So you want to be featured on the dustbin, eh?

The first thing you need to know is that we’re open to short-stories of all genres – scifi, romance, drama, suspense, thrillers, mysteries, horror – all the jazz, *except* adult & mature content. There are other sites for those – we’re sure you know them, right? ;)

Typically, these are commonly accepted short-fiction lengths:

• One sentence: This one has been made popular by sites like onesentence.org. Just try not to make it a really long one! ;)
• 55 word: Also called the short short-story, the 55-word story is, indeed, a challenge for the verbose author!
• Flash fiction: Commonly accepted norms indicate 100-300 words to be a standard length for flash fiction – although, there’s no clear consensus on this.
• Short Story: Usually under 2000-2500 words, this mother’s for that slightly leisurely coffee-break!

We’re not looking beyond short-fiction as of now, since we intend this site to be a splash-and-dash read – for example, when you are on your coffee-break! :)

Secondly, we’re a little obsessive about typography – for instance, each new paragraph *must* be indented five spaces – note that: five spaces & not a tab – at the beginning of each paragraph. We prefer to read our stories in 12 pt, monospaced, double spaced font – either as .doc or .rtf – both MS-Word or Open Office formats, or as PDF files. If that sounded g(r)eek to you, here’s the simpler version: Send it us your story in a DOC, RTF or PDF file set in a 12 pt Courier font with double spacing.

If you’re as finicky about your typography as we are, you should definitely read the guide to Proper Manuscript Format by William Shunn. We can safely assure you that when you have finished reading & applying it, your submission will look a lot more readable than it was in the first place!

Thirdly, we may call ourselves the “d.ustb.in” but we choose our stories quite carefully. We are an author’s best friend & best friends don’t lie. Think of us as your own private literary agent-cum-editor – one that will get people to read your story for you, without you having to invest extra time or money. [NOTE: We will not praise/publish every story we get but we don't reject all of them either!] Also, please note, we are not affiliated with any publisher. Yet.*

There’s a quick way to check if we’ll like your story or not. The editors at Strange Horizons (a very popular sci-fi magazine) have a super-list of what stories you should NOT submit. Although the list is primarily aimed at sci-fi writers, we think it does a pretty good job of listing out popular, hackneyed, clichéd plots. We think that list is pretty awesome. Do check it out: It’s called “What we want and what we don’t want…“].

Pre-finally, we request that you read these Terms & Conditions before submitting your story. To quickly sum it up: We are a non-monetising site to begin with, so we do NOT pay authors for featuring their stories – but we’d appreciate it if you could work exclusively with us!

Finally, if you think you don’t need to read any of this shit & you have a potential best-seller on your hands, head straight to the submission form before any doubts start creeping in! Quick! :)

*PS: By-the-by, if you are a publisher and you’re fascinated, we’d definitely love to hear more from you! Hop over to the Contact Us page & drop us a line! :)