UPDATES!
All accepted stories will now require the writer to electronically sign and release for the use of their story.
Unfortunately, there have been issues with stories accepted on this show being submitted to other shows and ignoring the exclusivity of other shows, so to both make the podcast space more consistent and to add variety to listeners, we will now require a 3-6 (three to six) month exclusivity agreement. Writers agree not to submit to other podcasts no less than 3 (three) months from their story appearing on their show, with a limit of 6 (six) months from acceptance. Yes, podcasts do talk to each other. If we see you are ignoring the clause in exclusivity it could result in a submission ban for the writer.
Creepy is expanding into a Spanish language version of the show, so the release also includes a provision that should your story be translated in the future (no exclusivity currently on translations), then the writer will receive another payment for that translation!
We will reject any story we suspect was written with ChatGPT or AI. Please do not try to take money and opportunities away from writers who put a lot of time and effort into the stories they submit. If we suspect this is happening, we will blacklist the offending writer. And yes, podcasters do talk with each other.
WE ARE CURRENTLY LOOKING FOR:
Female and Gender-Neutral stories! (we do still accept stories from a male perspective)
Stories that feature a female protagonist/main narrator
Stories where the narrator’s gender is called out or eluded to in the story (so it can be read by anyone on our crew)
Word count between 1000-3500 words (ideally, but exceptions are possible based on quality of the story)
Please limit the number of speaking characters to make it easier to read by one narrator. Just think of how you’d tell a story to a friend.
Single-narrator stories (over 3000 words for Sunday production consideration)
Stories that can easily be told by one narrator. There can be multiple speaking characters, but should be consistent with how one person would tell a story with minimal back and forth dialogue.
31 Days of Horror stories
Yes, we are already open to your submissions for our 31 Days of Horror event in October.
Please remember this is a Halloween event, so please have your story themed around the season. Halloween, pumpkins, trick or treating, scarecrows, etc.
Please also add “31 Days of Horror Submission” to your email subject line to help us sort through our regular submissions.
SUBMISSIONS
Creepy has turned out over 1000 stories between the live feed and Patreon, we’ve heard a lot. But we want more. We want to be scared. We want to see what kind of darkness you have at your fingertips.
Please read this guide entirely to see what we are looking for, the format we would like it, and all the other details we can think of. All submissions will be read in the order they are received by our story scouts. They are not professional editors and we don’t have the staff to work with authors so PLEASE ONLY SUBMIT STORIES THAT ARE READY FOR NARRATION.
submissions@creepypod.com is for story submissions only. Any emails including questions or comments for the show or it’s creator should be directed to our contact page. Please do not send query emails regarding the status of your submission to this email as they will get the same auto-response. If you don’t hear back in 3-4 weeks, you can follow up at info@creepypod.com.
GUIDELINES
Familiarize yourself with the guidelines carefully before submitting in order to receive a response from our team.
Include the following info in the body of your email
Story title
Author name you would want to be addressed as on the show
Exact word count
Number of speaking roles
If the narrator is male, female, ambiguous, or gender fluid
Send submissions as an editable attachment (.docx)
PDF files are okay, but not preferred
Please email us at submissions@creepypod.com
Feel free to introduce yourself and say hello, but things like cover letters or CV’s aren’t required
Please don’t spam us with every story you have ever written. Pick the strongest ones that you think will work best for narration. Anyone choosing to ignore our guideline requests and just send everything they have or just send us links and tell us to check them out once again hasn’t read any of this. Their submissions will be ignored and email blocked
That doesn’t mean you can’t send multiple stories, just pace yourself and be considerate of both us and other authors
Only submit each story once
We will try to respond to all submissions either with acceptance of the story or with a form letter stating that we have passed. We cannot guarantee feedback as to why we passed
If you’re submitting a story for a special event or holiday like Christmas, Easter, etc. Or for our 31 Days of Horror, please let us know in the subject line of the email. We will periodically request specific stories and authors (like for Black History Month, Women in Horror month, PRIDE month, etc). If you don’t let us know we might miss it, especially if the context is subtle
Please don’t plagiarize or pull stories from websites that you didn’t write or have the rights too
If, while waiting for a response, your story is selected by another podcast, please email us as soon as possible. By submitting a story, you are giving us approval to narrate it. Again, please be courteous of our time and the time of other podcasts and creators
If your story submission has been posted online at any point, please provide us with a link so we can share the text version with our listeners
When including a word count, please include the exact word count rather than an estimate
We don’t have formatting restrictions, but please be sensible. No creative text formatting is needed. No added colors to words. Please don’t center indent the story. Et cetera
Once you have written the story, read it out loud. Does it sound like something someone would actually say? Remember, we are telling a story. At a bar, around a campfire, wherever. We can only do so much with the stories we have. Overly flowery prose is nice to read, but hard to narrate and make sound authentic. Not only that, but run on sentences and certain word pairings are very difficult to narrate. Doing this step in advance only improves your odds of story acceptance
Please don’t send follow up emails to submissions@creepypod.com asking about the status of the submission. We will respond as soon as possible and reading additional emails just slows things down
All payments made in US dollars via PayPal
Do not submit your story by pasting the text into the body of your submission email. These emails will be deleted as they are far too difficult to read for lengthier stories and it would mean you clearly didn’t read our submission guidelines. Please show us the same courtesy you would like to be shown. That’s also why I added this sentence here. Just to make sure
Double check that your story is actually attached to your email
If your story submission has been posted online at any point or narrated by another podcast, please let us know. We try not to retread the tire with our audience. Sometimes it happens, but we would like to keep stories as fresh and new as possible. We do have an exclusivity clause in our contract that we will enforce.
