Frequently Asked Questions
What size file should I submit?
Under 500mb with a cover image of a maximum of 1200px or minimum 900px wide.
Can teams submit to the market?
Teams of people are welcome to submit and vend together, but we will only sends funds to ONE ACCOUNT per submission as if you are one entity. Splitting funds must be handled entirely on your end. Additionally, if you submit as a team, you will be expected to vend as a team. Please highlight your collaborative efforts rather than showing up as disparate vendors who happen to be sharing a virtual space. If the bulk of your work is not collaborative with your teammate(s), please submit as a solo vendor instead.
Can I vend without a storefront?
Yes, but we expect you to have something on offer at the virtual market, whether it’s free work or commissions or services you offer.
Can I be part of the bundle without vending at the market, or vice versa?
Our intent is for everyone to participate in both legs of this project with a bundle piece AND a virtual market booth. The hope is that the bundle pieces serve as a way for readers to familiarize themselves with all the cool creators vending at the market, so it would defeat the purpose a little bit if you weren’t part of one of those.
Can I submit an older piece with some changes?
Yes! If you're returning to an older piece to make changes—whether that's polishing old work, adding new elements, or rewriting the whole thing from the ground up—that’s totally fine. Technically, you can even submit older pieces without changing them at all. We simply encourage folks to put new pieces forward and use the market to highlight their new art.
Are you really going to read my piece for the application?
Yes! Please don’t link us to shop listings where we need to pay money to access your piece, or provide unviewable links. Unfortunately, we don’t have the funds to pay everyone for their applications, but we truly appreciate you letting us see your work. We will never share your application outside of our 5-person admin team, and if you don’t make it into the market, you’re free to revoke our access to any shared files.
Can I submit “free” work to the bundle?
Yes! Choosing to give something away for free doesn’t mean you don’t deserve support for making it. Don’s Dead Market was specifically designed to support artists no matter what they make—unless your work uses generative LLMs. We’re not interested in that whatsoever.
Can I submit work centered on pre-transition characters, or characters who don’t look masculine/androgynous?
Yes! We’re not here to police definitions of achillean identity, masculinity, androgyny, or gender at all. If you, the creator, feel your piece should be considered achillean, that’s good enough for us. That said, if your piece might appear at a glance to be exclusively sapphic, feel free to leave a note on your application letting us know how to classify the work.
How This Works
- Just like an itch.io bundle, every creator will supply one piece of original achillean (he's/they's/it's- the opposite of sapphic) erotica featuring couples who really shouldn't be together— dead dove content with noncon, dubcon, brocon, age gap, power imbalances, and under-negotiated kinks is welcome and encouraged.
- The market functions like Citrus Con's artist alley, where creators can offer deals, freebies, and promotions for their work to drum up further support and interest.
- Bundle pieces will be available through this website with ticket buyers receiving bundle access via email and market server invitations sent before the grand opening, giving time to familiarize themselves with creators before the market closes and bundle access ends one month later.
- All creators split sales evenly, but because this format requires significant admin work, market spots are limited to 50 vendors selected through a juried application process—submit only finished pieces, not works in progress.
- We hope to make this a yearly event, so if your new piece isn't ready, submit an old one instead— we do not want to encourage con-crunch or impossible deadlines.
- This application is for participation in both the bundle and the market (not one or the other), with all creators required to contribute one bundle piece and vend at the virtual pop-up market.
Bundle Submission Guidelines
- SUBMISSION WINDOW CLOSES FEB 1ST. Acceptances and rejections will go out by the end of February.
- Original works only— no fanworks, sorry!
- Any medium is welcome! You may submit a novel, a comic, a video game, a sketchbook, a visual novel, a short story, an illustrated book, a zine, an album, an audiobook, etc. As long as the piece features explicit achillean sex, and some taboo element, the rest is up to you.
- We are not looking for single-page pieces. Collections of multiple single-page pieces are more than welcome though!
