Readers for unpublished manuscripts are sought by publishing houses, literary agents, writing schools, and professional manuscript evaluators. If you have a real talent for the work, you could also become a professional manuscript evaluator yourself after you've acquired some experience.
The Book Industry Today
Since publishing houses probably account for the bulk of the demand for paid manuscript readers, you should know a little bit about the current state of the book industry. A little background knowledge will help you put manuscript reading into perspective.
Although there are a few exceptions, most major publishers of books marketed to the general public are not independent corporations. Most are parts of giant conglomerates with vast resources at their disposal. With so much money behind them, publishers are in a position to offer huge advances to established authors for their latest books. (An advance is money paid to the author upfront, before publication and without any knowledge of how well the book will sell.) The current practice of selling book-rights at auction to the highest bidder has also driven up the cost of advances. In the old days, authors or their agents negotiated with one publisher at a time. If the publisher made a decent offer, the author accepted, and that was the end of it. Today, however, with publishers bidding against each other, prices quickly skyrocket.
Because publishers have so much invested in advances for major books, they must also put out big bucks for advertising and large first printings in order to try to earn back the advance money. The result is that one mega-selling book or one colossal flop can make the difference between profit and loss for a publisher for that year. Either way, the author they banked on makes a bundle.
Obviously, the majority of authors don't get this kind of treatment. However, because so much is riding on books tapped for stardom by their publishers, a certain attitude has grown up that books not destined to become blockbusters are barely worth publishing. The result is that major publishing houses are often reluctant to take a chance on good books that may not have big sales because they appeal to a smaller audience. Fortunately, there are many smaller publishing houses that will publish this type of book.
Major publishers are generally looking for books that are just like other major huge sellers...only different. In other words, they want a tried-and-true formula with a twist. As a novice manuscript reader, it will help you to be aware of these trends in the publishing industry.
Manuscript readers new to the profession generally begin at the first-reader level. There is less material to cover than at subsequent levels, and the comments required are generally more basic. However, a first reader still has tremendous responsibility, since a totally unfavorable review can wipe out any chance that the book will be published.
A first reader is often given a questionnaire to complete after reading the material. The questionnaire consists of basic questions about the book that will provide the publisher with a general overview of the strengths and weaknesses of the projected manuscript.
If a manuscript survives the first read, subsequent readings will involve more chapters or pages and eventually the completed manuscript. The number of readings for each manuscript will vary, but generally manuscripts that make it to publication receive at least three readings. Publishers furnish guidelines at each level, often in the form of questionnaires.
For fiction books, a reader will often be asked to evaluate an outline and a specified number of words, perhaps 20,000. (Chapter designations in fiction may be arbitrary or even nonexistent, so the reader is less likely to work with chapters as such than if she were working with nonfiction material.)
Literary agents frequently specialize in marketing certain types of material. In order to evaluate whether or not an unsolicited manuscript would fit his criteria, a literary agent will often hire a first reader to summarize the story and comment on its relationship to the market. A perfectly good manuscript may be rejected by a given agent because it doesn't meet his specific needs. Of course the manuscript reader must know what the agent is looking for in order to properly evaluate the manuscript. Some literary agencies also provide questionnaires for their manuscript readers.
Reader's Guidelines
It would be impossible for this or any other book to provide you with hard-and-fast rules for evaluating manuscripts, given the variety of materials you may be asked to read and the specific needs and wants of publishers and literary agencies. When you get a job, you should always ask for whatever guidelines are available. If your employer has a questionnaire, read it over before you leave the office if you're picking up the manuscript in person. It's quite unnerving to get home, settle down with the project, and then find out you don't understand some of the questions-especially if it's after business hours!
If you don't have a sample to follow, you should also ask whether your review should be typed double-spaced. Don't use a script typing wheel or some other hard-to-read typeface. Work done on a computer is always acceptable if you have a near-letter-quality or letter quality printer. Don't submit anything in draft mode.
Probable Manuscript Pluses
Although we can't tell you specifically what to look for, in general publishers and agents want high-quality writing, pieces that are well-researched, and manuscripts that have proven commercial appeal to a wide audience. If the manuscript deals with a trendy subject, the author should have developed a fresh angle. Stories with strong conflict are popular.
If you're reading a script, you need to consider whether a film or TV production could be made within a reasonable budget. Many producers and agents are looking for "star" vehicles, so you should also keep that in mind when reading a script.
Neither publishers nor agents want to be involved with manuscripts that are just like some-thing else already published, manuscripts that deal with extremely esoteric subject matter or generic issues, manuscripts that lack strong roles or characters, personal stories unless they can be broadly connected to the public, or material that is too experimental. Of course there are exceptions to every rule, but you should certainly note these potential drawbacks in your review unless you know ahead of time that your employer wants material in one or more of these categories.
Published Manuscripts
You've already seen some examples of manuscript reviews of books already in print (pp. 37-45), so you know that the format is similar to that used for unpublished manuscripts. Why would anybody hire a manuscript reader to read a book after it's been published? Isn't that locking the barn door after the horse has been stolen? Not at all. Published books are evaluated to see if they're suitable for a particular purpose. For example, two of our nonfiction sample evaluations came from a manuscript reader hired to find suitable supplementary texts for the classroom. However, the principal opportunities to read published books are with book clubs and film producers.
Film Producers
Film producers have people read published books as well as unpublished scripts in order to find projects suitable for adaptation to film. Of course, the film rights to a hot novel are often presold at the time the book is published, but there are many lesser-known works available for later adaptation. Reading for a film producer has similar side-benefits to those found in working for book clubs.
Newspapers/Magazines/Radio
Newspaper, magazines, and to a lesser degree, radio programs, also review books. However, the purpose of the review is somewhat different from the others we've been talking about, so we've arbitrarily chosen to include these opportunities in the later chapter on book reviewing.
After a bit of practice honing your new-found skills as a manuscript reader, your number-one priority will probably be to find work. As we mentioned before, there are opportunities available for both freelance and fulltime work. For the most part, we've already told you who hires manuscript readers; we covered that in the last section. If you don't know where to find publishers, literary agencies, etc., get out the trusty Yellow Pages and let your fingers do the walking.
We do want to remind you of two other resources you can use to help you find work: The Writer's Market and Writer's Digest. The Writer's Market has an extensive list of publishing companies complete with current addresses and the types of work that they publish. Because it's geared to writers, you won't be able to find out whether they hire outside readers without contacting the company, however.
Writer's Digest has a classified section in the back. Professional manuscript evaluators often advertise here. If you want to work for a manuscript evaluator, or if you want to place an ad yourself after you've gotten some experience, this is the place to look. Writer's Digest also carries a number of display ads for writing schools. You might want to contact some of these to see if they use freelance readers.
