Smart Search Mainstream Fantasy Fiction

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Smart Search is one of several search options for our members. It lets you search for publishers and agents using the most common options and provides a short list of results that's curated and updated daily. This helps you find that gold nugget in the stream with as little effort as possible. Although you aren't a member yet, we are giving you a free preview of our Smart Search below. Read our Guide to Smart Search for more information about this feature.

Note: These are the results of a previous Smart Search of the Day. Today's Smart Search is General Experimental Short Stories.

This Smart Search of the Day is: Mainstream Fantasy Fiction.

Asimov's Science Fiction

From its earliest days in 1977 under the editorial direction of Isaac Asimov, Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine has maintained the tradition of publishing the best stories, unsurpassed in modern science fiction, from award-winning authors and first-time writers alike. In recent years, Asimov's has placed more stories on the Final Hugo Ballot than all of its competitors combined, and more than twice as many as its closest competitor.…
Genres: Fantasy, Science Fiction.
Lengths: Short Story, Novelette, Novella.
Payment: Professional payment (5 or more US cents per word) Professional. Details: USD $0.08-$0.10/word.
Avg. Response: 4.5 days.
Acceptances: 0.9% of fiction submissions accepted.

Bewildering Stories

Bewildering Stories — known informally as “BwS” — is a weekly electronic publication featuring speculative fiction as well as non-fiction, namely poetry, articles, essays, reviews, and art. What does “Bewildering” really mean? One thing it does not mean: “befuddling.” We do not like literature that is meaningless or self-contradictory or that asks the readers to do the writing for the author. What “Bewildering” does mean is “unconventional” and “thought-provoking.…
Genres: General, Fantasy, Horror, Science Fiction.
Lengths: Flash Fiction, Short Story, Novelette.
Payment: No monetary payment No monetary payment.
Avg. Response: 18.2 days.
Acceptances: 42.5% of fiction submissions accepted.

The Colored Lens: Speculative Fiction Magazine

The goal of speculative fiction has always been to examine the real world through the lens of the imaginary. By considering what could be, we gain a better understanding of what is. The Colored Lens strives to do exactly that. By publishing four to five short stories and serialized novellas a quarter in genres ranging from fantasy, to science fiction, to slipstream or magical realism, we hope to help our readers see the world just a bit differently than before they came to our website.…
Genres: Fantasy, Science Fiction.
Lengths: Flash Fiction, Short Story, Novelette, Novella.
Payment: Token payment (under 1 US cent per word) to Semi-pro payment (1-4.9 US cents per word) Token to Semi-pro. Details: USD $10 for flash; $20 for stories; for novellas, $20 for first 10,000 words, and $1 per 1,000 words over that.
Avg. Response: 7.0 days.
Acceptances: 1.8% of fiction submissions accepted.

Fiction on the Web

FICTION on the WEB is a labour of love. Every single story on here is hand-picked and carefully edited by me. I don’t have a staff, and I don’t make any money. I do this because I want to give authors a chance to get their work out there, and I love sharing great stories with the world. FICTION on the WEB has been online since 1996, which makes it the oldest short stories website on the Internet. Hundreds of stories have been enjoyed by hundreds of thousands of readers.…
Genres: Open to all/most Genres, including General, Fantasy, Horror, Mystery/Crime, Science Fiction.
Lengths: Short Story, Novelette.
Payment: Token payment (under 1 US cent per word) to Semi-pro payment (1-4.9 US cents per word) Token to Semi-pro. Details: GBP £15 or USD $15.
Avg. Response: 5.9 days.
Acceptances: 10.0% of fiction submissions accepted.

History Through Fiction (Website) [History Through Fiction Press] Charges Fees

History Through Fiction is proud to publish historical fiction short stories and novel excerpts submitted by independent authors and curated by our editors.
Genres: General, Fantasy, Science Fiction.
Lengths: Short Story, Novel Excerpt.
Payment: Token payment (under 1 US cent per word) to Semi-pro payment (1-4.9 US cents per word) Token to Semi-pro. Details: USD $30 honorarium.
Avg. Response: 41.0 days.
Acceptances: 6.8% of fiction submissions accepted.

Literary Wanderlust Wildcard

Literary Wanderlust began in 2014 with the goal of helping new and experienced authors achieve their dreams of publishing. We are a coalition of editors and publishing professionals working together to make our authors successful, and our goal is to grow slowly but steadily by publishing books we love. We are a royalty paying, traditional publisher of print and digital books. We publish well-written novels in various genres.
Genres: General, Fantasy, Mystery/Crime, Romance, Science Fiction, Western.
Lengths: Novel.
Payment: No monetary advance + Unknown royalties No advance. Unknown royalties.
Avg. Response: 13.6 days.

Mysterion

The Christian faith is filled with mystery, from the Trinity and the Incarnation to the smaller mysteries found in some of the strange and unexplained passages of the Bible: Behemoth and Leviathan, nephilim and seraphim, heroes and giants and more. There is no reason for fiction engaging with Christianity to be more tidy and theologically precise than the faith itself. Mysterion is an ezine of Christian-themed speculative fiction edited and published by the husband and wife team of Donald S.…
Genres: Fantasy, Horror, Science Fiction.
Lengths: Flash Fiction, Short Story, Novelette.
Payment: Professional payment (5 or more US cents per word) Professional. Details: USD $0.08/word for originals; $0.04/word for reprints.
Avg. Response: 78.7 days.
Acceptances: None reported yet in fiction.

Nat 1 Publishing

Here at Nat 1 Publishing, we like the strange, quirky, and unique. Our origins were the product of a string of jokes and shitposts that went too far; they went so far that half a dozen novellas later we thought, “Well, damn. Might as well legitimize this monstrosity.”
Genres: Fantasy, Horror, Romance, Science Fiction, Suspense/Thriller.
Lengths: Novelette, Novella, Novel.
Payment: No monetary advance + >= 15% royalties No advance. >=15% royalties. Details: 50% royalties on novelettes and novellas.
Avg. Response: 66.0 days.
Acceptances: 35.7% of fiction submissions accepted.

Seize the Press Magazine

Seize The Press is the literary melding of Ursula Le Guin, Thomas Ligotti and Rosa Luxemburg. A brand new online magazine for dark speculative fiction and anticapitalist sci-fi, fantasy and horror pop culture analysis. Neon, dragons and gore.
Genres: Fantasy, Horror, Science Fiction.
Lengths: Flash Fiction, Short Story.
Payment: Semi-pro payment (1-4.9 US cents per word) Semi-pro. Details: GBP £0.03/word.
Avg. Response: 9.4 days.
Acceptances: 0.3% of fiction submissions accepted.

Tales from the Moonlit Path

Tales from the Moonlit Path publishes dark, eerie, speculative stories. Horror is not a necessary element, although fiction should contain some aspect of the weak, frail, changeable human condition.
Genres: Fantasy, Horror, Science Fiction.
Lengths: Flash Fiction, Short Story.
Payment: No monetary payment No monetary payment.
Avg. Response: 115.2 days.
Acceptances: 16.7% of fiction submissions accepted.