Shy City House aims to radically alter the status quo of publishing. For too long, cult of personality has been grossly misused as justification for print worthiness. Shouldn’t we be most interested in the words and work—whether poetry, prose, opinion, or anything requiring continuous trains of thought—of people who strive for the opposite of brazen external validation? Our mission is to publish t
he best new writers, regardless of how many people worship them on social media. PUBLISHING YOUR WORK WITH US:
Shy City House is currently accepting submissions of unsolicited manuscripts of anything that breaks the mold of expectation. We're also seeking individual pieces and groups of work for online publication. Submissions just need to fit within the categories of “creative” or “biases.” You can get a better idea of what this means by reading what’s already on our site. Anyone who publishes something on our site will be automatically considered for our annual A Year in Shy City “best of” publication. ANYONE FEATURED IN A YEAR OF SHY CITY WILL EQUALLY SHARE PROFITS GENERATED FROM THAT YEAR’S SALES. Our goal is to eventually pay everyone for every contribution. Until then, this will have to suffice. MANUSCRIPT SUBMISSION:
We have no length or content requirements for manuscripts. Acceptance decisions are based purely on how much we like the work. To submit, save your manuscript in a Word document with the title as such: Last Name_Title of Work_Manuscript Submission. We additionally request an informal statement explaining the work, saved in a separate Word doc. PLEASE SEND SUBMISSIONS TO US IN THE FACEBOOK MESSENGER, OR TO OUR EMAIL, [email protected]. Simply click the "Send Message" button on our page, attach your documents, say something cute, and click send. Since submissions are free, we may take a while to get back to you. If you don't hear anything after six months, shoot us a friendly reminder message and we'll make sure your work goes to the top of the pile. We're a new, small, organization; we’ll only be able to publish a few manuscripts per year until we gain some momentum. Try to remember it doesn't necessarily mean your work is bad if we don't accept it (although, it could be). ONLINE PUBLICATION SUBMISSION:
To get published on our website, just message us up to five pieces via the Facebook messenger—each in a separate Word document. There's no submission fee and you may submit multiples times. Keep in mind, if you're sending five three-word poems to us every day, we're probably not going to give your submissions as much care (unless they're three damn good words). There's a soft 1,000-word limit on these pieces. If you have a killer story that's 5,000 words, we'll read it. Some things require a long explanation. But try not to go too far overboard. There's value in all kinds of work. We simply prefer ours on the conciser end of the spectrum. A YEAR IN SHY CITY:
If you submit to us for online publication, your work will automatically be considered for our "best of" publication A Year in Shy City unless you explicitly state otherwise. For people who only want to submit to A Year in Shy City (why?), and not be considered for regular online publication, simply say something when you contact us. PAYMENT FOR CONTRIBUTORS:
We are currently offering payment for those who publish manuscripts with us, as well as for individuals included our annual “best of” review, A Year in Shy City. All profits are shared equally among contributors to A Year in Shy City. Everyone who is offered a manuscript deal will have a unique contract. For transparency’s sake, however, we will generally operate on this model: 75 percent of profits to the writer, 20 percent of profits to Shy City House, 5 percent to a charity agreed upon between the writer and Shy City House. Additionally, we’ll work together with all our writers to find the most effective methods for marketing their specific projects. Payments and sales updates will be distributed on a quarterly basis. It's our goal to publish and promote the best work out there. We aren't in this for the money, which is why our focus is on fairly compensating our contributors and giving back to the community.
