Cyberwizard Productions Writer's Guidelines.
What we want:
We are looking for fiction, poetry and non-fiction books that fit our various imprints. We require a minimum word count of 30K and do not accept manuscripts that are longer than 150K. Before submitting a query letter, please take a few minutes to visit the links to our imprints and make sure your book fits.
What we will NOT accept:
We do NOT want Fan-fiction of any kind. We also do not accept any manuscripts that are "R" rated and above. If your work is close to the "R" rating line and you're not sure if it crosses over or not, we'll be happy to look at it and let you know.
We do accept horror as long as it is the thriller variety. We are not interested in blood, guts and gore or slasher horror.
We do not publish books with Gratuitous Sexuality; no matter how "G" rated the author may feel they are. There are plenty of publishers for such material. We aren't one of them.
We do not publish religious material. A book with elves who mention their Elven deity, sing a song or two to him or who take minor actions such as screaming his name in battle, is not religious material. However, a book which focuses on how to worship the Elven deity, what customs to follow, prayers to say and sacrifices to make, is religious material. It should not be necessary to state that if we aren't willing to publish religious material from realms of fantasy, then we are also not willing to publish religious material from our mundane planet earth (but we're going to state it anyway.)
Cursing and Obscene Language:
We do not accept manuscripts with obscene language and WE define which words are obscene, not the general public. If you have such language in your manuscript, even if you feel it's mild, please query us before submitting your work. We'll be happy to tell you if the words you've chosen are acceptable to us or not.
With regard to cursing:
It's fine to allude to the fact that someone's cursing. Something as simple as “a string of curse words escaped his lips” is all that's needed to tell the reader what is happening, however creative curses may be acceptable. For example, in a fantasy story set in ancient times, the hero might say something like "By the seven beards of Poltech!" In a modern story, the dialog might be "You dirty, rotten...!" Much depends on your phrasing and word choice. If you aren't certain if something is acceptable, ask. If you choose not to ask, be aware that you may be asked to remove them or change them.
Reprints:
We accept previously published work as long as you have the rights and can provide proof if necessary. We define "previously published" as any work presented to the public by a professional entity in any format. Professional entities are: E-zines, podcast sites, print publications and others like these, whether such organizations pay for the work they publish or not. We do not consider work posted to a crit group, in a personal blog, an online forum, or other places where the intention is not to publish professionally to be previously published.
SPECIAL NOTE:
We do not accept simultaneous submissions. If you have sent your work out to another publisher, please wait until they have made a decision before sending us your manuscript. Neither they, nor us, want to put a lot of time and effort into the publishing process just to find out that you've given the contract to someone else. If you feel you can't wait on the other publisher any longer, then contact them and withdraw you manuscript before doing anything else with it.
Before sending us your manuscript, please send a query letter to cwizprod@gmail.com.
Query letters are a frightening beast for a lot of authors, so we're going to make this easy for you.
Your query letter must contain your real name, a short description of what you'd like to submit and which imprint you feel it would fit best.
Don't go to a lot of trouble trying to write the perfect elevator pitch or boil your book down into five sentences. Just tell us what the book is about. Make it simple. Pretend you're writing to a friend and don't worry so much. We're not judging your ability as an author on your query letter, we just want to know if your work sounds like something that would fit what we publish.
Please do not include a list of your publication credits with the query letter. We're not interested in what you've done before, we're interested in what you're doing now.
Do not send email attachments with your query letter. Unsolicited email attachments will get the entire letter deleted and no response.
Please make sure your contact information is correct and that your email spam filters will not prevent our communications from reaching your inbox. We try to send acknowledgements the day we receive your submission. We will make every possible effort to contact you; however life and internet gremlins happen to everyone. If you have not heard from us within three days, assume we didn't receive your email and contact us by posting in our online forum. We do have an email gremlin catcher on staff, but the sneaky things sometimes get past him anyway.
If we ask you for your manuscript, please make sure it is in this format:
First page:
upper left corner:
your real name
your contact information
your email address
1/3 of the way down the first page:
Your title. Centered
your byline. centered
2 or 3 space below your byline:
The start of the story
Use either Times New Roman or Courier New font, nothing else. Double space the manuscript. Use underlines for italicized words. Indent the first line of every paragraph with a single tab. 1/2 inch margins. Page numbers in the HEADER, right side. 10 spaces between the end of a chapter and the chapter title of the next one. No inserted page breaks or section breaks. If submitting as printed pages, start each chapter at the top of a new page. No table of contents page, no attempted book layout or formatting.
