What Is a Manuscript Evaluation? (And Do You Need One?)

The manuscript evaluation is one of the most common services you’ll see developmental editors offer.

What is it? What can you expect when you get one? Do you really need one? And if so, what’s the most efficient, effective moment to get one?

Consider this your crash course in manuscript evaluations so you’re fully prepared to work with a developmental editor.

Do You Need a Manuscript Evaluation?

If you google “developmental editor” and start looking through editors’ websites, you’ll see a common service appear again and again:

A manuscript evaluation.

(Or assessment, or diagnostic, or critique. A rose by any other name, etc.)

Typically, in a manuscript evaluation, an editor will offer to read your manuscript and tell you what’s working and what to focus on next to make it even better.

It sounds like the dream, right? Someone who will read the book you’ve spent months and months writing, tell you what they think of it, and give you a to-do list.

And manuscript evaluations sell like hotcakes because what they’re offering is exactly what writers want.

Or at least—

what writers think they want.

But when you don’t know what you really need, you risk wasting hundreds or thousands of dollars on a service that leaves you disappointed, stuck in the same spot, or even feeling false confidence that your story’s problems have all been solved when they’re not.

What if you don’t need someone else’s to-do list for your story? What if you have access to all the evaluation you need right now, without paying a single cent?

And if you don’t need someone else’s to-do list, what do you need instead?

Let’s talk about manuscript evaluations: what they are, when they work, why they go wrong, and the rare occasion when I will agree to do one.

What You Need to Know About Manuscript Evaluations

All right, I’ve got to start this by saying: I have some pretty strong opinions about manuscript evaluations. Manuscript evaluations were the primary service I offered as an editor for five or six years, and in that time, I learned a lot about the role those evals can play in a writer’s process and an editor’s packages—and the significant gaps that they can’t fill.

So I admit, I’m coming to this topic with a lot of bias. But my bias isn’t ungrounded. It’s based on my years of actually doing manuscript evaluations—by several different names, and in several different forms, and continually coming up against the same fundamental limitations in every form they took.

And manuscript evaluations can take a lot of names and a lot of forms! Because the other thing you need to know going into this is that there is no standardization or regulation in the author services industry. No outside body is assessing editors to ensure we’re all offering services that meet any objective standard.

On the bright side, that means that editors like me have total freedom to craft offers that best serve our writers and ourselves.

On the dark side, that means anyone can put up their shingle as an editor, regardless of the quality of the service they’re offering. Which puts the burden on you, the writer, to determine whether you’re getting the kind of quality support you need and deserve.

And that’s why it’s important to me to share with you what I know of manuscript evaluations. Because if it’s your responsibility to vet the professionals you’re working with and the services they offer you, you need to know what you can reasonably expect from those professionals and services.

If you go peruse editors’ websites (which may or may not be a little hobby of mine), you’re going to see manuscript evaluations on offer. I want you to know what those words mean when you see them, what you’re likely to get when you purchase one, and when an eval is the service you need.

A little spoiler alert: I no longer offer manuscript evaluations, at least not as the first service I do with a writer. There’s a time and a place for manuscript evaluations, but for me, they’re never the right place to start.

This is the positive side of no regulations: where I don’t think manuscript evaluations are useful, I don’t have to offer them. I can design the exact path that does work best for my writers, and there’s no governing body to require anything less of me.

Your Manuscript Evaluation Primer

But before we get into why I don’t offer manuscript evaluations, or the rare reasons I’ll make an exception, let me lay some (slightly) more objective foundations so we’re all on the same page. Consider this your manuscript eval primer.

Starting with:

What is a manuscript evaluation?

A manuscript evaluation is a service in which a developmental editor will:

• Read your manuscript;
• Evaluate big-picture elements like story structure, plot, theme, and character arcs;
• And give you high-level feedback on what’s working, what’s not, and what to focus on next in your editing process.

You might see it called a manuscript assessment or a manuscript critique. These are all names for the same kind of package.

What does a manuscript evaluation typically include?

The specific deliverables included in a manuscript evaluation will vary depending on the editor. Remember, no standardization! No regulation! Every editor determines for themselves what they’ll offer in a manuscript evaluation.

That said, there are some elements that you’ll typically see most editors offer.

First, the editor will read your entire manuscript. They won’t just review a synopsis or skim a few pages. They’ll read the whole thing, whether it’s 50,000 words or 250,000 words.

