Harvey baskets: an update and a word on word count

As is the nature of our chaotic wonderfulness, the next Harvey basket to be actively open is DARK AGE PAGAN MYTHOS, deadline 28th November 2025.

I've always hankered after a Harvey Vikings... so why not?

'Tis the time. Let's do it!

We're looking for dark and violent, embrace the elements, feel the earth beneath your bleeding fingertips, ride the storm, brace the shield and draw back the bow strings stories...

3k-6k words...

Let the Ban Sidhe howl, let the Dark Fey play, dance with the devil, let the spirits rise... cross the seas with nowt but belief and stubborn determination... raise your tankard and let the mead flow...

In the darkest of times, let the old powers return.

And let's have some fun in the driving rain and the rumble of thunder and the flash of Loki's mischief.

As the nights draw in, sprinkle cinnamon, light candles and set your pencils to paper. Let's go for it... xx

And a quick word on baskets and word count:

We are getting some fab submissions and thank you for sending in your heartfelt words to Harvey, but... we love our baskets and we have a specific word count range because that's what we're working to... for several reasons.

Big Harvey story submissions need to be around 3k... 2k minimum and 6k max.

Any less, the story is too short. We buy 15-20 stories for each collection. That's 'buy' as in we pay money for them, not a lot, I admit, but it's money going out of the door and we have a budget we're working to... We like to publish a book that is around 50-60k words in length, so 18 stories x 3k words is 54k words in total. If everyone sent in 1-2k stories, we'd end up with a shorter book than we'd like.

Any more than 6k and it's too long. The time it takes to edit a story varies. But the mind space to process a story of 3-6k words is where we're at. Any longer and you're asking us to invest much much more than we have time, capacity or budget to do. We don't pay per word. We pay per story. So please don't feel the need to send in stories that are 5999 words or 6000 words exactly.

Having said all that, we strongly believe that stories have a natural length and they need to breathe within that length.

If you have a story that is 6k words+ before you know it, let it live and see where it ends up. It might become your next novel. It might end up at 10-15k words and be perfect for one of the upcoming Harvey specials.

If you have a story that ends up at 1k to 15oo words, sit on it and maybe release it as part of your own collection. Or see if it fits into Harvey's Flash!Mob for that month.

And please understand that we are working to baskets. As a collective we DO NOT believe in write to market. BUT... we are publishing collections that have a theme. If you send us a story that is 3-6k words long with a subject line in your email that says SCI-Fi basket or VIKINGS basket... we are much more likely to look at it with a view to considering it for Harvey's next book.

If you send in a story that doesn't tag a potential basket, then if it's amazing, it might end up in our 'YES but which basket' pile... and it might miss being picked up for a book.

Having said that (!), there is always time and space for a story that comes out of left field and makes us sit up and CREATE a basket for it...

In short, we're all doing this for fun and for the love of writing this stuff. We don't like to say 'no' but a 'yes' is much easier when a story is 3-6k words and comes with a suggested basket.

And please always feel free to give us a nudge if we haven't replied yet. We all have a LOT going on and your story might be sitting in the 'yes' folder...

Thank you, as always!

Happy writing,
CGH xx