"Exam Fever" by ~kael360
I posted not too long ago about my decision to send some work off to a literary consultancy. Just over a week ago I received the report.
As with part one of this post, I won’t divulge the name of the consultancy I used. However, I will say that it was one that offered what they call a “Quick Review”. For this, you send them a query letter and a synopsis, and then the first 5000 words of your manuscript. The selling pitch on the website implied that the report I’d receive would be a review of all these things, as one would expect.
The first thing that happened was for an appropriate editor to be assigned to me. This is apparently done based on what you’ve sent, so your editor should be someone in or with experience of the genre in which you write. My eyebrow raised for the first time upon learning that my editor hadn’t written anything in my genre, and who went on to state in his report to not having experience in it either.
At this point I’d like to say that this might be a simple misunderstanding on the part of whoever assigns editors. Perhaps from the material given they couldn’t be certain (although the query letter clearly states the genre and intended audience). Another possible factor could have been that this was a quick review, although I hope this wouldn’t affect the service, especially as you’d likely keep your given editor were you to “upgrade” your review type (plus, as far as I’m concerned, even a quick review put a dent in my wallet).
Having said all that, the editor I got was a very capable person. In general, the report I received was informative. My editor highlighted a couple of things that I need to keep an eye on and I’m grateful for that feedback. For example only, this included my habit of using superfluous words, and also a type of sentence structure which, in his eyes, I used too much.
I was disappointed at the volume, however. I know quality is better than quantity, but my editor only reported on the first 2500 words, not the 5000 that I’d sent. He also said absolutely nothing about the synopsis, and only mentioned the query letter as a reference when critiquing the manuscript.
So of all the material I was instructed to send, I received feedback on less than half of it. Now perhaps the synopsis was good and didn’t need feedback, but I wasn’t told that. Maybe the one reference to the query letter was all that was required, but again this wasn’t noted. And perhaps all that’s wrong with all 5000 words was what he’d noted about the first 2500. But again, this wasn’t confirmed.
Yet, I am glad I did this. Hearing a professional opinion about one’s work can never be a bad thing. However. I am grateful for what feedback I’ve been given, and I will use it, but I do feel that I got a little less than what I’d paid for. I also have no doubt that had I paid for a full manuscript review everything would be far more indepth. Had I the money to do this comfortably I definitely would, but this writer would have to save for a long time to afford such a service. I think that for me, that money (once saved) would be better spent on something other than a manuscript review.
One final thing I will say, is that everybody needs to get paid. It would be naive of me not to wonder whether comments made were done so in order to attract me to spending more money.
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