Next, the editor will evaluate what’s working and what’s not. They’ll focus on story development concerns: the plot, the pacing, the character arcs, the point of view, the theme. If those are all generally working, some editors may consider the writing style as well. But I’ve never encountered a manuscript evaluation where all the big-picture story development areas were firing on all cylinders and didn’t need any additional polish.

Once the editor determines what the manuscript needs, they’ll write an editorial letter. In this letter, they’ll share their feedback: the things that work, the areas where the story still has weak spots, and a handful of prioritized next steps for the writer to focus on. The length of this letter varies by editor—a really short one might be just a couple of pages, a really long one might be twenty pages or more—but a comfortable range is somewhere between five and ten pages.

The editor may also leave in-line comments on the manuscript. Some editors leave detailed comments on the first chapter or two. Other editors leave scattered comments throughout the manuscript. And other editors don’t offer in-line comments. Regardless of the approach, the comments are generally designed to illustrate the feedback they’ve outlined in the editorial letter, which is where the bulk of their feedback comes.

Finally, the editor may offer a call to discuss what they’ve found in their evaluation. They might send you the editorial letter and in-line comments first and then follow up with a call to answer any questions you have about their feedback. Or they might have the call first, then adjust their feedback in the editorial letter based on your discussion. Or they might not offer a call, but email support instead; some editors prefer to stick with written communication.

All that is the scope of a typical manuscript evaluation. To recap, generally, the editor will:

• Read the entire manuscript.
• Evaluate what’s working and what’s not in the big-picture story development.
• Prepare an editorial letter.
• Write a small number of in-line comments on the manuscript.
• Discuss their feedback with you on a call or over email.

As you can probably imagine, that’s a pretty big investment of time and energy for the editor. Just reading the manuscript takes several hours. And then figuring out what feedback to give and how to communicate it to the writer is a hefty project.

I say that to contextualize the next question:

What does a manuscript evaluation cost?

Again, there are no standards here! So the prices you’ll see on different editors’ websites will vary widely.

That said, trustworthy editors are likely to charge upwards of $1000 for a manuscript evaluation. They may charge $1200, $1500, or more.

I’ve seen some editors offer prices much lower than this, too. But beware of prices that seem far below this range. Keep in mind that you’re purchasing 10 to 20 hours of a skilled professional’s time and expertise, and for an editor to truly give you their best feedback, they’ll have to charge for it.

And I know this is my constant drumbeat, but I’ll say it again: this is an industry with no regulations, and things that seem too good to be true often are. Personally, I’d be wary of any manuscript evaluation that costs less than $1000.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Manuscript Evaluations

All right, that’s our basic primer on manuscript evaluations. Now we’re all on the same page and you know what kind of service I’m talking about.

So let’s dig deeper. Let’s get into all that juicy bias I promised right at the top. Let’s look at the role manuscript evaluations typically play in a writer’s and editor’s process, and the role I think they should play.

In order to do that, we have to go back.

Where Did Manuscript Evaluations Come From, Anyway?

Disclaimer here, I’m not a publishing historian. I’m going to make some claims and educated guesses here. I don’t have sources to point you to to confirm them. But this is how I believe we got here, and I think it’s a pretty reasonable explanation.

Back in the days when traditional publishing was the only kind of publishing (or at least, when self-publishing was way more difficult), the standard way a writer would work with an editor was by putting a paper copy of their manuscript in a great big envelope, shipping it off to the editor, and waiting.

The editor—and I should specify here that when I say “editor,” I’m referring to the acquisitions editor at a traditional publishing house—the editor would read the pages, scribble in the margins, and write up a letter. Then they’d ship the whole package back.

That was the bulk of the feedback the writer would get from the editor. There might be conversations, too—phone calls on a landline, or in-person meetings if you were in New York City. (New York City specifically, because that’s long been the hub of US book publishing.)

But the primary way editors delivered their critique was by mailing the manuscript back with an editorial letter.

Personally, I’m inclined to believe that the constraints of technology played a big part in the evolution of that method of feedback.

Hemingway couldn’t email his manuscript to Maxwell Perkins. They couldn’t text each other ideas or hop on a quick Zoom call to hash things out. So they shipped the manuscript back and forth and waited for the mail to deliver a letter.

Technologically, we’re well beyond that now. But the traditional publishing industry is not known for rapid change, and the editorial letter is still a staple of the way acquisitions editors in publishing houses deliver their feedback.

(For a glimpse of a modern editorial letter, see this video, in which John Green describes his editorial letter from editor Julie Strauss-Gabel about The Fault in Our Stars.)

And yes, manuscript assessments are a service offered by independent developmental editors, not traditional publishing houses. But independent editing evolved alongside and continues to be heavily influenced by the traditional model.

