Mad Axe Media
Adult Horror
YA Nostalgia Horror
Home of the Totally Freaked! series, bringing the 90s YA horror boom into the present time.We create custom packaging and merch for many of our titles to give readers a wholly unique unboxing and reading experience.
Bestsellers
"Announces Newlin as a modern horror voice to watch."
—Adam Cesare, author of Clown In a Cornfield"A must-read for horror fans everywhere. An absolute blood-soaked delight."
—Gwendolyn Kiste, four-time Bram-Stoker-Award©-winning author
IngramSpark's #1 Bestselling Title in Young Adult Supernatural Thrillers for all of 2025
Who Are We?
Joey Powell
Owner & OperatorJoey loves all things book design, from interior formatting to cover illustration. He is also an award-winning author and actor. His recent published work includes Squirming All the Way Up, an anti-fascist horror novella from Madness Heart Press, and Night Games, co-authored with his twin Josh Powell.
Nico Bell
Editor-in-ChiefNico Bell is the author of Static Screams and the co-editor of Publishers Weekly BookLife's Best of 2024 Diet Riot: A Fatterpunk Anthology. She adapted her award winning novella Food Fright into a screenplay which was a finalist in the Killer Nashville Claymore Awards (2024).When she isn't writing or editing, she is wrangling her dog, Egg, and trying to maintain her sanity.
Submissions Info
Adult Novel, Adult Novella, and Millennium Fear submissions are open to BIPOC authorsA NOTE ABOUT A.I.
We will not publish authors who use generative AI for writing, illustration, and promotion. If you have ever published any piece of writing that incorporates generative AI you will not be considered.WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR
Fast-paced genre stories with a killer hook. If you can give us a premise in one-to-two sentences that makes us want to read more, we likely will!
While we’ve been primarily focused on horror and thrillers, we’re open to fantasy, sci-fi, and speculative fiction.
Give us fun. Give us fast-paced. Give us edgy (but not extreme).
We are not the best fit for slow-paced, grief-heavy, or contemplative stories.
Genres: Horror, Thriller, Fantasy, Science Fiction, Speculative Fiction
Length: Novellas (20K-39K) & Novels (40K-80K)
Age Range: AdultWHAT WE OFFER
For the most part, we do art and design in-house. Please view our catalog to see cover styles.
If we wish to publish your story, you control the branding. Of course, we’ll put together the formatting and cover design, but if you don’t like it, it’s back to the drawing board.
As a very small press, we can’t offer the same distribution potential as a Big 5 publisher, but what we can offer is availability through any online retailer (and your local bookshop). We will do our absolute best to ensure people know about your title; however, the reality is that you must be prepared to promote your work as well.
Please consider whether small press publishing is right for you before submitting.
Standard Royalty Split: 70% Publisher/30% Author for Paperback Sales; 50% Publisher/50% Author for eBook SalesWHAT TO SUBMIT
Firstly, we’ve received rejections as well, and we know it’s the toughest part of writing. Please understand that a rejection from us simply means the piece was not a fit for what we’re looking to publish.
Unagented submissions are 100% welcome.
Please send your queries to [email protected] with the subject line: Query - [Adult], [GENRE], [approximate word count]
Somewhere in the body of your email, please provide a brief synopsis, the first five pages of text, as well as any social media handles you may have.
Please also be sure to list any other published work, whether it was independently published or not (if you take a look at our podcast, you’ll see that we love and support indie authors).
Please DO NOT attach your manuscript or sample pages to the email. Attachments put us at risk of malware and you at risk of your submission going to spam. If we wish to read more, we will follow up with a request for the full manuscript, since at that point we will know you are not a robot.
We accept simultaneous submissions, but please do let us know if the work is under review with other publishers when submitting.
We look forward to reading your work!SUBMISSIONS OUTSIDE OF SUBMISSION WINDOW
Will be considered unsolicited submissions and deleted without notification to sender.What if I'm not sure my piece is a fit?
Look, we know that queries can take a long time, and we’re not in the business of wasting it. Feel free to email us at [email protected] to ask if it would be worth submitting and we will respond.What's off limits?
Gratuitous scenes of torture and sexual abuse. Just... don't. Please?Millenium Fear
WHAT'S THE DEAL WITH Millennium Fear?
We’re glad you asked! Mad Axe Media will aim to publish at least one book a year under the Millennium Fear banner. These stories will harken back to the 2000s, when smart phones weren’t quite a thing yet and MySpace was the cool thing to do.WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR
The series will be “light” horror in the same vein as R.L. Stein’s Fear Street stories. Some gore is fine so long as it’s not gratuitous. Above all, we want readers (teens and adults alike) to have FUN being scared!
Word Count: 20K-30K wordsWHAT WE OFFER
If we wish to publish your story, you control the branding. Of course, we’ll put together the marketing, formatting, and cover design, but if you don’t like it, it’s back to the drawing board.
As a very small press, we can’t offer the same distribution potential as a Big 5 publisher, but what we can offer is availability in any online retailer, as well as a competitive author compensation model. We will do our absolute best to ensure people know about your title; however, the reality is that you must be prepared to promote your work as well.
Please consider whether small press publishing is right for you before submitting.WHAT TO SUBMIT
We understand these are very specific guidelines, and, for that reason, we will be accepting pitches for potential development and inclusion into the series.
Unagented submissions are 100% welcome.
Please send your queries to [email protected] with the subject line: Pitch - Millennium Fear
In the body of your email, please provide a 1-2-sentence pitch, any social media handles you may have, and list any published work, even if it was independently published.
Please present in the body of your email a 1-2-page synopsis outlining the key characters and the plot of the story (including the SHOCKING finale!).
Lastly, we need to, of course, ensure your writing is a good fit for this series. If you have any work that you would deem “light horror” please attach a 5-10 page sample.
We look forward to reading your work!
Wholesale Discounts
Are you an indie bookshop looking to put our titles on your shelves at a wholesale discount?
First off, we love you.
Secondly, contact [email protected] for inquiries!Our terms are as follows…
50% discount off retail price
Bookshop and/or vendor pays actual shipping costs and any applicable sales tax/import fees
Returns are accepted within 180 days. In the case of returns, bookshop/vendor agrees to pay return shipping, taxes, and/or import fees.
The price paid for books will be refunded by Mad Axe Media, but the original shipping, taxes, and/or import fees will not be refunded.
Payment is required in advance via PayPal