Considering how much change has come to publishing in the past few years, determining whether a manuscript is publishable is important. Authors want to know what their chances are before they invest a lot of time, effort or money in creating new drafts, revising and rewriting current drafts, editing to the final stage, or creating book proposals and query letters.

The two most important things to consider when asking whether a manuscript is publishable are:

1. Quality

2. Marketability

Quality issues for fiction encompass the writing level (voice, use of structural elements, etc.) and storytelling skill. For nonfiction, quality includes the writing level and how the content is presented.

Marketability is an issue that can trend across timelines ranging from a few months to a decade or more. It includes areas outside publishing as much as what is being published now and what is scheduled for publication over the next two years. And since those same issues affect self-publishers (although in different ways), authors who are committed to that path often have the same question about whether their manuscript is publishable.

Authors can access twenty years of experience across a broad range of categories and genres by having their work read by Writer’s Resource. The service that determines if a manuscript is publishable…and if not, to guide the author along the steps to be taken to make it publishable…is a baseline review. The review usually takes 2 to 2.5 weeks to complete and costs $425. The nominal investment can safeguard authors from spending much more on editing or other services that will not pay off in the long run.