Some independent editors began their careers in the traditional world, as acquisitions editors or agents, before leaving to start their own businesses. Other editors started indie, but model their services off of the common packages they see in the field.

And every avenue I know of for education and training as an editor is either directly based on traditional publishing, or it’s led by someone who spent a lot of time in the traditional world before breaking off to build something new. Yet even when people build something new, if they came from traditional publishing, they’re still influenced by the structures they learned in the trad world.

And so we have the manuscript evaluation: a package by indie editors, for authors before they get traditional deals (or who may not even want traditional deals). A package that is yet modeled off of a traditional structure designed within the technological constraints from a hundred years ago.

We Can Do Better

What I am saying is this:

The manuscript evaluation is not designed by today’s editors, for today’s writers, leveraging today’s technology.

It’s worked fine enough for decades.

But we can do better.

And so we come to my beef with manuscript evaluations, my bone to pick.

Why Don’t I Offer Manuscript Evaluations?

Like I said at the start, I did offer manuscript evaluations for the first six years that I worked as an editor. I think I called them manuscript assessments at first, and then diagnostics, and then evaluations.

Every time the name changed, the scope and deliverables of the service changed, too. I’d offer my feedback as a letter, or a folder full of documents and spreadsheets; I’d offer a single one-hour call to discuss my feedback, then one two-hour call, then two two-hour calls, then two calls that were meant to be two hours, but stretched way longer.

When I struck out on my own in 2022, I realized that the price I charged had to be enough to cover the work I was doing. So then the price began to balloon as well: that $1000 service became $1200, then $1500, then $2000, then $2500.

And it still wasn’t working.

No matter how many iterations I tried, the manuscript evaluation was still not serving my writers, or, to be honest, me.

It was no longer an entry-level price for an entry-level service. At $2500, it was a serious investment.

And for that $2500, the writer got a lot. I was pouring my heart and soul into these evals: reading the manuscript closely so I wouldn’t miss any crucial detail, then spending hours crafting extensive reports on what I found, and then brainstorming with the writer in long, rambling calls to try our best to workshop our way to solutions.

And when our eval engagement ended and I finally sent them away—with an amount of feedback that was honestly overwhelming—I would still feel like my work was inadequate because I knew how much farther the writer had to go.

Why I Worried (Even When Writers Didn’t)

Now, my writers never told me that my work was inadequate. They walked away really happy, thanking me for all our breakthroughs and insights, feeling clear and confident now that they had ideas to explore.

But honestly, that just made the tension I was feeling worse. Because as they smiled and told me how excited they were to go work on their stories, all I could see were the structural gaps that were still there, the problems we still hadn’t solved.

We’d scratched the surface, yes. In four hours of calls, we’d gathered some good ideas to explore and some potential direction the writer might take.

But we had notsolved the problems. We’d only barely begun.

And every time I cut a writer loose, I worried that they didn’t have enough support to succeed. It felt like sending someone to go walk along train tracks believing the tracks were abandoned and completely safe when I knew there was a train coming along, just a few minutes away.

I worried that the writer would try to develop the ideas we’d come up with, run into a wall, and get stuck again in the exact same spot.

Or that they’d make a few minor adjustments to the story, think that that had fixed it, and mistakenly believe they were ready for the next stage—line editing, or copyediting, or worst of all, querying.

I worried that they thought a manuscript evaluation ought to be the whole entire engagement with a developmental editor, not simply the first step into more comprehensive collaboration.

I knew that the manuscript evaluation might be the only opportunity I’d ever have to help the writer find solutions. I could see the problems we hadn’t yet solved.

And as hard as I tried and as many times as I changed the scope, I could not make the container of a manuscript evaluation large enough to fix them.

The Turning Point

Until one day, a writer came to me with a manuscript he’d set aside for a few years while he worked on other projects. Now, he was coming back to it and he wanted to know if there was potential there.

We’ll call this writer Henry.

Henry asked me to read his manuscript and give him my impressions so he could decide whether the project was worth pursuing.

I thought, Aha. He doesn’t want my $2500 manuscript evaluation where we’ll dig in together to solve as many problems as we can in two calls over four hours. He wants something smaller—just a read and a general review of the story’s strengths and weaknesses.

So I charged under $1000. To keep the price low, I kept my deliverables extremely tight: I read the manuscript, and we got on a one-hour call, nothing more. No written feedback; no folder full of documents and notes; no series of brainstorming sessions where we’d workshop the problems together. Just a read, a call, and my recap of the problems in the story.