SUBMISSION CATEGORIES
PATREON | 1000-3000 WORDS
We narrated four stories EVERY WEEK just for patreon.com/creepypod, so we are always on the lookout for stories that are under 25 minutes. Understand that stories of this length will most likely not qualify for Sunday narration, they are just too short when we are generally only fully producing one story per week on the live feed and we are trying to give all listeners as full of an experience as possible. However, we still want the shorter stories for our amazing patrons!
NOTE: Stories that are accepted for patreon may appear on the live/free feed as bonus episodes. We cannot guarantee which stories will appear on the main feed.
PAYMENT: $0.02 per word with a maximum payment of $70 via PayPal invoice.
SUNDAY NARRATIONS | 3500-7000 WORDS
To qualify for Sunday narrations, stories must be at least 25 minutes long. Just having a story of the right word count isn’t enough, it still needs to bring the goods, but it’s a start. Longer than 7000 words is possible, we obviously do longer stories, but we need a good lead time in terms of production. And stories longer than 7000 words REALLY need to wow us for the added work.
NOTE: Stories over 3500 that we don’t feel are quite right for Sunday production might also be accepted for patreon and adhere to the above pay rate cap of $70 regardless of length.
PAYMENT: $100 flat rate with PayPal invoice.
KNOW OUR STYLE
WHAT WE WANT…
SINGLE NARRATOR STORIES Obviously we have a large cast, but for production sake, single narrator stories work the best (a story where only one person is speaking). We understand that when telling stories, we all tend to quote what someone else said, and that’s fine, but it has a very distinct tone. Multiple speaking roles will always be considered, but single narrator stories tend to get preferential treatment.
WHAT SCHARES YOU We hear it plenty, “that wasn’t scary.” Well, then scare us. Tell us something new. Something dark and horrible. Something that we can’t say no to. The things that scare the writers tend to be the things that bleed through into the writing and make for the most compelling stories.
DIVERSITY We celebrate diversity at the Creepy podcast. BIPOC, LGBTQIA, anyone and everyone is welcome here. Just leave your hate at the door. If you have a story that is specifically for a black or female voice actor, please tell us. If your story really grabs us and there is an ethnicity not currently represented on the show, we will find someone to read the story to do it justice.
SCARE US We’ve read a lot of stories, and been a bit desensitized. Feel free to push the boundaries of gore and horror, but remember this is audio. Think about the listener when you are writing it.
WHAT WE DON’T WANT…
GRAPHIC DEPICTIONS OF CHILD/SEXUAL ASSUALT Yes, these are horrible and thus fall into horror. But going into detail about assault does little to drive the story forward and serves more as shock value. Shock value isn’t scary to us, it’s unnecessary and exploitative. Yes, we have stories that involve both, but limiting to implications or subtle details is far more powerful in a story and will detract fewer listeners from your work as it shows your control over and appreciation for the material.
POLITICS/POLITICAL THEMES At this point I think we are all overwhelmed with enough politics in the news cycle and social media. Please leave any overt political subjects to the mainstream media.
DISSOCIATIVE IDENTITY DISORDER or other mental disorders the author does not have intimate knowledge of. Please don’t use mental health as a plot point or inciting incident. Again, it’s all about context, yes, there is plenty of horror revolving around mental health, but please know the subject and don’t just use it because it feels like a good plot device. These submissions will be deleted.
HATE SPEECH Just like above. Don’t do it. Your character doesn’t need to say it to make himself the bad guy. It can be alluded to. If it does nothing to drive the character or story forward, it will be deleted without response.
ADAPTATIONS Please don’t send in fan fiction or adaptation of another author’s works. No sequels either. If you don’t have permission, we don’t have permission and won’t use your story.
SCRIPTS Just write the story. We want to hear the narrator’s voice as the driving force in the story. Writing scripts is fine and may be accepted in the future, but not currently.
PRODUCTION SUGGESTIONS If you really want a specific narrator to read your story, save that part for story acceptance. We also don’t need help with sound design or music. Trust the process.
RESPONSE TIME
Current response times can vary wildly depending on how many submissions we get. Please allow at least 2-3 weeks for a response.
RIGHTS & LEGAL
Authors retain full rights to any story or script performed on Creepy. In exchange for your submission, we offer payment. That payment only gives us the right to perform and adapt your story for our podcast. You are free to do with the story as you will after that once the exclusivity period outlined in the electronic contract as passed.
Creepy does not retain the rights to publish or distribute your story outside of the audio performance without written permission from the author.
Audio production of your story remains the property of Creepy and may not be altered, sold or distributed without prior written permission.