- Any genre is welcome, as long as it has explicit achillean sex and taboo elements. Violence, gore, and horror are more than welcome, but never required. You can have a slice of life story for an enthusiastically consenting pair of codependent twins, an emotionally dense piece about the effects of abusive relationships, or an atticwife stockholm-syndrome erotic thriller where everyone is horrible! The work in this bundle does not need to be the edgiest/grossest thing you've ever made, it just needs to be a passionate work of queer erotic art. We value a range of genres! Don't limit yourself. We would accept a LOLITA-style piece of prose in the same breath as we would accept DRAMATICAL MURDER or CAPTIVE PRINCE or HAPPY CRAPPY LIFE.
- This market prioritizes hardcore creators who have suffered under the increasing censorship strictures. If you had a work that got deleted off of itchio, you are more likely to get into the market than someone who is making work that is still highly visible and under less threat. That being said, "evil yaoi" is a broad umbrella and we don't want people to self-censor, so if you think your work fits, you should apply! Again, we love a range of genres, and we have no interest in policing what yaoi or taboo or achillean means to you.
- This bundle prioritizes new releases! That doesn't mean you can't submit older work, but if you have something newer, please put that forward instead! You are less likely to get into the market offering a five year old piece that has shown up in several bundles already, and more likely if you're debuting a new piece in the bundle, or highlighting a piece that released within the last year. You may also submit previously available pieces for which there's a significant gap of time between now and when they were last available (e.g. if you had a limited-run piece for sale over 5 years ago and it has been unavailable to the public since then, you may offer that piece in this bundle).
- Physical media can be submitted, but the choice to provide mailing addresses will be entirely up the customer, and will not be required. If creators would like to mail out a zine or book to customers who purchase a ticket/bundle, you may collect mailing addresses at the market through your virtual booth! The market will not handle distro for you outside of directing customers where to supply their mailing address. If you are going this route, please implement a secure method of collecting mailing addresses.
- You may submit up to 2 pieces in your application for consideration, but we will only include 1 piece in the bundle per accepted creator. Each creator is more than welcome to provide additional free pieces during the market! Promo yourself to your heart's content in your virtual booth.
- You do not need a shopfront to participate in this market/bundle, but you do need to have completed pieces to offer people, and to submit as part of this application for us to review.
- Teams of people are welcome to submit and vend together, but we will only sends funds to ONE ACCOUNT per submission as if you are one entity. Splitting funds must be handled entirely on your end. Additionally, if you submit as a team, you will be expected to vend as a team. Please highlight your collaborative efforts rather than showing up as disparate vendors who happen to be sharing a virtual space. If the bulk of your work is not collaborative with your teammate(s), please submit as a solo vendor instead.
- Your virtual booth must exclusively promote works you were creatively involved in! This market is not intended for people to sell another creator's work (unless you collaborated with them, and everyone is appropriately credited on the pieces). We expect vendors to showcase work they created by their own hands, or works they creatively contributed to via art, writing, editing, coding, or other hands-on involvement. Fanworks are allowed in your booth as well, as long as you actually made them yourself. It should go without saying but there is absolutely no interest in AI-generated works in this market.
- The bulk of your work does not need to be explicit, taboo, or achillean! You are more than welcome to advertise any genre of work you like inside the market itself, but priority will go to spotlighting hardcore/taboo creators who are struggling to find a place for their work.
Schedule & Logistics
- SUBMISSION WINDOW CLOSES FEB 1ST. Acceptances and rejections will go out by late Feb/early March depending on the volume of applicants.
- Participation is capped at 50 vendors.
- The market will run during one long weekend in June 2026 (tentatively scheduled for the 19th-21st).
- Every vendor will be given an exactly equal share of profits. Any remainder (likely less than 1-2% of profits) will be split among the admin team to compensate for our extra labor in creating and running the market for you. We will be fully transparent on sales % breakdown once we have sales data.
- Please avoid editing your response to the form unless you made a typo in a link or email that will prevent us from contacting you, or from reviewing your piece.
COP DISCLAIMER: ALL STORIES MUST BE FICTIONAL ACCOUNTS OF FICTIONAL CHARACTERS WHO THEREFORE CANNOT BE HARMED. FICTIONAL STORIES DO NOT REFLECT AN ARTIST'S DESIRE TO PARTAKE IN UNLAWFUL, UNETHICAL ACTIVITY- ALL STORIES REPRESENT EXAGGERATED, UNREALISTIC, ARTISTIC EXPRESSIONS OF EROTICISM AND SHOULD NOT BE TAKEN LITERALLY.