
Yes, we’ll accept magic realism submissions.
bramenjam @@@@@ 4
We don’t, I’m afraid.
Peter @@@@@ 5
We’re currently not inviting submissions of comic fantasy novels, but I wish you well with your search for a suitable home for it.
@@@@@ Peter – you might try DAW, I saw recently they opened for digital submission of 80k+ novels
http://www.penguin.com/publishers/daw/
One more question!
If we still have a novella in the queue from May, should we hold off on submitting in July? Thanks!
Lindsay @@@@@ 8.
Yes — just one submission at a time, please (though we admire your enthusiasm!) :D
Do you accept submissions from outside of America? For example, the UK?
How firm is that 40k upper limit? I have a story that is ready for submission, at around 42,000 words. I imagine some would be trimmed in the editing phase, so….figured it can’t hurt to ask! Thanks for this opportunity!
Is 20k words the minimum? Would you consider something a bit shorter?
Should I prepare a query letter as I would for a novel? Or do you prefer cover letters in the vein of a short story submission?
I’m also, like Malka, curious if the 20K minimum is absolute.
I have a novella I’ve been working on for over a year which is about 90% finished. I still need to tie up some loose ends, and it needs a good edit. I also still work full time so I have no idea if I’ll have a properly polished manuscript by the time submissions open. I already missed the May submissions (didn’t know about it — I blame Facebook) so if I miss this one, when will you be running open submissions again? It’s so near finished I’d hate to have to wait until next year, but I also don’t want to rush it and ruin my chances. I live in Africa, so getting an agent who would be able to represent me in the United States is nearly impossible from here. Open submissions initiatives like this is about the best shot I have. Please don’t tell me you only do this once a year.
TCS @10: We do accept UK submissions, yes!
Nicole @11, Malka @12, happy_mouth @14: The word count requirements are firm and we’ll only review submissions between 20-40k.
supersuri @15: We won’t reopen again in 2018, but keep an eye out on our social media feeds and the website for future open periods – right now, the next one is not yet finalized.
Roger that, loud and clear. I am 320 words away from trimming my submission into an applicable quantity. Thank you again for this opportunity.
Accepting horror?
Susan @13: Sorry about missing your question earlier! We have no hard and fast rules on cover letters, but I would model it more closely on a novel cover letter, with an eye toward useful comp titles (particularly ones on the Tor.com Publishing list) if they’re relevant.
JT @18: Yes, we accept horror.
Can I submit more than one novella? They are entirely separate novellas (no link between them except for me).
Cheers.
Jeff @20: Thank you for checking, but we don’t accept multiple submissions – please pick the one.
Hi. Sorry to appear dense. I have a novella in the May queue, but have written another specially for the July submission slot. It is a totally different novella. Am I able to submit the second, different novella? If not, can I withdraw the first one and enter the second , July one?
A question: can I submit a story originally published in another language, and newly translated into English? Or does that fall under “previously published,” even if its previous publication was in a different language?
Thank you! :)
Will you consider the first in a series of novellas, as per Okorafor’s Binti series?
What file format(s) please?
Hi,
I submitted the required three chapters of a sci fi novel back in the January 2018 open call. Is this still batch still under review or should i take it as rejected? No word from anyone, Just inquiring. Thanks.
Raven @22: You can withdraw the May submission and submit the new one in this period.
Lisa @24: While there are always exceptions, for this period, we prefer standalone novellas that tell a complete story.
Namor @25: You can submit in .doc, .docx, .rtf.
Stephen @26: I think you may have confused us for a different publisher, since we didn’t have a January 2018 reading period and we’ve never held an open call for novels or partial works. If you submitted to Tor Books, their guidelines are here: https://us.macmillan.com/torforge/about/faq/#how-do-i-submit-writing-to-tom-doherty-associates-llc. This announcement is about Tor.com Publishing’s novella program.
Hi again …so sorry but there is no mechanism on the Moksha submission form to allow me to withdraw my May novella. I searched their system and apparently there should be a ‘withdraw’ icon at the bottom of the status page. There isn’t one. I believe from reading their guidelines, that the Tor administration in charge of this submission call are the only ones able to pull a novella from the waiting list.
Is that possible, please?
My name is Raven Dane, the story is ‘ The Bane of Bailgate’, currently 36 in the waiting list
Thank you .
Raven @28: You can email submissions at tor dot com with your withdrawal request and we will pull it from the system. I’ve updated our novella guidelines to make this process more clear. Thanks!
Wonderful! Thank you so much for all your help , Ruoxi ,very much appreciated.
Hi Ms Chen,
Would like to confirm the following for submission requirements:
1. Whether along with the Manuscript and Query/Cover Letter, you require a Short Synopsis or Treatment or Both?
2. If all required or some, would you prefer all these documents to be submitted as individual files within an attachment or on a single doc file.
2. The Manuscript to be submitted, is it the whole manuscript or just the first 3 chapters?
3. Does the Manuscript still need to have double or single spacing?
Thanking you in advance,
Yaswin
So very sorry to be pestering again but I am still having great difficulty withdrawing my submission to the May Tor Novella Submission. . I emailed Tor on the address given, with a cc to one of your editors, but the story ‘ The Bane of Bailgate’ is still live on the waiting list. Can anyone help remove it, please.
Many thanks for your patience
I echo the questions asked by @31.
More specifically, looking for how you want a cover letter and/or synopsis to be formatted (as part of the novella document, or part of a separate document.
As well as whether or not you are looking for the entire novella or just the first three chapters. I had assumed, possibly incorrectly, that you wanted the entire novella.
Thanks in advance for the answers!
Raven @32 – Updated you via the submissions email, so you’re all set!
Yaswin @31, David @33 – We prefer a cover letter structured like a query for a novel, with a brief synopsis, word count, and context for how you think it would fit on our existing list. Do not include it in the body of the manuscript, which should be one double-spaced document in a readable font (preferably Times New Roman.) When you submit in Moksha, there is a field in the portal for your cover. We have never asked for 3 chapters, so I’m not sure where that information came from–please refer to the word count and submit the entire manuscript.
Thanks to everyone for their interest and for the submissions that have already rolled in. As we enter the last week of open submissions, we won’t be monitoring questions in this post anymore, so please send any other administrative questions over to submissions at tor dot com. Happy writing!
Moksha still shows me ‘in progress’ but my queue position has not changed since 18 October. Has Moksha stopped updating? I have reloaded my browser without change. Just curious if this is just me or if there is a hold up or something. Can’t seem to find any updates from Tor.com that there is a hold.
>Moksha still shows me ‘in progress’ but my queue position has not changed since 18 October
Same here. I will probably just pull it. Nothing is happening.
Name
David Davis
Email
daviddanieldavis@gmail.com
Title
“Another Yankee at King Arthur’s Court”
Received
August 12, 2018 6:11 PM (UTC)
Publication
Tor.com Novella Program
Welcome to the Tor.com Publishing novella submissions program. Please see our submissions guidelines to find out what we’re looking for, or for more information on our program.
Type
Novellas
20,000 to 40,000 words
Status
in progress
Queue Position
312
Response Time Average
1
Do you have a date for your next novella submission window?
On the Tor Submission website:
“Due to the volume of submissions we receive during our open periods, we won’t be able to respond to all submissions within 6 months of receipt, though we will respond. Do not be concerned if your story doesn’t seem to be moving up the queue, as we don’t usually read in order of submission. If you’ve received a confirmation email, your story has been received and there is no need to contact us to check. Please do not send your work until you feel it is ready to be read. We will not be accepting “updated” versions of the same work once submitted.”