During the months of August and September, Apex Magazine will only be open to submissions from previously unpublished authors.
What do you mean by “unpublished” author?
For this submission period, being an unpublished author means that you have never had an editor/publisher select your story for their publication. Whether or not you were paid for that publication doesn’t matter. It also means that you’ve never published your own stories either on a Patreon, through Amazon’s publishing platform, or through some other self-publishing model where you are selling your story. If you have any questions about whether or not we would consider you to be unpublished, please email me at lesley@apex-magazine.com.
How many stories will you be accepting through this open submission period?
Well, that’s completely up to the outcome of the Apex Magazine 2025 Kickstarter. Since we have hit our initial funding goal of $15,000, we will be accepting 10,000 words of original fiction. That will probably break down to two or three stories, depending on their length. If we hit 400+ total backers, then we will do an entire issue (between 20,000 and 24,000 words) of stories from previously unpublished authors. That would break down to between five and seven stories, depending on their length.
I’m a previously unpublished author. How do I submit?
You will submit through Apex’s regular submission portal in Moksha. In your query letter, state that you are a previously unpublished author. All of our regular submission guidelines still apply. You can find our guidelines and the link to Moksha to submit here: https://apex-magazine.com/submissions/
What does the unpublished authors submission period mean for regular submissions?
We will close to regular submissions during August and September. If, after going through all of the submissions we currently have and those we receive during the unpublished authors window, we still have room for more stories in 2025, then we will open to regular submissions in October and November. But this is a big IF. At this moment, we have only secured funding for three issues of Apex Magazine in 2025. That works out to 60,000 words of original fiction for the year. 10,000 of that is earmarked for previously unpublished authors, which means unless we unlock additional issues during our Kickstarter, I am only looking for 50,000 words of original fiction for 2025 and we currently have around 1,000 submissions still under consideration. If we do not unlock additional issues, there is a high likelihood that I will fill all of 2025 from stories that have already been submitted.
Here's the good news. There are 15 days left in the Apex Magazine 2025 Kickstarter. That’s 15 days to unlock a 4th, 5th, and 6th issue of the magazine. That’s 15 days to unlock the stretch goal to raise each issue’s word count from 20,000 words of original to 24,000 words. That means we have the potential to raise total number of words of original fiction that Apex Magazine will publish in 2025 from 60,000 to 144,000! That is room for so many more stories! And we have the time to get there!
So, if you haven’t yet, please back the Apex Magazine 2025 Kickstarter here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/apexpublications/apex-magazine-2025
And if you have already backed the Kickstarter, help us reach more people. Share Apex Magazine with your friends and family. Share the Kickstarter on social media.
We can do this!
Lesley Conner, Editor-in-Chief
A Better Explanation
After receiving several queries about what we mean by previously unpublished authors, and realizing that the definition we originally came up with is limiting and excludes many of the authors we are trying to uplift, the Apex team came together to come up with a better definition. During August and September, Apex will only be open to submissions from authors who have never been paid for their published works. The total payment does not matter. It could be a token $5 or a few dollars from self-published works on Amazon or Patreon. If you have never been paid for any fictional writing, then we want to see your stories during this special submission period.
We realize there could still be a grey area, and if you have a question about that, please email me at lesley@apex-magazine.com. I will review these on a case by case basis.
