“The faster I write the better my output. If I'm going slow, I'm in trouble. It means I'm pushing the words instead of being pulled by them.”
—Raymond Chandler
Why Pay for a Q‑Critique?
Quality Critiques
A fee-based service ($4.00/page) enables The Queue to engage accomplished editors, including constituent editors from publishing houses. One of them will read every single page of your manuscript and provide a 6-8 page detailed critique plus a telephone consultation. The editor will identify what works, what doesn’t, and how to increase the writing quality and publication potential.
Save Time & Money
Q‑Critiques help some authors avoid spending time and money on “full” editing, marketing and submissions of premature manuscripts.
Publication Opportunities
All manuscripts that undergo a Q‑Critique are eligible for a Queue Publication Award. If selected, this award places your manuscript in the On Queue lineup where it will await publication. The Queue will help market your manuscript to agents and publishers while it is On Queue waiting for a final publication schedule and contract with us. *If not acquired by an agent or another publisher during that time, we will publish your book, promote it and provide industry-competitive author royalties.
Access to Publishers
Publishers around the country recommend us to writers for Q‑Critiques, provide constituent editors and monitor The Queue for talented new writers. Increasingly, publishers are more apt to thoroughly examine manuscripts vetted by an agent or service such as The Queue over unsolicited manuscripts.
- Think about the time and effort you have invested in your manuscript.
- Consider the 6 million other manuscripts vying for the attention of agents and publishers.
- Then decide: Hope that your work manages to emerge from the multitudes. Or you can ensure your manuscript is agent-ready with a thorough, diagnostic Q‑Critique and give yourself a chance at a place in the On Queue lineup.
How Your Fees Are Dispersed
At the current editorial rate of $4.00 per page, The Queue is not profitable. Approximately 25% of your fees goes to pay the evaluator/editor, 25% goes to site maintenance, 35% to administration and development and 15% to the financial need and merit based Q‑Critique Scholarship fund and to the Queue Editions publication fund. Contributions to the scholarship fund are welcomed and encouraged. See the Submissions page for more details.
*Queue books are published in the order received, at a rate of approximately two titles per year. Authors whose manuscripts are selected for The Queue’s publication lineup retain full rights to their work until a final publication schedule and book contract are concluded.
“The publication environment is changing and writers must adapt if they want to succeed.”
—Ian Graham Leask, Publisher, Scarletta Press