I’ve seen a lot of things going around about various services targeted at querying or soon-to-be-querying writers.

I thought I’d weigh in on what has value and what doesn’t.

Note: I’m specifically talking about services for authors pursuing traditional publishing. NONE of this applies to those who are intending to self publish. That’s a different topic, and one that I’m not qualified to address.

So. You want to be traditionally published. As it turns out, there’s no shortage of people who are willing to sell you things to help you reach that goal. Some of them are probably qualified. Some probably aren’t. I’m not here to judge the abilities of the particular offering. I’m strictly going to talk about the service itself.

For perspective, here’s a list of what I paid for prior to querying (and later, publishing) my first novel, PLANETSIDE:

Huh. There’s nothing on the list. Look at that. So that tells you right there that anybody says that you *have* to pay for something to give yourself a chance…well…they’re wrong.

But that doesn’t mean you can’t, or even shouldn’t. But if you considered three categories: Things you should ALWAYS pay for, things that MIGHT be worth paying for, and things you should NEVER pay for…well, there’s nothing in the always category. So I’m going to talk about the other two.

THINGS YOU SHOULD (ALMOST) NEVER PAY FOR

1. Twitter Pitch Critiques.

Twitter pitching contests are a crapshoot on the best day. Thousands of people enter, and handfuls of agents spend a little time looking at tweets and liking pitches that interest them. They can be a lot of fun, but your odds are slim. You can have the best pitch ever written and you still might not get a single agent like. It’s possible that no agent even SEES it. Or, maybe there’s an agent looking for something really specific, and you aren’t it.

And even if you do get a like on your pitch, you’ve still got to send a query and pages, and the agent has to love those. Which you could have sent anyway, without the like on the twitter pitch.

2. Full Manuscript Edits.

Some people might come after me for this one. I’m fine with that. I’m not anti-editor. I love my editor. He makes my books much, much better. But you don’t need a full edit to query, and you shouldn’t pay for one for the following reasons:

a. They’re very expensive, and you have no guarantee that you’re going to recoup any of that investment. You’ve got no guarantee of getting an agent, and if you get an agent, there’s no guarantee that the book will sell. And if the book sells, there’s no guarantee that it will sell for significant money.

Think about this. I sold my first novel, PLANETSIDE, and I got a $7500 advance. That’s considered a huge success. So you want to spend $1000 on an edit on the hope that you might, as a long shot, get to make $7500? (Yes, books make more. Yes, I’ve made much more than that on that book in the long term. But most people don’t.)

b. You may not be good enough as a writer for an editor to be able to help you enough to make a difference.

I’m not a pro editor, but I’m pretty good at it. And I mentored in Pitch Wars for several years. I got to see hundreds of manuscripts. And of all of those, probably 80% I couldn’t have gotten the author ready to get accepted by an agent — like no chance at all — even if I spent 50 hours working with the author on them. They just weren’t at a level where they could get there. And guess what — a paid editor probably isn’t spending 50 hours on your manuscript.

Will you have a better book? Absolutely. But if the goal is to get an agent and then get a traditional publishing deal, does it matter if you get a little better but not to that level? (Maybe. We’ll talk about that in the next section.)

c. Even if you do make your book way better and you do land an agent, what are you going to do on your next book? Are you going to pay for editing every time? Are you going to turn in something that’s not very good to your agent and ask them to edit it? Neither is a particularly sustainable course.

3. Manuscript Evaluations

What even is this? You pay someone to look at your manuscript and tell you if it’s good enough for publishing? Guess what: you can get this for free. Query agents. They will absolutely tell you if they think it’s ready for publishing or not. They may be right, they may be wrong. But you can say the same thing about the person you’re paying.

And what happens if they say it is ready? You still have to query. Why not cut out the middle-person?

THINGS THAT MIGHT BE WORTH PAYING FOR

1. Query critiques. To me, this one is a matter of personal preference. Everything you need to know about how to write a good query is online. Tons and tons of free resources. You can do it yourself.

But one could say the same thing about installing a toilet. Maybe you want to do it yourself, but maybe you want to hire a plumber. Who am I to tell you which is better for you?

2. Live pitch sessions with agents. There are a lot of writer’s conferences — or, there were before the plague days — where you can sign up and for an extra fee, you can pitch your project directly to agents.

I’m torn on this one. I’ve asked agents about it, and their takes are mixed as well, as to whether it gives you an advantage or not.

So here’s where I fall on this: If you’re just looking to pitch a book, it’s probably not worth the fee. But if you’re taking it as an opportunity to talk to and learn from an industry professional, there’s probably some value.

3. Partial manuscript critiques.

See, I told you I’m not anti-editor. There can be a ton of value in having a professional look at your pages and provide feedback. But you don’t need to pay for an entire manuscript for that. At least not initially.

If I was advising a developing writer, I’d suggest looking for a 10 or 20 page critique first. Maybe up to as much as 50. Because there’s a good chance that you’ve got some issues that are going to be consistent throughout your writing. A good editor is going to see that and be able to point that out in 10 pages. You can then take those lessons and apply them to your entire book.

Consider this: The most important feedback I ever got was when a pro author gave me feedback on my first page. One page. She was able to show me that I was writing passively. I went back and studied that, and it made a huge difference. Instant level up. (The author was Janet Wrenn, if you’re interested. This was in 2014, right before I started writing PLANETSIDE.)

A note with this. Don’t stop revising at 20 pages. Because I’ve seen that before. I’ve read manuscripts that were fantastic for 20 pages and then just fell apart. At that point, it’s clear that the writer got help on the early pages but didn’t apply the lessons–or couldn’t apply them–to the rest of the book. The key with this is to take the lessons you learn and get better to the point where you can do it on your own.

And that’s it. That’s all I’ve got. As always, these are my opinions. I stand by them. That doesn’t mean that I know everything, and it doesn’t mean others won’t have different ones. As with anything, consider the source. Here are my credentials: I’m a published author with three books in the world and two more under contract. But in this case, more important, I’m not asking you for money. If you don’t like what I have to say here, I will give you a 100% refund on what you paid for it.

The comments are open, but please remain civil. I’ll tolerate differences of opinion, but not personal attacks.