Frequently Asked Questions:

What is Zirdland?

Within Zirdland, you will be able to connect specifically with those who are seeking your work, in a safe and private way. There will be no public access to Zirdland. Your work will not be "on-display" and you will not have to worry that others may borrow your ideas or capitalize on your property.

Zirdland uses a proprietary software system (patents pending) which will actually read your creative works, show you what's working and what isn't, where your writing is brilliant and where it falls flat, derive a genre classification, market categorization, and open up a path for creating market partnerships.

Our system also tracks the publishing and film markets for trends in acquisition and development that can help place your book or script proposal into the right hands at the right time. There are many more features coming...

Is this an online agency or management company?

Zirdland is not an agency. We charge no commissions. Membership is free. It's not a "display site" or a community-based site. Our goal is to help writers achieve marketability in their work, then to provide a conduit to the marketplace that is filtered according to preferences and search trends of those in literary acquisitions. It's more a matchmaking service, but also a private place where writers can work with some advanced editorial and story analysis tools, find jobs, compete with other writers, and focus on the writing while our e-marketing systems track down the most appropriate targets and query them on your behalf. If a publisher, film producer or agent takes an interest, we'll put you in direct contact with them. From there, it's up to you.

We know that fostering healthy demand for literary works, art, music and film is an equally important endeavor, which is why Zirdland supports organizations for literacy development and arts education.

What is the Arc Angel Story Analysis thing I keep hearing about?

It's an online story analysis program which scans your novel, script, poem, or article and generates an in-depth guidance summary - helping you understand where your work needs editing to make it attractive to the market. It goes beneath the words and digs into the sub-text, looking for contextual meaning, can graph the emotions of your characters as the story unfolds, chart out your arcs and show you gaps in your plot-line, climaxes, vectored sub-plots, and thematic content. It sounds overwhelming, but when you see the Arc Angel in action you'll be amazed.

So, I have to upload my book to use the analysis tools? Is that safe?

Of course we recommend that you copyright your work. Our system uses a secure site protocol to prevent unauthorized access to your material. We will never display your work. Our marketing engine produces a one-page summary of your literary properties for querying purposes (similar to what you would create if you had to mail query letters out to prospective publishers), but we do not submit your manuscript or distribute your work in any way. That's something you will work out directly with anyone who indicates they'd like to know more about you or any of your works. You're under no obligation to upload anything. Membership is free and you're welcome to simply come in and browse the job postings if you'd like or shop in our store or contribute to our blog.

What's in the Zirdland store?

In addition to some cool toys, we allow our members who have self-published a book elsewhere, to sell their books in our webshop and receive 100% of the retail price. If you've ever tried to sell your books on amazon.com, you know how much they take. Here, you get it all.

Okay, I have to know: what's a 'zird?

We get that a lot. It's actually a slang term for the little green lizard in the novel "The Zirdhunters" (by one of our founders) which becomes the objective for the story's hero. It's the book from which we derived the underlying philosophy of Zirdland: that the marketplace is like a jungle and it's far easier to lure the editors, producers and agents with a good work than to chase them through unfamiliar territory.

If you have a question that we haven't answered here, please write us:
info@zirdland.com