The Wood Beyond The World Forum Submissions and Reading Fee's

Recently, a member of the woods asked for advice on Reading Fee's.  

 

For those who do not know, reading fee's are a modest charge by an agent.   They gaurantee a critique of the submission, and some will even gaurantee a time line for a response.  In other words, they move you to the head of the slush pile for a fee.

 

While this is not illegal, or unethical, it is frowned upon by publishers, editors and most agents.   The agents who charge a fee claim the critique is worth the cost and a way to compensate them for additional time they spent.   Agents who are against this idea say that it is just a money making operation from the slush pile.   If an agent gets enough of these, then what is their motivation towards the authors they have requested partials or full manuscripts from?   Is it to find the next writer they want to represent, or make additional revenue from critiques of writers they would have rejected anyway.

 

Yes...a critique from an agent on why they rejected the work may be helpful to the next submission you sent out.   But, as we all know, agents reject work all the time for a variety of reasons and the next agent may like it as is, or have other reasons they rejected it which the first agent did not have. 

 

An agent that is taken with your work, even if they have issues, will offer the advice freely if they want to accept you.   I know from first hand experience that my previous agent rejected TON the first time out.  But she was so taken with the story, she made suggestions and if I should accept those suggestion to resubmit.  She and I went through this process for about 6 months before she finally accepted me as a client, with further suggestions.   During all this time, I picked her brain but truly did not have the understanding then on what she was talking about.   In the end, she still could not sell the work because I had too many mechanical issues for the publishers.  (4 of 5 publishers had very positive comments about the story and world, but all noted the issues.   The 5th just did not like any of it, but then it was a romance publisher.  Unsure why she submitted to them.)    Not once did she charge me a reading fee and she must have read the manuscript 3 times.   During the submission process she only charged me for 5 reproductions and postage.   She also gave me the option of sending her 5 reproductions of the full manuscript and postage.  I checked and she was cheeper than what I could have done myself.   At the end of our 1 year contract, she sent me a ledger of her time spent and all the orginal rejection letters.   She did not ask for any additional cost during almost 2  years of working with her.   Even after our contract was over, she and I kept in touch.   She is now retired.   NO...I did not cause her retirement. 

 

The point I am going to make is that while reading fee's are not illegal, they are frowned upon.   If you are paying the reading fee to move you to the head of the slush pile, to get a faster response in a set time period, then that is a judgement call on the writers part.   Some agencies can take 6 weeks to get back to you.   Some can take 6 months.   While most agencies want exclusive reads on requested manuscripts, none really expect you to only query a single agent at a time.  Multiple query submissions are normal today.   But the response time seems to be getting longer and longer as more and more writers are submitting.

 

The floor is now open for comments, advice or additional knowledge on this topic...

Nick.

I have stayed away from reading fee asking agents. In Australia some reputable agents ask for a ms assessment. Not from them, although I do know one agent that also offers the service which seemed to be cutting it a bit fine.

A good ms assessment does basically what you guys here do. pull the work apart and comment of its bits and pieces.  Editing costs extra.

I have had three done and learnt a lot. The second one didn't have a clue what she was doing which in a way turned out to be good. I ended up being so annoyed with her that I did a major re-write and ended up with a better book. 

My last one was brilliant. Tom understood where I was coming from and had a lot of really good suggestions.I now have a letter of recommendation from him and as Tom is a Miles Franklin Winner (major Australian book prize) and well known in the industry, it's good to be able to drop his name. 

A LoR doesn't get you book published but it might encourage someone to give it a second look.

Gayna

Those who charge reading fees make their money from reading fees, not selling books.  Real agents only earn money when they make sales.  Real agents are not book doctors.  Book doctors may know no more than the unwary author.  Once they have their fee, they have what they want and have no incentive to try to sell your book.