We are looking for fiction, poetry and non-fiction books that fit our various imprints. We require a minimum word count of 30K and do not accept manuscripts that are longer than 150K. Before submitting a query letter, please take a few minutes to visit the links to our imprints and make sure your book fits.
What we will NOT accept:
We do NOT want Fan-fiction of any kind. We also do not accept any manuscripts that are "R" rated and above. If your work is close to the "R" rating line and you're not sure if it crosses over or not, we'll be happy to look at it and let you know.
We do accept horror as long as it is the thriller variety. We are not interested in blood, guts and gore or slasher horror.
We do not publish books with Gratuitous Sexuality; no matter how "G" rated the author may feel they are. There are plenty of publishers for such material. We aren't one of them.
We do not publish religious material. A book with elves who mention their Elven deity, sing a song or two to him or who take minor actions such as screaming his name in battle, is not religious material. However, a book which focuses on how to worship the Elven deity, what customs to follow, prayers to say and sacrifices to make, is religious material. It should not be necessary to state that if we aren't willing to publish religious material from realms of fantasy, then we are also not willing to publish religious material from our mundane planet earth (but we're going to state it anyway.)
Cursing and Obscene Language:
We do not accept manuscripts with obscene language and WE define which words are obscene, not the general public. If you have such language in your manuscript, even if you feel it's mild, please query us before submitting your work. We'll be happy to tell you if the words you've chosen are acceptable to us or not.
With regard to cursing:
It's fine to allude to the fact that someone's cursing. Something as simple as “a string of curse words escaped his lips” is all that's needed to tell the reader what is happening, however creative curses may be acceptable. For example, in a fantasy story set in ancient times, the hero might say something like "By the seven beards of Poltech!" In a modern story, the dialog might be "You dirty, rotten...!" Much depends on your phrasing and word choice. If you aren't certain if something is acceptable, ask. If you choose not to ask, be aware that you may be asked to remove them or change them.
Reprints:
We accept previously published work as long as you have the rights and can provide proof if necessary. We define "previously published" as any work presented to the public by a professional entity in any format. Professional entities are: E-zines, podcast sites, print publications and others like these, whether such organizations pay for the work they publish or not. We do not consider work posted to a crit group, in a personal blog, an online forum, or other places where the intention is not to publish professionally to be previously published.
SPECIAL NOTE:
We do not accept simultaneous submissions. If you have sent your work out to another publisher, please wait until they have made a decision before sending us your manuscript. Neither they, nor us, want to put a lot of time and effort into the publishing process just to find out that you've given the contract to someone else. If you feel you can't wait on the other publisher any longer, then contact them and withdraw you manuscript before doing anything else with it.
Before sending us your manuscript, please send a query letter to cwizprod@gmail.com.
Query letters are a frightening beast for a lot of authors, so we're going to make this easy for you.
Your query letter must contain your real name, a short description of what you'd like to submit and which imprint you feel it would fit best.
Don't go to a lot of trouble trying to write the perfect elevator pitch or boil your book down into five sentences. Just tell us what the book is about. Make it simple. Pretend you're writing to a friend and don't worry so much. We're not judging your ability as an author on your query letter, we just want to know if your work sounds like something that would fit what we publish.
Please do not include a list of your publication credits with the query letter. We're not interested in what you've done before, we're interested in what you're doing now.
Do not send email attachments with your query letter. Unsolicited email attachments will get the entire letter deleted and no response.
Please make sure your contact information is correct and that your email spam filters will not prevent our communications from reaching your inbox. We try to send acknowledgements the day we receive your submission. We will make every possible effort to contact you; however life and internet gremlins happen to everyone. If you have not heard from us within three days, assume we didn't receive your email and contact us by posting in our online forum. We do have an email gremlin catcher on staff, but the sneaky things sometimes get past him anyway.
If we ask you for your manuscript, please make sure it is in this format:
First page:
upper left corner:
your real name
your contact information
your email address
1/3 of the way down the first page:
Your title. Centered
your byline. centered
2 or 3 space below your byline:
The start of the story
Use either Times New Roman or Courier New font, nothing else. Double space the manuscript. Use underlines for italicized words. Indent the first line of every paragraph with a single tab. 1/2 inch margins. Page numbers in the HEADER, right side. 10 spaces between the end of a chapter and the chapter title of the next one. No inserted page breaks or section breaks. If submitting as printed pages, start each chapter at the top of a new page. No table of contents page, no attempted book layout or formatting.
Please read all the guidelines carefully before submitting. Thank you
