What is an assessment report and how can it help me?
Assessment reports can vary enormously so you need to know what it is you are getting and the only way to do that is by requesting a written quote that states clearly the terms of the report, a breakdown of costs and the fee per hour which is summarised in a total at the end. For an in-depth editorial assessment, the report should be at least 8-12 pages if not more. Many of ours go to 15-16 pages where there is a longer text and intricate detail that needs working through. Don’t settle for anything less. Over the years, clients who have been to other agencies first and not got published have come to us with their assessment reports. We’ve been horrified to see that some are little more than subjective personal opinions a few pages long which seldom refer to the text but actually state more about the assessor than the text being assessed.
An assessment report requires an initial free reading by the agency in order to give a fair quote for the work involved. Avoid agencies that give blanket quotes per number of pages of the text. This essentially means that you will be paying the same price as a person who has not bothered to edit and work on their text which may happen to be the same length. In effect, you are subsidising the author who has done less work with this type of quote. The whole point of a free reading of your text initially is so that the agency can assess the amount of work that has gone into the text and estimate what is still needed to bring it to a stage ready to be further edited or submitted to publishers after the assessment report. If an agency is not willing to do a free initial reading in order to give a written quote, then do not send your manuscript to them. Seek out an agency that will give this free service.
Make sure there is a written time-frame for the work when you approach an agency. Ask them to respond by email on receipt of the text. Then you need a time-frame within which they will read the text for free and respond to you with an assessment quote. We always try to respond as soon as possible so an author can make a decision once they have received the quote. Normally this is between 7-10 days unless we are away at the Frankfurt Bookfair or similar in which case the author will receive notification to that effect. Once you have decided to send the text for a quote, then you should also request that they email receipt as soon as the text as arrived so that you know it is safe and that they will contact you with a quote within 7-10 days. Any agency should be able to meet this deadline or you should question their efficiency.
It helps greatly for authors to be on email or to have access to an email they can quote for use even if this is an email of a family member or partner. This makes the process much faster and more efficient. If you live in a country or area where this is not possible, then use alternative systems or provide a fax. Having an email and access to the internet helps at all stages of the process from assessment through to editing and publication so think about investing in this to facilitate your writing career. If this is beyond your reach and you cannot use an internet café or community facility, then you will not be disadvantaged as mail will arrive eventually. But all these processes are made so much easier and cheaper by email and the internet and the money you will save will easily pay the cost of a second hand computer which can be picked up very cheaply these days as people upgrade their equipment regularly.
Once you get the written quote, make sure it specifies how long the typed report will be, what each stage of the process covers and how much it will cost. The cost per hour should be about the standard editing rate for any given country. Ask what the per hour fee is in relation to that average cost for editorial work so you can get an idea of how expensive or reasonable the assessment will be. Do not always go for the cheapest quote as it may come from a novice in the field with no or few authors published. Do not always go for the dearest quote assuming this means quality as we’ve also seen some of these come from novices in the field with few or no authors published. Caveat emptor: buyer beware, as with any product or service you are purchasing. Publishing services are no different.
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