The Ethereal Gazette:
The Submission Guidelines
Nickolaus A. Pacione: Editor–In-Chief
Submission E-mail Address: etherealgazette@gmail.com
AOL Instant Messenger Submissions: NickolausPacione
Query E-mail Address: npacione@gmail.com



The Ethereal Gazette first opened it’s doors to submissions sometime in 2005, when I had an overflow from Tabloid Purposes II. So I did the guidelines and next thing I knew I had a strong line up. So here I am with many issues later of the magazine and many good writers coming in the doors of the magazine. link is to the namesake anthology as a Royal Trade Paperback. The overview is going to be updated in a few days to a week.
     I do special issues every fourth odd numbered issue so if you wonder about these, watch the message board for details.
     I first launched The Gazette (as what the contributors and I will affectionately call the magazine) at Gothicfest 2005. The first issue was a giveaway item at my table. This magazine is actually read by some famous publishers – it’s a networking magazine in terms of the circulation. Now there are currently thirteen issues published, and each one is something to keep the reader reading until the very end -- though Issue 6 had a problem with a plagiarist invading the pages of the magazine. Updates relating to the magazine are often posted on insanejournal.com of what I want in particular issues. Local issues are every fourth odd numbered issue. The next local will be Issue 15.
     But I am always looking for submissions for the magazine, and I do special anthologies every now and then for the magazine along with the normal anthologies on Lake Fossil Press. It saw it’s GLS posted on Ralan.com, but in recent years I am on my own when it comes to getting the contributors – relying on message boards and yahoogroups to get the word out about the magazine or just old fashioned e-mail. So I am doing this via my official website.
     I got very talented writers over the years, and this magazine is still open for submissions no matter what – but I won’t allow is homoerotic stories of any kind, period. If you even try to send me shit of that nature (ahem Stefan Wiles,) you’re blacklisted from Lake Fossil Press. Some asshole repeated tried to query for this via e-mail, and one tried to send me plagiarisms of my own work or bastardized some of my own photography then call it a “submission.” If you send me something of this nature – you’re the subject of my wall of shame on the weblog at blogspot.
     I sell this magazine through lulu.com and will publish a few public domain stories every now and then if they strike me right.
     It’s kind of hard to explain the magazine in a few words, but it’s something that people either love or hate for some odd reason or another. I without any apologies publish horror fiction without erotic content, modern Science Fiction, Gothic Literary Fiction, and dark hued creative nonfiction (ranging from long periods of illness, Strange Stories From The Third Shift, Christian testimonies from an occult background or drug addiction background, or true paranormal accounts.)
     I do the R-rated horror but it must not have any sexual content in it. I won’t really announce the magazine guidelines on the blog because they change all the time. Just keep in mind that I am doing a local issue for 11, then the fiction stories range in the length from 1800 to 28,000 (if the story goes longer than that, please warn me in advance. Ideal range for short stories is 2000 – 6000 words.) Nonfictional entries will top out at 5000 words, but starting at 2000 words.
     If you do a real person fiction story of me – don’t write a damned slash story, if you do that sort of thing openly then you need not apply for submissions to this magazine. If you try to query for that – I will make you a resident on my weblog’s wall of shame with your e-mail posted for people to send you nasty responses.
     There are other magazines out there for this, just mine isn’t one of those. If you do one of me and don’t do it in a way where people will make me look like an asshole in the progress. Picture me in a diner drinking coffee with Edgar Allan Poe, H.P. Lovecraft, Rod Serling, or Charles Beaumont trading our manuscripts off and looking at them while I smoke a cigarette and drinking my coffee while they do the same. Trading manuscripts of our prized works. I will not consider fan fiction unless the character had been long been in the public domain, as in do a character related to the character in the public domain bringing them to the 1980s-2010s.
     I want Gothic Fiction for the Information Age. Be respectful when you do these – real person fiction gets exposure, I pay writers about $10.00 for fiction, $7 for creative nonfiction stories, and $8.00 for reprint stories (all paid via PayPal, when I get paid that’s when I pay contributors) – writers will get a .PDF copy of the magazine when it comes out. As of 2010, I started paying out editor's choice which is between $30.00 - $45.00 which is paid out in two payments. Author photos with the creative nonfiction entries enclosed will give the contributors of this exposure. Art submissions being pencil drawn but well done, horror tinged artwork is a plus and photography being done in grayscale will get about $25.00. I will publish three of any one of the stated. I usually shoot the magazine's cover because I am also known as a photographer in my own right.
