Updated March 7th, 2024. They are still actively publishing work but their guidelines list a 2022 date, even though they had a 2023 reading period. Approach with caution.
JournalStone is a horror publisher that bills themselves as “your link to artistic talent”. They also run a number of magazines, websites and presses, including Dark Discoveries and Horror World. You can get a good feel for what they publish here.
They have a slick, easy-to-navigate, well-designed website that focuses on promoting books. It is a little hard to find out anything about the history of the company, their editorial board, or distribution on the website itself, but that is not that unusual with larger genre publishers who have a consistent audience of readers they focus on.
They are open to submissions once a year, generally from the 1st of September through the 31st of October, which is the case this year. Work submitted during this period will also be considered for the imprint Trepidatio Publishing.
According to their website they are seeking “Horror in all its forms—from literary to weird, Gothic to psychological, and (almost) everything in between. We’re looking for amazing stories from amazing authors, regardless of race, gender, religion—if you’ve got something good, we want it.”
Do not submit YA, Romance, erotica, or religious fiction because they do not publish in these genres.
They ask that you not submit multiple submissions or PDFs.
Their current turnaround time is between six and eight months, and they have detailed submission guidelines you should read and follow carefully, here.
Submissions should be made via email and formatted the Shunn way.
Minimum word count for novels and fiction collections is 50,000, and anything over 120,000 words will be a hard sell. Minimum word count for novellas is 20,000 words.
To learn more, go here.
Emily Harstone is the author of many popular books, including The Authors Publish Guide to Manuscript Submissions, Submit, Publish, Repeat, and The 2021 Guide to Manuscript Publishers.
She regularly teaches three acclaimed courses on writing and publishing at The Writer’s Workshop at Authors Publish. You can follow her on Facebook here.
