Dog Versus Sandwich is a regular blog-based webzine publishing stories online. It is edited by Ben Payne and published by Twelfth Planet Press, who also publish Shiny and New Ceres.
What we want
Dog Versus Sandwich is dedicated to the fantastic, absurd, surreal, obtuse, bizarre, fandangled, hyperbolic, “slipped streams”, the parable, the duck with the broken leg, the experimental, the mental, and also stories in which a dog eats a sandwich (or vice versa)
The Way We Want it
We will consider stories up to 10 000 words. However, stories under 6000 words will have a greater chance of acceptance. Stories must be original and unpublished. We do not accept reprints. We try to keep our reply times short and so do not accept multiple submissions or simultaneous submissions. Flash fiction (under 1000 words) and poetry will also be considered.
How to submit
All submissions should be emailed to dogvsandwich@gmail.com as an rtf attachment. The subject line of your email should read “Submission: [Your Story's Title]“, or, if it is a flash fiction sub, “Flash: [Your Story's Title]“. Your email should contain a brief cover letter. Stories which do not follow these rules will be deleted unread.
Response
Dog Versus Sandwich will prioritise speed over commentary. So the majority of subs will receive form letters, and will be returned in under a month. Stories which come close to publication may be held for slightly longer. If you have not heard back after a month please feel free to query.
Payment
We pay $50 (Australian dollars) for short stories, and $10 for flash fiction or poetry.
Rights
We ask for first world publication rights. Exclusive rights to your story for three months, and non-exlusive rights (you can submit it elsewhere, but it will be archived on our site) for twelve months.
Define “flash”? What word count makes it flash? Most of my stuff tends to walk the line.
Thanks Martin, I’ve edited the guidelines to clarify. At the moment I’m going for 1000 words as the cut-off.
Didn’t realise I had comment moderation on either. Have to work out how to turn that off!!
For poetry subs, do you prefer to receive only one at a time, or is a submission of 3-5 poems in one email acceptable?
Where is the link to your web zine? I’d like to see it.
I was curious about payment. I am in the USA; if you accepted a submission from me, would payment be via PayPal, as for “Shiny?”
Hi Marcie, yes, three to five poems is fine.
Karen, this is the webzine. It doesn’t exist yet. When it does it will be here on this blog, with stories published as blog entries and as pdf documents in the blog.
Bryan, yeah, we’ll be paying via paypal. It’s the best deal for OS authors.
Hi there,
What is rtf?? I’m in the UK. I’ve got Word and pdf. Please advise.
cheers
Rosemary
Should the subject line of a poetry sub say “Poetry: [Your Poem(s)' Title(s)]”?
Just wanna make sure of the rules
Rosemary–I’m not the editor, the dog or the sandwich, but, if you have Word, you can save as RTF. Look under your “save as” and you should see other formats, including RTF.
Thanks Maria. That’s right.
Jane, yeah, if you could put Poetry or Poem in the subject line it helps make things easier, although we’re not too strict on that sort of thing. The key is to have something in there that distinguishes it from spam
can writers outside the US submit their works?
How do you feel about profanity? I’ve written a story where the main character is a blue-collar Aussie bloke with a rather colourful vocab. His girl gets killed so its not an all rosie kind of story.
In your guidelines it says to query if 30 days have passed. 65 days passed, and I queried. I’ve not heard anything as yet for either submission or query. I am posting here in case emails aren’t getting through on one or both ends.
Thank you.
Jodi, sorry for the delay. Will email you.
Laura, I have no objections to profanity, or non-rosy stories, as long as they feel like DvS stories to me.
Kenchi, we accept subs from anywhere.
Whither the short story markets?…
We all know (we short story authors and publishers) that no one is going to get rich writing short stories. Probably most people can’t even make a living at it. But short stories have a value in that they introduce your work to new readers, helpin…
After reading this article, I just feel that I need more info. Can you suggest some more resources please?
I should email u about it.