     Local authors, I will personally deliver the copies to you in a public place. I usually meet people in diners somewhere in the Chicago area – if you’re familiar with the area then we can do the arrangement’s via e-mail.
     If you’re a long time friend who is contributing to the magazine, go ahead and tell some of your diner stories – be dark about them so it scares the hell out of the reader. I ask creative nonfiction authors to take their pictures at a diner late at night because I am nodding to a publication that helped me take the magazine into a direction that opens it more for true stories that are eerie to go with the horror yarns.
     The magazine is a cross between The Mick, Gothic Beauty, Relief Journal, Withersin Magazine, Morbid Outlook, Twilight Zone Magazine, The House Of Pain, PLOTS, and Old School Weird Tales. It’s got the Gothic sensibilities of the three listed, but one thing it’s got and I like to brag about this – it’s got a lot of muscular horror. If you’re a Goth and writing horror – the horror better be damn well scary, as in scarier than you look but no sexual content. Look dark alternative but not write dark alternative fiction – think more like Richard Matheson, Edgar Allan Poe, Stephen King, or H.P. Lovecraft in terms of the delivery.
     Some of the authors I published are Terry Lloyd Vinson, Ken Goldman, Kevin James Miller, Brian W. Keen (from the Chimeraworld series,) Ken Kuptis, Fred Wiehe, Charles O’Connor III, Ray Nelson (from They Live fame,) Trent Zelanzy (an alumni from The House of Pain,) Barbara Majanovic (Shenouda – co-author behind House of Spiders 3,) Carol Sullivan (Dystopia Magazine’s editor) Brock Fisher, William Malmborg, and there are a huge list of others that I want to name but it would take too long to name them all in one thing. Some of the writers also appeared on Tales of the Talisman (a magazine I also appeared on.)
     Lake Fossil Press with some of its publications always published faith based dark writers in some form – and that was something I noticed as of late how faith based some of the writers were, but I had no idea because they wrote such dark horror yarns. I want the writers to write like they feel at home in both a late night diner drinking a coffee or a roadhouse drinking bottles of domestics. I was getting ready to head off to Scott Davidson's birthday, this issue in hand eventually went to the guys of URN. Scott got the one I had in the box with the other publications and a CD which was self-released professionally from one of the heavy metal bands I promote.
     To get a very damn good idea what I am looking for in the magazine, pick up a copy of Tabloid Purposes IV and Tabloid Purposes or the magazine over the years. This will give you an accurate description what I am seeking in terms of fiction. Two of the magazine issues have ISBNs on them (I have one of ISBN packages for titles known as globalReach which is better know around 2008 as the free ISBNs where Lulu.com acts as the publisher.)
     The Gothic elements in this magazine fall in the lines of the Blue Collar population. I make the model calls in private and they will be a surprise to the writers, once in a while I will get an artist too paired up with the writers. I had one joker calling themselves a Lake Fossil Girl – the asshole sent pictures of a damned transvestite in a cemetery. So if you want to model for the magazine, please be a biological female and biological female only (I will enlist models on special issues to add to the effect of the story.) I do have the 12th Issue published, but still looking to round out the second local issue's line up rounded out. The 12th Issue turned out to be the same size exactly as Tabloid Purposes IV: Something Macabre This Way Comes.
     The style of writing I want for this magazine is Gothic, but for a point of view for the working man or working woman. This is always tricky because the writers are very protective of their visions. I will sometimes pair an artist up with a public domain horror story to see if they can do an updated version of the story in illustration.
     I want Gothic Fiction that can change what Gothic Fiction can be. Don’t do anything campy with your story here because my magazine is about being cerebral as in the writers do stories that require a lot of back reading. I was a Philosophy major in college; so that is the reason I want cerebral. Think more in terms of being rough than elegant with the Gothic Horror delivery – really build the scare if you do horror, or if you do Modern Science Fiction, think in terms of The Outer Limits in the delivery. If you’re active with the site FanFiction.net – and if I like your story enough and despise slash fiction as much as I do, I will personally invite you to submit to the magazine if you can do original fiction.
     Don’t do anything that will get me kicked off Lulu.com – they’re a damn good host for a magazine and I want to keep that relationship with them. Since I publish a page count that’s about 150 to 270 per issue they’re a place to come in handy.
     Do not send me fan fiction where you’re fan fictioning my creative properties – see the no name jagoff from Scotland. He’s actively stealing my ideas and concepts for his shitty theft of Halloween Girl and threats of doing it with Spectral Exile then Tabloid Purposes. A bunch of his friends from a forum actually did that with the character of Nicholas Kane from Spectral Exile.
