Get your short story published, enter a contest and win $500 for Christmas

I grabbed the following post from the Double Dragon Publishing blog.  BTW, my book is now on Goodreads with no cover art. If you have a goodreads account, even if you never intend to buy it or read it, a click on the "to read" button would feel like Christmas :) because I could pretend people liked me :). I also haven't set up the author portion of it yet. I'll do that this weekend when I'm drinking coffee and have time. It won't come out 'til May 2012.

From the DDP website ==>TALES OF FORTANNIS: A BARD’S EYE VIEW was published last year by Double Dragon, and features a number of excellent fantasy stories in the magical world of Fortannis.

The sequel is being prepared now, and submissions are open for short stories of under 10,000 words.

Unpublished authors are encouraged to submit, but will still face the same standards for submissions as the published authors.

All stories should be double-spaced in word or rtf format with 12 point Times Roman font. There should be no spacing after the paragraphs. The first page must contain the name of the story, the word count, and your name, address, email, and phone number. Your cover letter should list any previous publications.

Keep in mind that although these are fantasy stories, you are not limited to telling tales of adventure, with knights fighting dragons and wizards casting powerful spells. The world is merely the setting for the stories.

The first book, while containing plenty of adventures, has much more. There is one story about someone trying to steal the recipe for his favorite pie. Another concerns three goblin children spying on the curious humans. A third involves a con artist trying to mislead a nobleman. The theme of the TALES OF FORTANNIS series is the fantasy world, not the type of story.

Proposals and inquiries must be emailed to michael.ventrella@gmail.com.

Also... there's a short story contest being run by Lulu.  Here's the details from their blog:

Throughout the month of November, Lulu is offering big prizes for quick creativity. All you have to do for a chance to win $500 cash, a professional review, a Barnes and Noble NOOK™, free distribution to the iBookstoreSM and Barnes & Noble NOOK Bookstore™, and free mentions in upcoming Lulu publicity is submit a 600-word short story.

Pretty easy huh?

To find out how you can play just visit the lulu blog.

Winners will be selected by a panel of Lulu judges and announced mid-December after review of all submissions. Bring on your remarkable stories for a chance to win some amazing prizes!

==> My words... if you are sitting on a short story...send it in. Get published. Don't let it sit in a drawer. The worst that could happen is a "no" and a rejection. It's not like we don't suffer through those already on a daily basis.

Have a great weekend.