Zeros 2 Heroes - The People's Publisher

Once the community selects your story for production, we will contact you and walk through our standard contract. And we do mean standard. Essentially the contract creates a partnership based on the production of your story as a comic: you supply the genius, we supply the tools, artists, editors and marketing muscle.

Now, we're creative types ourselves and not really very good at math, so we want to keep everything simple: what we'll propose is a 50/50 split. We understand that for more established writers, this might not be an interesting deal. But if you're trying to get your first break in the business, want to have your story professionally developed, are willing to work with a pretty damn good marketing team... give us a shot.

We really think this is an excellent career opportunity. After all, we're writers ourselves and, from Paul Dini on down, we wish we could have had something like this when we were starting out.

Telefilm Canada is backing the Comic Creation Nation and Telefilm is a uniquely Canadian creation. As a sort of "cultural investor", Telefilm's mandate is to fund the creation of new works by Canadians. While their investments have typically focused on films and television, this foray into comics is something new for them.

While we can only develop scripts by Canadian writers, we are quite happy to work with artists from all over the world... so don't be shy about submitting your portfolio of work.

But if you’re not lucky enough to be a syrup-swilling Canadian, you can still use our pitch tools to get feedback and comments. And we will have other contest coming up that you’ll be able to enter.

...we'll need to make sure that this campaign is a solid success before venturing further south.

If you're a writer who would like to see Zeros 2 Heroes launch "America: Comic Creation Nation", the best thing you can do is help make this program a success by rating, reviewing and referring the works of your Canadian cousins.

Yes, we all thought that October was going to happen but – even with the best of intentions - things have a way of going sideways.

Once we get rolling, each week we’ll be announcing that another new book will go into production. And we'll keep this up until the money runs out. ;-)

Once the doors open, we'll be taking new pitches for weeks and weeks so there is no need to throw something together over the weekend. We recommend you take some time to develop your idea, play-test it with our community and make a few refinements before submission.

And we'll be sure to let you know when the end is in sight.

There's no limit, no cost and you might be surprised at which idea strikes a chord with our online audience.

In fact, we encourage you to do so. The winning pitch in our ReBoot contest was refined several times based on audience feedback... it really improves your chances.

The editor assigned to your story will present you with a number of available artists that he feels would be good fits. The editor will take you through our "Page X" process which lets you work with the artists in real-time. If it doesn't feel like a great fit at the end of that process, we'll make changes until everyone is happy.

We recognize that some stories come with artists already attached. If that is the case with your submission, we will make every effort to include your artist on the team.

We want stories ranging from men-in-tights adventures to gritty noir to indie excellence to family histories. Bring us great, exciting stories that you feel must be told. But there are one or two caveats:

No fan fiction: we just won't produce it if you don't have the rights.

Adult themes are fine provided you flag it as such. We'll have the usual community tools to report inappropriate submissions and will take necessary action to bring them in line with our site standards.

Even though this campaign is funded by Telefilm Canada, we don't need to see prairie docu-dramas set in the 1920's. In other words, your story doesn't need to be approved by a Canadian cultural committee of some kind.

We are a digital publisher and that will be our first line for distribution: we think digital offers some unique advantages. But, as producers of your story, we are motivated to push the property forward across all media and would be quite happy to see it wind up in print.

For those concepts lucky enough to go the distance in the entertainment world, it is increasingly tricky to retain control. For an undiscovered writer, it becomes nearly impossible. If this situation should ever arise, we'll be working as your partner to achieve the best business deal possible.

We are very conscious of avoiding the mistakes of other similar talent searches and have taken measures to avoid technical trickery as well as crowd hacking. While it's deliberately something of a black box, we won't be following a "one user, one vote" policy - the strength of any member's vote will be based on their stature in the community: length of time, degree of activity, creative contributions, etc. This will prevent unscrupulous people from tipping the results.

Ok, we admit that this seems like a weird artifact from the print medium... and at first it was. But the more we analyzed the form, the more we realized that 22 pages impose a certain discipline on the writer. You need to get your main characters on stage, establish relationships and conflicts, sketch out the world, themes, etc. If you can't do that in 22 pages, you've probably lost the audience.

At the same time, 22 pages is roughly the length of the first act in a feature-length screenplay or a television pilot. This does help us determine how best to further develop the property.

We recognize that many of you will want to carve out much bigger epics... and we think that's great. We do, however, recommend that you focus on that first 22 page bite because, well, maybe - just maybe - your idea could use some refinement before charging ahead.

If that first chapter captures the imagination of the audience, our partners or Zeros 2 Heroes itself... we'll work with you to make those next installments come to life.

Once a pitch has been "greenlit" by the community, Zeros 2 Heroes will assign an editor to the project. After discussions with the writer to ensure a common understanding of the story, the editor will work with our Creative Director to assemble the art team that is best suited for the story.

To make sure that this team is a good fit professionally, aesthetically and creatively, we then go through a process we call "Page X"... this allows us to shake down the creative team and make sure that it will be a good fit.

For our part, Zeros 2 Heroes will ensure that the final book is professionally illustrated, edited, and ready to go for online distribution.

But we're counting on you to be an active participant in the process. That means working with our editor to polish your script, engaging with the artists on approvals and being available for consultations.

It's a team effort, but we've gotten great results with our method so far.

Comic Creation Nation is intended to give undiscovered writers their first break in the industry. To do this, Zeros 2 Heroes will be underwriting the costs of art, editorial, distribution and marketing. Your "skin in the game" as the writer is to produce a great story that works as an amazing comic.

If you're looking to get paid as a writer - and who isn't? - this campaign isn't the right fit. If you're a writer who wants to get their first professionally produced work, then climb aboard.

As a side note, however, Zeros 2 Heroes does hire writers from time to time. If you're interested, the best way to show us a sample of your work is probably through the online pitch packager we're launching for this contest.

But let's assume you can get the necessary permissions worked out.

This campaign was created to give undiscovered writers their first break... so if you're Robert bloody Sawyer, we'd ask that you stand aside and give the new folks a chance. If, however, you are still on the outside looking in, there's no problem with submitting that story you had published in your campus literary mag.

In the past, we've used a variety of talented artists from around the world. Once the artists' tools have been launched, we'll be asking these folks to post their work online just like everyone else.

We want this social network to be a dynamic environment for artists, writers and fans. That requires a certain degree of participation and transparency. This is a good first step in that direction.