     If you’re trying to slash my characters then you’re a horror target for one of my stories. Another blogger blatantly steals from my work all the time to mock me – she admitted to stealing from Tabloid Purposes and House of Spiders for her little “parody.” So if you have a story where she’s a horror target, let me see it. I publish horror where writers will fight fire with fire.
     I do all the interviews for the magazine in house along with some of the photography since I am also a photographer. If I see someone I want to do an interview with for the magazine, I will do the interview via e-mail. If you’re a photographer wanting to get published in the magazine, send me your portfolio and if I like the pictures you will be contacted via e-mail.
     I don’t publish alternative romance hued stuff so don’t push your damned Lady Gaga infused world upon me. I am a product of heavy metal music and read a lot of the books that inspired the metal bands. I don’t listen to hair metal so don’t even ask. If you write horror fiction that world, it better be damn well scary – show the dark side of that world. The side that the media doesn’t show you, and bring that horror to surface.
     I have no set deadline really for submissions but the second local author edition will have one – I am a rolling submission deal, what might work for one issue might not work for another. If you’re out of the Chicago Gothic Scene and want to contribute to the magazine – forget about the oversensitive and just looking spooky aspect of the Gothic Community in Chicago. I want you to actually scare people, and have the little mall Goth bastards crawling back to mother in terms of them getting scared out of their wits.
     Musically this magazine is influenced by Iron Maiden, Metallica, ULTIMATUM, Bloodstream Parade, Saviour Machine, SlipKnot, and some others thrown in for good measure. If you’re a Hot Topic type of Goth, you might find this kind of magazine way too shocking for you in the delivery in terms of horror.
     It’s dark, menacing, uncompromising, and very UN-PC. Which means get used to hearing to other F-word being dropped in stories. We thrive on the first amendment, and like to do stories that are dark in nature relating that – and we’re not afraid to be a little disgusting with the content too. The trait from The House of Pain we have is that we’re quite violent and disturbing, and the trait from PLOTS Magazine is that we don’t use sexual content for the horror scare.
     We’re not looking for Interview With The Vampire or Lost Souls in terms of the vampire (won’t even touch the second one. Think in terms of Richard Matheson in terms of horror. Think his style of character development or H.P. Lovecraft in terms of development of characters. Don’t even try sending me something that is very slash fiction oriented unless it’s similar to The Fandom Writer – meaning you’re doing a horror story that verbally wails on these types hard -- if you want to make fun of the slash fiction trend in your story. Be my guest. Write the story like you have a death wish coming – a fight fire with fire attitude.)
     I look for a new kind of horror story when seeking stories for the magazine. Think what’s really scary and sit in front of the word processor and write it – don’t’ censor yourself either. If you’re submitting your testimony, don’t be afraid and drop a few swear words in there to give it a feel that’s raw like the rest of the magazine. Read the magazine and the magazine, Withersin, because I was featured in that one too on their first issue. I want the new kind of scare but a traditional horror scare feel.
     If you’re in a band (Gothic Metal, Thrash, Speed, Doom, Industrial, or Death Metal) and had some weird or fucked up backstage stories – I want the story from one representative in the band telling the story with all the input from the rest of the band. These type of stories I will run two of them per issue along with the other creative non-fiction stories in the magazine (Five creative non-fiction stories in all will be selected for the magazine.)
     Scare me with the story if you can. Think if Rod Serling or Charles Beaumont wrote the story.
     The formats I seek for the magazine are .doc (Microsoft Word) .rtf (Rich Text Format) .wps (Microsoft Works,) .docx (Word 2007 or later,) .abw (AbiWord,) .sdw (also affiliated with Open Office,) and .odt (Open Office Document Text format) as attachments to my magazine e-mail address. I respond to other writers fairly quickly, but if you come to me about having a story pulled out of the maagazine you must inform me 2 weeks before the magazine goes to print. It’s like when you’re quitting a job, you just don’t up and leave -- you give the boss two weeks notice. Contributors will be getting a portal document file of the issue they appear in along with another publication I publish too of their choosing. Some of the newer small press publishers don't even provide that.
       The only fan fiction that's permitted in the magazine is that of Lake Fossil (the science fiction stories I've written and that's in the magazine only. FanWorks.org has this documented on there,)and I will allow one aspect of real person fiction in the magazine -- meaning have me as a character drinking a cup-a-joe with Charles Beaumont and Edgar Allan Poe trading our manuscripts, and macabre things happen around us. I describe myself as what if Edgar Allan Poe drank a lot of coffee instead of doing opium. The stories one can imagine me trading with Poe are Apt. #2W which is in the tenth issue for The Oval Portrait for Poe, and The Howling Man from Charles Beaumont.

