Publisher Spotlight: Blue Cubicle Press
I've been researching some mainstream publishing venues lately as part of my thrilling Edit Club activities, and came across this interesting little gem a few days ago.
Blue Cubicle Press is a small publisher of several magazine titles as well as books, on occassion.
The First Line, The Last Line
I'll start with a couple of their magazines, a matched set, if you will. They are called The First Line, a quarterly, and The Last Line, an annual release. Their submission rules are fairly lax; they want short fiction from 300-5,000 words, but will also look at longer and shorter works, they are open to any genre, and they prefer to receive submissions in electronic format. Multiple submissions from the same author are welcome, just no previously published stories. The editors also request that you wait until after hearing back on whether your story has been selected before submitting elsewhere.
The one thing that absolutely must be found in your story, if you want to be considered for publication, is the provided first or last line. These obligatory, unalterable sentences are provided up to four issues in advance, so authors have plenty of time to come up with a gripping tale that either starts, or ends, with the same sentence as every other submission.
I think this could be an excellent way for new or unsure writers to get a start in the publishing world, because they are given the same jumping off or landing point as everyone else.
Worker's Write and Overtime
These two publications are also intriguing as the subject matter of accepted tales must be centered on a particular workplace.
Worker's Write is a themed magazine. For instance, the upcoming issue is "More Tales From the Classroom," and all stories must be aet within a school working environment. Teachers, librarians, custodians, professors; their story must be told! Each issue focuses on a different workplace. 500-5,000 word stories and poetry are accepted, and previously published stories may be considered.
Overtime comes as a chapter book format and features a single longer story with work as the main theme. 5,000-10,000 word stories are accepted, and serialized novels can be queried.
Books
Blue Cubicle Press also has a small catalog of novels they have published, which you can find here
Pay Rate
Here comes the kicker: while all accepted works are paid for, they dont earn much. Authors receive anywhere from $5 to $50 for their stories or poetry, depending on length. So while Blue Cubicle Press might be a great place to get a start, because of their limited readership, they don't pack much of a punch in the pay department.
They sound awful nice! I mean, sure, the pay isn't preferable, but for making it out into the publishing world, this seems like a great start (and I sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo need a start!).
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I love the premise of the first line and the last line as the prompts for their stories. I like less the payments for authors' work.
The pay makes me go "meh", but as John said, I love the idea of every story starting or ending with a pre-determined line.
I've actually been working on a story for the fall edition of The First Line magazine for a while now. But I still have time left to fiddle with it. :-)
This is great information, @tanglebranch. Every small publication is different, and it's neat to learn about their varying methods and requirements for writers. The first line/last line story prompts are very clever. I'll look into these as I prepare to start submitting my polished stories.
It sounds interesting - I like the idea of having one line and seeing where it takes me. How far apart can our stories be when they start in the same place? Maybe I'll take a crack at one of these. Thanks for sharing this.
Great find Tangle!
I like the idea of having the first line written for me. It seems so nice and pleasant to have the pressure of that over-examined first line lifted. But for some reason I have some sort of aversion to having my last line written for me. Can't really say why, but it feels strange.
But that's me. You've outlined four magazines here, and I think there's a lot of potential for the group to write towards. I actually think it would be great to have Blue Cubical dictate one or two of the queues for Lite Club prompts, if other people would be into that.
Judging by the content produced in Write Club, I'd say we'd have a good home in Worker's Write. Decent length. Relatively open concepts. Most of our characters have jobs. What's not to love?
As far as the pay goes, I actually find the lack of pay encouraging. We're all relatively new to this. It seems to me that starting with the little guys like Blue Cubicle might be a great way to get that portfolio of published work established. I'm with @caleblailmusik, getting the name out seems far more important at this point.
I agree, the first-sentence promt can be very inspiring. Especially if it is not too long or has too much of a voice that doesn't fit you. I had that once for a contest I participated in, a couple of paragraphs to start it off, and I had a really hard time, until I found out you could re-write some of it.
Anyway, I'm definitely in favor of doing a Lite Club prompt with one. And letting people choose from the several first lines would also make it open for anyone to join in.
Ah, I like that they take very short stories of 300 words and up. Lately I really like the challenge to have a full story in a very short story. This will make for nice prompts, thank you for sharing, Tangle!