Submissions

We are open to submissions of short fiction. Please read our guidelines before sending us anything. We like to ensure reasonable expectations in advance. Harvey Duckman and the Robinson House Writers combined is a community of nice writers who want to work together, support each other and make no demands. If that sounds like the way you roll, please do get in touch.

Harvey Duckman Presents...

HDP books comprise 15 stories by 15 writers based on a theme. They are produced quarterly in eBook and paperback formats, and maybe audiobook at some point. We pay contributors a one-off £10 fee to buy the rights to publish their story in that edition of HDP and any future possible HDP collections. It's beer money, we appreciate that and we hope to increase that fee in the future... but in the meantime, it's a thank you for being part of Harvey and have a couple of beers on us. You also get an eBook copy of the book. We want writers to want to be part of this project because they believe in it and want to have fun being a Harvey.

What is important to us is that all writers maintain full ownership and rights to their work (so if Netflix sees YOUR story and wants it, it's all yours).

All revenue from sales of HDP books and merchandise contribute to the future of this project and its work in continuing to support writers. In exchange, HDP writers are welcome, and encouraged, to promote their other work here, and we'll help with that in every way we can.

You do not have to be a paid subscriber to this newsletter in order to submit a story to Harvey. It would be fab if you do want to support the project, but it's not a requirement.

If that all sounds cool to you, we'd love to see your stories. We have a fab panel of Harveys who read all stories submitted. Responses are simple:

No, thank you, not for us.
We like it but we'd like to see some changes, here are some suggestions...
Yes, fab, you're in.

Once a story has been accepted, we allocate it to a basket and send you a simple publishing agreement. As soon as that basket is full, that book is scheduled for publication and we then send you an edited copy of your story with tracked changes, and make your payment of £10. As a Harvey writer in that edition, you also receive an eBook copy.

Flash!Mob

Our short collections of flash fiction are published on a throw-it-in-there and throw-it-out-to-the-world basis. There is no fee paid to writers and no royalties due upon sales of the books. Submitted stories are not guaranteed to be published and we reserve the right to decline a story on secret grounds. We turn these around very quickly, and stories that are selected to be included in our little Flash!Mob books may be edited simply to fix typos and formatting without those changes being checked with the writer.

These are intended to be fun, creative and spontaneous, and give you a chance to write quickly and share those stories without delay.

You do not need to be a paid subscriber to this newsletter in order to submit a story to our Flash!Mob collections but it helps. Our prompts are emailed out to paid subscribers each month and the collections are intended to be a part of this project for the benefit and enjoyment of writers committed to it.

All revenue from sales of our Flash!Mob books and merchandise contribute to the future of this project and its work in continuing to support writers.

Please check out our full submissions guidelines below.

Submission Guidelines

PLEASE NOTE: We do not accept submissions written by, or in any way created with the use of, AI writing tools such as ChatGPT. Please don’t try to fool us.

1. No erotica. Sorry.

2. Young adult friendly please, although the occasional expletive and swear word is fine. As is dark content and tough themes, as all good YA should be. Although we’re not specifically looking for YA stories, some of the content may be, and we’d like each volume to be accessible to as wide an audience as possible.

3. Original, unpublished content only. If the story you’re thinking of submitting to us is in the public domain already (including Kindle, web publishing sites such as Royal Road and Wattpad, and small press), we’d rather look at something new and include links to your published work.

4. The genres we’re looking for are quite broad and we’re good with anything weird, quirky or anything that stretches the imagination and has a good punchline. If in doubt, check out our Harvey baskets.

5. Story length – For HDP, ideally around 3,000 words please, although we won’t necessarily refuse anything that is over this (up to 6,000 words) if it’s awesome enough. For Flash!Mob, typically around 300 words but if longer (up to 750 words), that's fine.

6. We retain full editorial control over the content to be published. Any changes in a HDP story will be discussed in full with the author, with tracked changes, and agreed before publication. We will only publish a story when both parties are happy. If changes cannot be agreed, then the offer of publication will be withdrawn and the story will not be published in Harvey Duckman. Flash fiction stories submitted to Flash!Mob may be edited without checking changes with the writer.

7. Promotion – in addition to any promotional stuff we carry out, authors included in all our books are encouraged to support each other and Harvey, whilst promoting their own work.

8. All writers must confirm that they are the creator and owner of the submitted work, and accept full liability for any claims to the contrary. We do not accept responsibly for any actions as a result of falsely submitted works and any subsequent legal costs associated with any such claims.

9. Costs – there are none. If your work is accepted for HDP, you will be offered a one-off payment of £10. There are no payments or royalties for Flash!Mob stories. All rights to your story remain with you. Once it’s been published in Harvey, you are free to publish it elsewhere, and whilst we would appreciate an acknowledgement along the lines of ‘first published in Harvey Duckman Presents…’ we don’t demand it.

IMPORTANT: please send stories in a Word document, Times New Roman font size 12, 1.5 line spacing, use double quotation marks for direct speech, indents rather than tabs, no headers or footers, no weird page breaks or section break graphics. We like our stories weird not our Word documents.

If you like the sound of all this, please drop us a line or submit your story for consideration to: submissions@harveyduckman.com with the heading HARVEY or FLASH!MOB.