  • Do not call the magazine The Ethereal Gayzette -- some asshole created the insult name when I was starting to do the local issue. The one who created that bogus domain got upset at a rejection letter from hell, meaning he called the magazine it's insult name -- calling it this is an automatic ban from anything that Lake Fossil Press or writingsfromthegrave.com produces in form of anthologies or eventual journal that comes out twice a year.
  • ABSOLUTELY NO SLASH, YAOI FICTION, OR MPG OF ANY KIND OR ITS COUSINS, NO HOMOEROTIC CONTENT OF ANY KIND! PERIOD! YOU SEND ME THIS YOU'RE BLACKLISTED FROM ANY PUBLICATION ON LAKE FOSSIL PRESS. SO DON'T EVEN TRY IT HERE! This is what is known as my no gay rule in the magazine. This also is also under the umbrella of the "no sex" rule too. Go someplace else if you're going to be a walking abomination. The only place these jokers are going to be featured is my wall of shame on the blog -- don't even try it you fucking maggot. Do you give your brother a reach-a-round or something? That shit in any form is downright sick!

  • SMUT -- come on, do you want me to lose the support of the library in my area? Be respectful of my magazine and the guidelines -- please read the magazine before you thing about submitting. Everyone knows I don't allow sexual content in any form. I do allow profanity in the magazine. You can use the Seven Dirty Words in the stories, but you're not allowed to write hanky-panky in the story. My book has the new seven dirty words -- and you can use those too. I want my wishes to be honored within the pages of the magazine.

  • Alternative Romance: none of this is permitted in the magazine. Come on I am a Gothic Magazine but specialized in Speculative Fiction and some dark true stories. I take a lot from Readers Digest in terms of influences too along with the works H.P. Lovecraft. You can write Goth characters, but use Richard Matheson's model for horror fiction to do the delivery. I want nothing like LOST SOULS or similar writers.

  • Trying to slash me with some fucking retard I don't give two shits about. See the assholes on LiveJournal.com and their hidious acts of trying to slash a story between me and my kid.

