Project Overview

Develop a toolkit for creative markets to more easily process digital and hypertext works through their established submission systems. The toolkit will include template sets of submission guidelines, a library of comparables, process templates for multiple established submission queue management systems, and the guidelines for an internal review process that allows for and encourages (1) creatives to submit a wider breadth of interactive or non-traditional fiction to established digital and print markets, and (2) creative markets to use a modified version of the framework they already understand to effectively match the level of editorial effort given to traditional creative works.

Speaking as GrapplingHook's creator: As an author myself, I'm incredibly interested in different ways of telling stories--and I love the weird, wild ways the internet has developed to allow for even more ways to immerse a reader in my created worlds.

While I can do a lot on my own, though, I'm still a working writer--which means that sometimes, I want to be able to sell what I write. And the Venn diagram of "markets that accept alternate-medium works" and "markets recognized by professional organizations like SFWA, HWA, RWA, etc." looks like Clark Kent and Superman: never seen together at the same time.

Researching it further, though, I found that it's not for lack of interest from those professionally-recognized markets. Some even explicitly say in their submission guidelines that they're interested in seeing hypertext and interactive works (both synonyms for what I'm calling "alternate-medium works", which is really just an umbrella term to cover the vast array of mediums that can tell stories, particularly online and in digital contexts).

But even those markets tend to ask that authors contact them directly rather than going through their regular submission process--and that, to my mind, is a barrier. It adds an extra step for authors and markets alike, and ups the amount of time, effort, and attention needed to process a story. All that combined equals a higher barrier to publication than traditional fiction--and maybe one that's too high for either markets, or authors, to attempt.

Enter GrapplingHook: a free, iterative toolkit of help documents, potential processes, starting points, and discussion topics all geared toward helping climb over that barrier between authors submitting alternate-medium works and markets accepting them.