1231 PUBLISHING PRESENTS
AN EXCITING NEW OPPORTUNITY

10+ STORIES OF PARANORMAL ROMANCE
THE LONG-AWAITED VOLUME 4 OF THE AUSTRALIAN PEN COLLECTION

All writers should be paid for their work.
Payment is $AUD10 a story and a copy of the paperback.
The Australian Pen volumes also give authors the opportunity to earn through self-sales, should they wish to.

SUBMISSION DETAILS

1. Open to all Australians either living in Australia or overseas, and all writers currently living in Australia regardless of citizenship.

2. There is no entry fee.

3. Stories should NOT have been previously published elsewhere.

4. Multiple submissions of up to three (3) stories are allowed at any one time. You may submit your stories elsewhere but must inform and withdraw your submission if you are accepted to be published elsewhere (and congratulations if you do!)

5. Short fiction between 800-2500 words. Leniency on wordcount offered for an amazing story.

6. The story should be tied to the book's genre, which is PARANORMAL ROMANCE. It can be dark, light, sweet, but NOT graphic/erotic. Kissing is fine. Use your discretion with the understanding that too spicy will be rejected.

7. Any paranormal romance is allowed; vampires, ghosts, zombies, shapeshifters, fairies, witches, psychics, mermaids, mythological beings (dragons, nymphs, dryads, centaurs, etc), your own custom-made species (well done!), and so forth. People with paranormal and extrasensory powers are great, but superheroes will be a hard sell.

8. Mixed genres are acceptable! Think comedy, tragedy, historic, crime, science fiction, etc. However, the story MUST feature a strong element of Paranormal Romance. Eg. A time-travelling werewolf looking for love in the past/future would hit both sci-fi and paranormal romance.

9. Stories to be submitted as a DOC/DOCX file (preferred), TXT, RTF or PDF. Email your submissions to publish@1231publishing.com with the subject title “Haunted Hearts Submission”. You will receive a return email acknowledging your submission’s arrival.

10. Formatting of the document to be a standard manuscript type.

    1. The title page must include your name, your author name, contact email, postal address, story title and final word count.

    2. Please use UK or Australian English.

    3. Please use “double quotes” for dialogue.

    4. Please double-space the body of the manuscript.

11. If your story is accepted, you agree that 1231 Publishing will receive exclusive publishing rights for 1 calendar year from the date of publication. After that date, all rights revert to you and exclusivity expires.

12. Submissions officially close on 30 September 2025.

13. The Long and Short lists of applicants will be published on the 1231 Publishing website, and an email will be sent out to you.

14. Successful applicants will be awarded $AUD 10 and one (1) complimentary copy of the paperback book, plus an invitation to the book launch.

15. Further copies can be purchased from the publisher in quantities of ten (10) at $8 per copy. Books are recommended to be on-sold at $15 at the author's discretion. No returns. There are no royalties for books sold by the publisher or by other authors. You keep the profits of the books you sell.

16. Find out more about the Australian Pen anthology collection!