I read the manuscript. I found the problems. We got on the call. I told him what they were.

In under 45 minutes, we’d covered everything I’d planned to discuss. I said, “So there you go, that’s what I’ve got for you. Anything else you wanted to cover?”

And I watched the light fade from Henry’s eyes.

“I was worried about these issues when I brought you the manuscript. The things I was thinking are exactly what you found, so I guess they really are the main issues,” he said tentatively. “I was hoping you’d help me solve some of these problems.”

I was floored. I thought I’d finally delivered what a writer had asked for; had finally slimmed the package down into a budget-friendly under-$1000 scope; had gotten the signoff from the writer right at the start that yes, that’s what he wanted; and then restrained myself to stay within that scope rather than letting it creep way beyond what that container could reasonably deliver. I thought I’d given the writer the most valuable insight I could within the size of the package we’d agreed on.

And yet, right in front of me on Zoom, I could see Henry swimming in disappointment.

I scrambled to help him, to get him the direction he needed in the few remaining minutes we’d allotted for this engagement. I hadn’t prepared any solutions to pitch him, but we spent the next half hour workshopping ideas he might try.

Still, when he left, I knew I’d missed the mark.

What Writers Actually Need

Henry’s edit was a turning point for me. It sent me back to the drawing board to rethink everything about the way I engage with writers at this stage of story development.

Here is what I found:

The Actual Purpose of a Manuscript Evaluation

First, the actual purpose of an actual manuscript evaluation is simply to identify what type of editing the manuscript needs next—in other words, to tell writers what the problems are that they should focus on next.

My $2500-and-ballooning-out-of-control “manuscript evaluation” wasn’t a manuscript evaluation at all. I’d left the purpose of that package far behind, if I’d ever fully grasped it.

Henry’s service, where I simply read the manuscript, identified the problems, and reported them to the writer, was actually what a manuscript evaluation is designed to be.

I mean, think about the words: Evaluation. Diagnostic. Assessment.

All of those words mean to observe what is.

A doctor’s diagnosis does not heal your illness. It merely tells you what illness you have.

The container of a manuscript evaluation was never designed to hold solutions. It was actually designed to identify problems.

Which means that technically, I didn’t do anything wrong in the report I delivered to Henry. That report was, in fact, exactly what a manuscript evaluation was meant to be.

And that brings me to the second thing I found:

What Writers Actually Need

Writers do not need me to tell them what their manuscripts’ problems are.

Before I do any work with any writer, I get on a call with them to talk about their book and what it will look like for us to work together. And one of the most important questions I ask is:

What challenges are you facing in your writing right now? What problems do you see in your manuscript that you’d like feedback on?

Take a moment to think about that question. What problems do you see in your manuscript?

I’m willing to bet quite a lot that you just made a list.

And I’m willing to bet just as much that you’re right.

Your instincts are good. You know where your manuscript is working and where it’s not. Like Henry, you don’t need me or anyone to tell you what the problems are. You already see them.

What you need are solutions.

If you knew how to solve those problems, you already would have. Like Henry, you’re stuck not because you don’t know what the problems are, but because you don’t know how to solve them.

When you already know what the problems are, you don’t need to pay someone to tell you.

And when you need someone to help you find solutions, it’s unfair to both of us to try to fit that into the container of a manuscript evaluation that was never designed to hold it.

Finding solutions needs a container that’s completely different.

Story Clarity: What I Do Instead

And so, armed with these realizations, I built something completely different.

I built Story Clarity: where you and I walk in the door assuming we both already know what the problems are, and our only goal is to find solutions.

And because finding developmental-level solutions for a novel is a herculean task, this container is big and spacious: four calls over eight weeks, and with the knowledge that if you need more support after that, I’ve got a path for that, too.

We don’t waste our time or your money on a manuscript evaluation that will only tell us what we already know. We jump straight into the real work, the story development you actually need.

Zero regulations, remember?

This is the beauty of working in an unregulated industry: I can take all my years of experience struggling to make an archaic structure work, toss the whole idea of manuscript evaluations out the window, and build something new from scratch based on what I’ve learned actually works for you and for me both.

2 Moments When You DO Need a Manuscript Evaluation

Now, I know I literally just said I’ve thrown manuscript evaluations out the window. I know I’ve been ragging on them for probably 20 minutes or more (I’ll find out when I edit this episode).

But I do believe there are a couple of contexts in which manuscript evaluations are useful—in fact, when they’re exactly what you need.

Here’s the first one:

1. When you’re done with a specific stage of editing

A manuscript evaluation is useful when you believe you are done with a specific stage of your editing process.

