The Manuscript Review
Before you spend anything on a cover, an editor, or a listing, find out what your manuscript actually needs. Fifty pages, a five business day turnaround, written notes, and a straight answer.
What you send
The first fifty pages of your manuscript, double-spaced, plus a one-page synopsis or a chapter map if you have one. That is the industry's standard sample: it is what literary agents ask for, and it is enough to see the voice, the opening, the structure, and the habits that will run through the whole book.
If your book is short, a poetry collection or a gift book for instance, send the whole thing. If you would like the full manuscript read, we quote that separately after the review.
What you receive
A written report of three to five pages from Kellyann Erskine. It covers the shape of the book as the sample and synopsis reveal it, the strength of the voice, what is working, what is getting in the way, and what should happen before production. It closes with a recommendation: Boutique, Foundation, more revision first, or, occasionally, that this is not a book we are the right press for.
Within a week of the report, we talk for thirty minutes so you can ask anything the notes raised.
Why we insist on it
The review protects you from paying for production a manuscript is not ready for, and it protects the press from putting its name on a book it cannot stand behind. If you continue with us, the full $295 comes off your package price within 90 days.
What the notes sound like
"The opening chapter earns its place — the scene at the kitchen table does the work of establishing voice and stakes in under two pages. Chapters 3 and 4 slow down: three separate flashbacks interrupt momentum before the reader has a reason to want the backstory. I'd cut or relocate one of the three. The prose is controlled and confident throughout; the habit to watch is a reflex toward summary ('she felt overwhelmed') where the scene has already shown us that. Trust the scene. Recommendation: Boutique, with a full edit focused on pacing in the first third."
A representative excerpt, not a specific client's report. Every review is written fresh, for that manuscript.
The Manuscript Review
Where every book with us begins
Five business day turnaround. One payment, secure checkout with Stripe; afterward you are shown exactly how to send your pages.
How it works
Schedule and pay
One payment of $295 by card through Stripe. You are then shown exactly where to send the pages.
Email the pages
Your first fifty pages and synopsis as a Word document or PDF, attached to an email. If the file is over 20 MB, zip it first.
Five business days
The clock starts the next business day after we have both the payment and the file. The report arrives by email.
The call
Thirty minutes by phone or video. You leave knowing exactly what to do next, whether or not that next step is with us.
Questions first? Read the FAQ or write to us.