Write for Fiction Mail

Do you love writing short fiction stories? Then take a look at what Fiction Mail has to offer you!

What is Fiction Mail?

Fiction Mail is fun fiction mailed as personalized weekly letters from a fictional friend who has an amazing story to tell. As the weeks unfold, the letters bring the reader on their friend's incredible adventure. Learn more about Fiction Mail.

The letters weave the recipient's name naturally into the narrative, use our custom ultra-realistic handwriting font, and arrive in colorful premium envelopes.

Fiction Mail Seeking Justice Series of Stories by Mail

For example, in the Seeking Justice Series, the recipient receives one letter a week for 8 weeks from their fictional friend Jen. Jen’s neighbor was murdered and remains at large. Through her 8 letters, she takes the reader on a rollercoaster ride while trying to catch the killer.

Why write for Fiction Mail?

We’re looking to expand our current slate of Fiction Mail series, and we want to bring in great writers to do that.

We know you have a lot of outlets for your writing. Our goal is to make it a hands-off process for you after you do the work of writing the letters.

Once your series is approved and published on our site all you need to do is promote it to your followers and get paid for your writing!

We take care of everything else, including:

  • Formatting the letters and creating graphics and letterhead for your series.
  • Posting your series on our website and creating a writer bio page that will display all the Fiction Mail series you wrote.
  • Fulfilling orders, which includes printing the personalized letters, addressing and stuffing the envelopes, and mailing the letters each week.
  • Handling customer support.

What is the payment structure?

We have two types of series you can write: 8-letter series and 4-letter series. We pay you when someone buys your Fiction Mail series. Here are the payouts:

  • 8-letter series: $10.00 royalty
  • 4-letter series: $5.00 royalty

We sometimes run sales and offer discounts. You get your full royalty whether we sell your series at full price or a discounted price!

We also sometimes create collections of letters that customers can buy as a bundle at a small discount. You'll get paid your full royalty for your series if it is sold within a bundle!

We issue payouts once a month (5 business days after month-end) via PayPal with no payout threshold.

Earn More as an Affiliate

While you're not required to do anything at all after you your series is approved and gets listed on Fiction Mail, it will really help your sales if you promote it to friends, family, and on social media. You can earn even more when you join our affiliate program!

When someone makes a purchase on Fiction Mail after clicking on your special affiliate link, you'll earn a 10% commission on the sale in addition to the royalty you're paid for the sale. Plus, you'll earn an affiliate commission on ANY sale made through your affiliate link, whether someone buys your series or another author's!

Payout Examples:

  • You write an 8-letter series and someone purchases it for $50.00 without clicking on your affiliate link. You'll earn a $10.00 royalty.
  • Someone buys your series for $50.00 after clicking on your affiliate link. You'll earn a $10.00 royalty plus a $5.00 affiliate commission (10% of the sale), for a total of $15.00.
  • Someone click on your affiliate link, doesn't buy your series, but buys a series from another author. You won't earn a royalty, but you will earn a $5.00 affiliate commission (10% of the sale).

Who Owns My Writing?

One of the big questions we get is: who owns the written work?

The answer is YOU do. By submitting your series to us, you give Fiction Mail permission to put it up for sale on our site and sell it. If you want to discontinue the partnership at any time, all you need to do is let us know and we will remove the series from the site within 3 business days. We’ll then pay out any commission we owe you at the end of the month. We just ask that you do not sell the series in any form while it is being sold through Fiction Mail.

What are the criteria for Fiction Mail?

Each series of Fiction Mail is a stand-alone story told through either 4 or 8 letters. Each letter in the series should build on the previous letters to move the story forward.

We want to give the writers the freedom to be creative. But due to the unique structure of Fiction Mail, we have a few criteria:

  • Each letter in the series must be between 1800 and 2100 words. We aim for each letter to be 6 pages using our custom font, and this is the ideal range to hit that goal.
  • Include well-fleshed out characters in the story.
  • You can use dialogue between characters within the letters.
  • Write as if you’re sending letters to an old friend.
  • Since customers receive one letter per week, each letter should take place 1 week after the previous letter and continue the storyline.
  • The final letter should tie up all loose ends.
  • Since the letters are personalized, use the recipient’s name at least 4 times in each letter. Since you won’t know who is receiving the letter, use the name “Christina” and we will replace it when sending the letters to a customer. Examples:
    • Hey Christina,
    • I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, Christina.
  • Refrain from using graphic violence, cursing, sexual situations, or political ideology. Keep the letters at a PG-13 rating or below.
  • Refrain from referencing the recipient using any gender or any other identifier like where they may live since we don’t know anything about the recipient. Example, don’t use “Hey girl” or “How’s everything in Denver?”
  • Refrain from referencing any particular time of year or holidays since customers can buy your series at any time. If someone buys your series in August, it won’t make sense if the letter says, “I was just back in my hometown for Christmas.”
  • Do not use AI to write the letters. We want human-written stories, and we will use software to detect AI-written content.
  • Please edit and proofread for consistency in storyline across the letters, spelling, and grammar.

How do I submit a series and start selling them on Fiction Mail?

Because we don’t want to waste anyone’s time and hard work, we broke down the submission process into several steps:

  • Submit a pitch: In this step you will provide a brief (500 words or less) overview of the story you want to tell with your letters. You’ll also let us know what length series you plan on writing (8-letter series or 4-letter series). We’ll review your pitch and let you know if it’s a good fit for our site. If it is, you can move on to the next step and submit your first letter.

  • Submit the first letter: You'll submit just the first letter of the series. We'll review it to make sure it meets the criteria mentioned above and is a good fit for our site. If it does, then you can move on to the next step. If it does not, you can rewrite it and resubmit it if you'd like.

  • Submit remaining letters: Now it’s time to write and submit the remaining letters in the series. After submission, if there are any issues other than light proofreading changes needed, we’ll send it back to you with specific requests.

  • Submit your bio, picture and writer agreement: Once your series gets final approval, you'll send us a short bio and picture we'll use for your writer bio page. You can use a pen name and avatar if you like. We'll also send you a writer agreement that you'll need to fill out and sign before your series is made available for sale on Fiction Mail. 

  • Promote your series: We'll then make your series available for sale on Fiction Mail. Get out there and promote it to friends, family, and social media!

Ready to start writing?!?

Great! Just fill out the pitch form below to explain the plot of your Fiction Mail series and how you see the story evolving over the letter series.

We'll get back to you within 48 hours to let you know if it's a good match for our site. If it is, you can write and submit the first letter of the series!