Do you think you’ve completed all the developmental editing your story will need, and you’re ready to move on to line editing, copyediting, or querying?

Get a manuscript evaluation here, and an editor will confirm you’re ready to move forward, or point out lingering developmental issues still worth addressing.

Or, have you gone through Story Clarity with me, taken the outline we built together and used it to revise your manuscript?

At this point, I will happily do a manuscript evaluation, and I’ll be watching specifically to see whether our hypothesis worked and you’re ready for the next stage of story refinement, or whether there are gaps we can still address with more big-picture story development.

In short: manuscript evaluations are excellent tools to help you determine whether you’re done.

They are simply not a necessary place to start. At that stage, they’ll just tell you things you already know, and you’ll pay a lot of money to hear them.

The other context in which you might benefit from an eval is this:

2. When you’re vetting an editor

A manuscript evaluation can be useful when you’re vetting an editor to determine whether they’re the right collaborator for you and your book.

This is a benefit I haven’t mentioned yet, but it’s really important to consider. A manuscript evaluation is a finite service with a small scope compared to larger story development work.

That gives both you and your editor a relatively low-stakes chance to test the waters and see what it’s like to work together.

Your editor will get a feel for your story, your writing, and the way you engage with feedback.

You’ll get a feel for the editor’s working style, their method and tone when delivering feedback, and the type of feedback they give.

If you’re considering an editor, but you’re not sure whether they’re the right fit for you, you can start off with a manuscript evaluation to get a taste before you commit to larger services.

Just be aware that that’s what you’re doing, and don’t be disappointed when the container of a manuscript evaluation can’t hold all the solutions both you and the editor wish you could find together.

Make sure you understand where the manuscript evaluation fits in the editor’s ecosystem of services and ask them what kind of support they might recommend once it’s complete.

If you and the editor vibe well, consider it the beginning of a longer engagement where you’ll do the real work together, not the end of your collaboration.

Why We Really Want Manuscript Evaluations

I want to end by acknowledging what’s at the root of the appeal of manuscript evaluations.

You made a thing, and it was big and difficult, and it took a really long time, and you want more than anything to hand it to someone else and hear them tell you it’s good.

Like a student handing a major project to a teacher. Or a kid handing their latest crayon drawing to their mom.

I use those analogies not to put you down for having this impulse—not at all. Quite the opposite, in fact!

I use them to illustrate that this is a really normal human impulse that we experience throughout our entire lives.

You made something. You walked into the void of nothing, toiled alone there for months or years, and emerged with your own unique and original creation.

That is amazing.

If your first impulse is to go to google, search “editor,” and pull out your credit card to buy the most affordable manuscript evaluation you can find, I get it.

But let me save you that time and money right now.

My Evaluation of Your Manuscript (For Free)

If you have just finished your first draft, here is my evaluation of your manuscript.

You heard it right here from a professional editor.

Is your work good? Absofreakinglutely. You have accomplished something amazing, something so many people want to do and so few actually do. This story is worth telling because you see value in telling it. And I fully believe in your capacity to tell it well.

Does the manuscript have problems that need work? Yes. At this stage, they are story development problems: plot, character arc, point of view, timeline, theme.

What are the specific problems? The specific problems are the problems you think are there. Your instincts are telling you, and your instincts are right.

What do you need next? What you need next are story development solutions. They’re easier to find with help, like working with me in my Story Clarity service or finding a critique partner to workshop your story with you. But you can make a lot of progress on your own, too, by reading craft books and using what you find to guide your revision process.

And there you go. That’s it. That’s your manuscript evaluation.

Get the Support You Truly Need

If you’re well beyond your first draft, you’ve edited your story thoroughly, and you know you’re ready to move forward into late-stage editing, then that manuscript evaluation I just shared isn’t for you.

By all means, go ahead and purchase a manuscript evaluation from an editor whose feedback you trust. They can help you see if there are any blind spots you’ve missed or send you happily into late-stage editing.

But when you know there’s more work to be done, you don’t need to pay someone else to tell you there’s more work to be done.

You need to do the work.

And if doing the work alone is confusing, or overwhelming, or you’d just like the support of a storytelling professional to help you find the right solutions for your story, then invite a developmental editor in.

Just make sure that the service you choose is one that’s designed to hold the pursuit of solutions.

After all, you don’t need someone else’s to-do list. You need the right creative partner to support you as you work through your to-do list.

You’ve got this. You’ve got a story worth telling, and I trust that you know what it needs in order to tell it well.

I invite you to trust yourself, too.