  • Trying to send me stories where they've taken my creative properties and pass them off as theirs. See the joker named Lewis from Scotland there because he is talking about stealing ideas from Halloween Girl, Spectral Exile or Tabloid Purposes.

    • Promoting any of the false domains that make a mockery of this magazine and of it's parent imprint, Lake Fossil Press (there is no Lake Fossil Press UK -- there is only one Lake Fossil Press and that's in the Midwest based near the City by the Lake. To be more accurate, the City Of Steel And Stone.)

  • If you're doing a horror story media related here, take the ideas directly from the headlines but do this carefully. Because this can be a very touchy subject. I get a lot of my ideas at times from watching both CNN and Fox News Channel, especially when they were doing a lot of coverage with the stories about the subject of cyberbullying.Do not slash any characters! I don't want to see any Harry Potter Fanfiction or any kind of fan fiction where the character is copyrighted -- if you don't write slash and I see a good story on FanFiction.net; I will invite that writer to contribute if they can do original works of horror or creative nonfiction that has some horror traits -- if you are looking for ideas, grab up Dirty Black Winter. I am one of those writers who tends to shun on fan fiction off their characters unless the writer doing it is a very good friend. I will personally invite the writer to write some original stories for the magazine; either fiction or creative non-fiction.)

  • Submitting Stories Using My Creative Properties And Passing Themselves Off As Yours (A.K.A. PLAGIARISM -- See HorrorGal and her blatant stealing of my creative properties and characters. Don't be like David "Doc" Byron who plagiarized Ferrel Moore, myself and Dean Koontz or "Baupdeth" plagiarizing me. I won't want to see you using my characters for your submissions -- that means the characters you write for this magazine have to be yours and only yours to play around with. See what the jackholes of SomethingAwful.com pulled in 2008, and that is exactly what I don't want.)

  • If you send me a Real Person Fiction story, it better be something that doesn't dehumanize someone in the process (messing with their head, go for it)-- for your safe bets on these, write them as a Twilight Zone or Night Gallery style plot. They must be original -- pick your target carefully with this one. Don't do anything that will get me kicked off the website for the content in the magazine. Messing with them is fine but don't kill them off in the story. Use a name that is a mix between two names -- the first name of the one and the last name of the other, this way you're covering your ass with the story.

  • Treat My Magazine Like Your Visiting My Place Of Residence, So Please Don't Put Your Feet Up On The Coffee Table. I don't swim in your toilet so please don't shit in my swimming pool. You are my guest, and be polite about submitting to the magazine, but if you break one of the rules -- namely the top one, I will be very hostile in the rejection letter and your e-mail will be published on the wall of shame along with your query letter. I don't have an editorial staff on the magazine -- I am the editorial staff of this magazine. What that means is I do everything myself.

  • Alternative romance and erotica of any kind is considered forbidden to be submitted for the magazine. Any attempt to do so will be marked for public humiliation via my rant channel on youtube.com. See the video about what not to send me on my publishing company's official channel.

  • I do not publish children's literature of any kind, unless it's in the vein of Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark. Meaning it better be able to keep up with the PG-13 rated material. My website's readership is 18-34. You must know my demographic when submitting. I love watching 1,000 Ways To Die, but I can handle that show in small doses because it will warp one's mind. Think Spike TV and we'll get along fine.

  • You Must Inform Me Ahead Of Time If Your Story Is A Reprint. I take reprints from print publicatoins but sometimes an Online one if it's obscure.

  • If you're active with a message board or a mailing list and found my magazine, please let me know where your found me. Especially if you're from a social networking site -- I have over 2000 plus people who have me added on Myspace.com so it's hard for me to keep track of everyone.

