Write With Us

Meet Zory
Zory is a text-only, interactive reading app. We bridge the gap between the romance industry and the fast-growing market of interactive media. Interactive Fiction (IF) is any story requiring interaction from its reader for the plot to progress. At each decision point, the story’s content changes in response, steering the reader on a customized journey.

By blending elements of casual gaming with casual reading, we’ve tapped into a new way for you to monetize books and reach a broader audience. Reading a Zory feels like a mix of reading a traditional e-book and playing a game. It enables readers to stay immersed in your book while also enjoying a sense of agency over the story.
I've never written an interactive story
Not a problem. Many authors we're working with haven't, either.

We've crafted a proprietary method for writing IF, which simplifies the process of implementing choices into your writing. It's a hop—not a leap—from your current writing style. The sky’s the limit.
Perks of working with Zory
Zory provides developmental, line, and copy editing from our award-winning, experienced editorial team. We also provide design, publicity and marketing, and commissioned artwork. We welcome your vision and input and will tailor to your preference regarding a hands-on vs hands-off relationship wherever possible.

Interactive Fiction (IF) Editorial Process
Whether you want to revamp an existing book or create a new story entirely, we’ll work with you to develop your manuscript.

For a new manuscript, we help get the book ready for publication both with and without the interactive portions–when finished, you’ll be ready to take it to other platforms.

If the manuscript is still in the early/development stages/not fully written, working with Zory will be very similar to brainstorming with a writer buddy or dev editor–we will spitball ideas, provide examples, and help with revisions when the time comes. We’ll help brainstorm bonus scenes, subplots, and portions of the book that will make for fabulous interactive content but won't detract from the story when pulled from the finalized manuscript for traditional publication. 

With an existing manuscript, it’s more like weaving in the gilt thread to an existing tapestry to highlight its beauty–and perhaps even disguise a snag or two! First, we get well acquainted with your book to get to know all about the characters and their development. Then, we go back through and add in comments with ideas for interactivity— the goal is to add extra dazzle to the book and explore your story more deeply. This could look like fleshing out character motivations or backstory, adding in a subplot that appears throughout the book (and ties in neatly), adding in content where scenes previously faded to black, adding alternative perspectives or relationship dynamics, etc.

We’d be delighted to ghostwrite a few examples of IF content in your book to get you started, so no worries if this is a bit intimidating and you’d like some hands-on editing/co-writing! We will add in as many (or as few) suggestions as you’d like.

Cross-Promotional Funnel
We will cross-promote your non-interactive books on our app. We want to help you earn a greater readership and thrive as an author both on and off Zory.

Expand Your Readership
The market for interactive content is vast, young, and ready to discover your books. Expand your readership to a market of gamers and mobile-first readers who devour interactive stories and will fall in love with your books in an interactive format.
Our mission and team
Our mission is to pave a new way for readers and authors to experience storytelling– for a reader’s agency to enter the world of an authors’ wildest dreams. We believe that stories have a unique capacity to connect, inspire, and grow the hearts and minds of readers.

Zory is made up of a tight-knit group of book nerds and game developers who are passionate about excellent storytelling, improving the industry for authors and readers alike, and lifting each other up. We know that when we all succeed, we all thrive.

Branch out.

Media platforms are in the midst of a renaissance. Interactivity will be an integral part of the Romance industry for today’s generation of readers, and we want you to pave the way with us. Working alongside the best writers in the industry, you will help define romantic interactive fiction.

Ready to usher in the next era of romance?

Submission guidelines
We are committed to representing diverse books & authors and are accepting a broad range of manuscript proposals. Because of the nature of wanting to scale our platform, we get to be fairly flexible.

Guidelines
We prefer 50K+ books; we have no top-end limit.
Must have a romantic plot or strong romantic subplot
We’d love to see diverse characters and relationship types (LGBTQ+ included).
All heat levels welcome 
We accept both agented and non-agented submissions
Having interactivity incorporated within the manuscript is unnecessary. We work with authors who would like to add additional content themselves, and we also have an in-house team of writers for those of you who would prefer a hands-off approach.

Please include the following in your submission package
A one-page query letter including genre, title, word count, a brief blurb about the book. and writing credentials with links to your social media presence. Also-boughts references welcome (ie: for lovers of Author1 and Author 2). 
A 1-3 page synopsis, if you have one.
The full manuscript

Please send all materials to: submissions@zory.app

We are currently accepting submissions in all Romance subgenres, but we are especially interested in:
Fantasy, paranormal, historical (all time periods), sports
Diverse characters. Sapphic Romance. Non-Western Settings/Lore.
A-typical genre mashups (IE: The Empyrian Series is Fantasy + Academy Romance + Military Romance.
We are most interested in stories that blend genres).

Some subgenres and tropes we especially enjoy (though are not limited to) are:
Ancient History
Academy
Aliens
BDSM
Bad Boy/Mafia
Billionaire
Dark Romance
Fantasy
Folklore Retellings
Gods & Myth
Monsters
Paranormal
Pregnancy
Regency
Romcom
Shifter
Sports/celebrity
Suspense
Thriller
Why Choose

Proposals we will not consider:
We are open to reading manuscripts featuring infidelity/cheating if it leads to a branch in your book with no HEA—and should your (impish) reader choose that path, it will need to offer the reader to restart to a save point to try again for an HEA or wrap up their story.Bestiality is a no. Glamorizing abuse between protagonists is a no. Dark Romance will be considered on a case-by-case basis. Please include a trigger warning list with all submissions.
Awesome! We're on it!
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"I'm looking forward to working with you to create a novel experience (ba-dum-tss) for lovers of romance.

Talk to you soon!"

Kate Johnson (Co-founder)