Only Criticol Submissions Please!

We are accepting unpublished, original, completed manuscripts in any fiction genre. While we prefer books (about 60,000 words minimum) we will also accept short stories. And it must be Fantastic! Always, Fantastic!

Here are more submission conditions you should be aware of:

  1. Manuscripts must be in Microsoft Word (any version) or PDF format.  If you snailmail us a submission, you need to provide proof that it was typed on a typewriter (which is kinda old-school cool) or we will recycle it without reading a word - better hope it wasn't your only copy there old-school.
  2. Completed manuscripts only. We don’t have time to read a manuscript that you’re still working on. We’re patient; we can wait – get back on your keyboard. Check out our writers resources too - that may help you. Go on, get at it.
  3. Must be Fantastic quality! Any fiction genre. We are not interested in Vampire (or Zombie, good grief -Ed.) stories though. Dead serious on that.
  4. Novels preferred. Short stories are fine. As are works by young authors. We're not accepting picture books, non-fiction, screen-plays, and anything in the Vampire genre. Still mean it.
  5. Original work only. We check diligently for plagiarists and cut them loose immediately. And put a black mark beside their name. Don't be that guy.
  6. Unpublished manuscripts only. This includes self-publishing on your blog, website or vanity publishers like Lulu, Cafepress, etc. You must personally own the rights to the manuscript, you must be the author and the work must be original - we are not interested in fan writers or stories based on characters for which you don't own the copyright.  Unlike other publishers, we'll look at an unpublished book in a series if you've self-published other volumes in the series.  If the story's good, we're interested. 
  7. By sending us your work, you are agreeing that we can use excerpts from it on the Criticol.com site, as examples for others (good and bad) and to promote you and your work.

Made it this far? Your manuscript is ALL the above and still Fantastic? Then we're very interested in reading it. Please contact us at submissions @ criticol.com (putting the word Fantastic in the subject line is a great idea too) and we'll let you know how to get your manuscript to us.  In your message to us, please confirm that you have read these submission guidelines in their entirety - just so you can't say we didn't warn you.

We're anxious to hear from you! No Vampires though, right?!