Ghouls, for the first time in years—and probably the last time for the foreseeable future—we have reopened our slush pile to consider full-length horror manuscript submissions. This includes novellas, novels, and story collections. This open call begins right now and expires on Saturday, August 31, 11:59pm CST.
I’m not going to get too specific as to what we are hoping to receive. If you’re a fan of Ghoulish Books, the odds are good you already have a decent idea. Just, you know, keep in mind that we are a horror publishing company. Consider taking a look at our catalog, perhaps?
Here are some things we are not interested in…
- Stories that have utilized AI technology.
- Stories from the POV of cops or detectives.
- Stories that rely on religious mythology.
That first one, about AI? No second chances. You’re dead to us, if we catch you. The other two won’t be automatic rejections, but just know it’s going to be an uphill climb for us to get through it. They’re just not the types of stories we’re typically interesting in publishing, or even reading for that matter.
As far as short story collections go, we have no preference regarding the balance of reprints vs. originals. I know some presses require a certain percentage of each. We don’t really care about that. All we are interested in is a good collection.
The novella / novel, however, must be original. No previously-published submissions there, please.
In your cover letter, please provide a brief pitch about the submission within the body of the email. Let us know what kind of story we’re getting into. Make us excited to open that document. And then don’t forget to attach it before clicking SEND. We prefer Word docs but PDFs are also okay for the submission process, if that’s easier for you.
Minimum word count: 25,000.
Maximum word count: 100,000.
Send everything to ghoulishsubmissions@gmail.com.
Please include TITLE_LAST NAME_WORD COUNT in the subject line.
Anything accepted from this open call will be considered for both our 2026 and 2027 line-ups.
Accepted manuscripts will receive a small advance, 40/60 royalty split, and 10 contributor copies with the option to purchase additional copies at printing/shipping cost.
Our deadline is the end of August, but depending on the volume of submissions we receive, we may not send out final responses until October-November-ish. We will try our best to get through everything as quickly as we can.
In the meantime, please consider subscribing to our FREE newsletter and participating in the GHOULISH discord.
Good luck, ghouls. I can’t wait to see what you’ve written.
Question about this call: The description above says it expires on “Wednesday, August 31,” however, August 31 is a Saturday. Does it expire this Wednesday 8/28? Thanks.
Whoops you are right. You have until Saturday!