Submission Guidelines

Guidelines

Flatline is seeking original cyberpunk stories of all styles and variations. Lofi, high tech, solarpunk, slapstick satire, action/adventure, hardboiled, romance, westerns, etc. Mix and match. Get wild. Go wild.

We want cyberpunk taken in all its possible permutations. 

Be bold. Make something new.

Surprise us.

Format

Follow standard manuscript format and you’ll be good. Use a file type we can easily open and edit in Word.

Length

3,000-8,000 words.

Pay

Dependent on kickstarter, but $0.05 is the initial goal. We hope to be able to raise enough to pay $0.08 per word or even $0.10 per word.

Cover Letter

Who cares.

Reprints or Multiple Submissions?

No.

Rights

We buy First English Language rights.

How to Submit

Submissions will open January 1st, 2024. 

The form will ask for your email, story title, name (pen name), word count, and things of that nature.

Who Can Submit?

All are welcome.

Please, do not self-reject. If in doubt, submit. 

IMPORTANT: Do not put your name or any identifying information anywhere on your submission. If you do, we’ll reject it.

We do not ask for any information about race, ethnicity, gender, or sexuality.

AI

Do not send us anything produced with AI.

Art

If you want to produce art for Flatline, get in touch with the editors.

What we Love

Katsuhiro Otomo’s Akira, Mamoru Oshii’s Angel’s Egg, Shinya Tsukamoto Tetsuo: The Iron Man, Shinichiro Watanabe’s Cowboy Bebop, Tsutomu Nihei’s BLAME!, Mike Pondsmith's Cyberpunk RPG and the Cyberpunk 2077 video game, Octavia Butler’s Xenogenesis, Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner, Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash, Richard Morgan’s Altered Carbon, Richard Calder’s Dead Girls, Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake, Ursula K Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness, Hideyuki Kikuchi’s Vampire Hunter D, The Wachowski Sisters’ The Matrix, and on and on.