    • What Subject Matter I Want To See:
    This Is Also Known As My Wish List

  • Phantom Limb Syndrome
  • AutoBiographies From The Asylum
  • Dark Hued Christian Testimonies
  • Near Death Experiences
  • Horror Within The Entire 2010 Decade
  • More Fucked Up True Stories
  • Post War Homecoming Torments
  • Protesters Being Tormented By Ghosts Of War
  • Weird Backstage Stories Written By Bands
  • Twilight Zone Type Stories Written By Goths
  • Dark Stories From The Third Shift
  • Weird Stories By Late Gas Station Workers
  • The Weird Stories That Happen At Halloween Parties
  • Horror Stories From The Hospital -- See Issue 5 for this, horror stories with sickness. Write these in a descriptive horror style like Poe.
  • Dark Late Night Diner Confessions
  • Accounts About Dealing With Encyclopedia Dramatica
  • Being Stalked And Chased Site To Site
  • Stories Of Dealing With Writer's Mental Illiness: Scare Me With It
  • Narratives In Detail About Their Nightmares
  • Contributor Photos In A Diner Late At Night
  • Lady Authors: If Doing A Nightmare Story. Take your full body picture laying in bed, asleep (No Nudity and fully Gothed Out In Black Makeup -- let your boyfriend or husband do this picture. Guys doing the picture -- make sure you do it where you can see her completely covered up to her shoulders laying on her back with books resting on her covered body or if you have a mummy type sleeping bag on the floor do that with a shitload of books by Stephen King, Richard Matheson, Mick Mercer, H.P. Lovecraft, Bruce Dickinson's Crowley, and Edgar Allan Poe. Best Results for this is a futon. Falling asleep in the study would have the cool results.
  • Guy Authors: street clothes crashed on the couch with shoes on if you do a similar story with beer cans on the floor and a horror film on the TV. Best effect if author is a bachelor with room mates. Let your girlfriend take the picture.
  • If you do the testimony entry, do the picture at a diner or a vacant church chapel. Black clad.

    • What the magazine clearly isn't

    Now those of you who are aware of the bullshit domains going around, they're trying to say what the magazine is but in truth it's what the magazine isn't. The magazine isn't a home for high fantasy [whoever is going around with a sick fascination with a hasbro girl's toy needs to find a new fucking hobby already.] Nor is it a an alternative romance publisher. I really don't look at poetry for consideration unless it's one that's a 3000 word epic. I don't publish stories that are about relationships (I am not an emo mag so don't even ask.) The rules is where I have the things I don't allow and what I am saying here is clearing up the misconceptions about the magazine. The ones who started all the misconceptions are the SomethingAwful.com set. They're going around pushing a bogus domain of the magazine because they were pissed that they were closed from a site for going on as "LakeFossilPiss."
           It's target demographic is a 18-34 heterosexual crowd and this is the crowd who watches Spike TV, and fans of 1000 Ways To Die. Though sometimes I have a younger readership which is the higher end of the older teenager set or have the reader set that's fourty years old and over. The highest age bracket that I publish is actually authors within my age and peer bracket. Though a few of the contributors now in their 20s are breaking into the business, and sometimes get noticed in larger places. Six of the writers on this magazine actually made it to Withersin Magazine, my own recognition actually comes from this. The ones who actually remember original Headbangers Ball. If you know about this and read a lot of horror in the vein of Richard Matheson, H.P. Lovecraft, Edgar Allan Poe, Stephen King, or J.M. Barlog, then you will get the idea what my target readership is.
         I am not looking for the readers of one particular anthology that launched in dawn of the 2000s. This magazine isn't the kind that would bring the alternative romance set to the readership but I will say it will attract the dark alternative set because of it's edgy style of storytelling. I do not look for one particular kind of readership, but there are ones I refuse to target to. I will not do a publication that's the key audience are the goddamned club kids. Also I don't look at stories that would appear in Sherrod DeHippo's suggested reading lists, so now you're in the know about what I want. I wish all of the would be contributors the best of luck.

    The link to the Lulu.com store front is the title on the top of the page but if you need help for inspirations for stories, I do have a webstore on Amazon.com. Feel free to spend some cash over there for ideas, the store is one that has some well known writers carried on Amazon.com to the titles that are found within the small press. Once your read these GLs -- feel free to go onto the reading room of my website.