Review and Appraisal Service

Have your writing assessed by one or our expert tutors and receive guidance on how to make the most of your writing.

If you would like a piece of your writing reviewed by one of our experienced, professional tutors, we can do this for you. We will review:

• short stories
• articles
• radio and TV scripts
• stage plays
• all fiction and non-fiction books, including outlines and synopses
• poetry
• blogs - NEW

The review will include comments on style, content, suitability for the chosen market and any other aspect considered appropriate. You will receive a thorough, straightforward and honest opinion from an experienced tutor – just like you would as one of our students.

Plus, if you make your payment online you can join our Student Community where you can chat with Writers Bureau students in the forum and contribute to the student e-magazine – Chapter and Verse.

How To Send Your Manuscript
Fees
Meet The Tutors
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See What Others Say

‘I just wanted to say a big thank you to your tutor for the appraisal. It was very thorough, really helpful and much appreciated.’
Vanessa Rainbow

'Getting a professional assessment of my work was the best thing I did for my writing. It was great to have my writing taken seriously and it has it spared my friends and family from having to say nice things to me. Your tutor’s comments have fundamentally changed the way I write and they gave me the inspiration, energy and confidence to carry on. Thank you.'
Phil Busby

‘Please pass my thanks on to your tutor for a very detailed and extremely useful appraisal. I was encouraged that she liked my ideas, and I will do my best to act on all her advice, which is very much appreciated.’
Wendy Innes

'I am delighted with the detailed and useful advice from your tutor and would be grateful if you could thank her for me. Not only did she provide constructive information on how to strengthen the impact of my story by getting the reader firmly on the side of my main character but she also picked up on problems with dialogue punctuation and sent me some notes to guide me in the future. I really appreciate her guidance and I will get to work on the amendments straight away.'
Jenni Redman

How To Send Your Manuscript

You can send your manuscript by email  (up to 10,000 words) or post. With each manuscript state clearly the market this is intended for. If it has been written without a specific market in mind, please say so.  Make sure you give a word count. We aim to return work within 14-21 days, but it might take longer for novel-length material, if our tutors are to go through it and comment in the detail we require.

We will do our best to take care of your manuscript but we cannot be held responsible for material lost in transit – so please keep a copy of everything you send to us.

Sending Your Manuscript by Post

If you send your manuscript by post it must be typed, using double spacing (except in the case of poems) with sufficient margins for the tutor to write in if required. We cannot accept handwritten manuscripts. Please use one side of the paper only and we prefer a 12pt type size. Please use this form and attach it to your manuscript with a cheque, cash or postal order for the appropriate amount. Alternatively you can fill in details of your credit card, or if you paid online, write the order number on the form. The form and your work should be sent to:

Review and Appraisal Service
The Writers Bureau
8-10 Dutton Street, Manchester, M3 1LE
England

Sending Your Manuscritp by Email

If you would like to send your manuscript by email you must still use double line spacing. Save the work in a single attachment, using Rich Text Format. Then attach it to a brief email providing your order number or details on how you are sending your fees and the information outlined above. Make sure you include your name and put 'Review and Appraisal' in the subject line. Send it to: randa@writersbureau.com

Please Note:   We can only accept manuscripts up to 10,000 words by email.  All longer manuscripts must be sent by post with a cheque or credit card details.  This is because our tutors do not feel that they can give longer pieces of work their full attention on screen.

Fees

Scripts (TV, Film or Theatre) - £150 for up to 120 pages and then £6.00 for every additional four pages. Buy Now!

Children’s Picture Books - £40 up to 1,000 words Buy Now!

Blogs - £40 for three blog posts up to 1,000 words in total plus an overview of your blog online - remember to include a link to your blog when you send your posts.  Buy Now!

General report on a novel or non-fiction book £220 up to 50,000 words and then £8 for each additional 2,000 words. Over 100,000 contact us for a quote. Buy Now!

Short Stories -  £40 for up to 4,000 words and then  £6 for each additional 1,000 words up to 8,000. Buy Now!

Poems - £40 for up to 120 lines and then £3.00 (usually £3.00) per 10 lines above this.  Buy Now!

Book Proposal (fiction or non-fiction) package - Synopsis and first 15,000 words - £180 Buy Now!

 Children’s non-picture books (fiction or non-fiction) - £40 for the first 4,000 words and then £6 for each additional 1,000 words. Buy Now!

Important:  If you require any further information or advice please contact us on randa@writersbureau.com or phone us on 0161 819 9922 or write to the address shown above.

Meet The Tutors

Heather Cooke holds an MA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from Oxford University, and is a member of the Society of Authors, the Writers' Guild, the Romantic Novelists' Association and the Institute of Public Relations. Heather became a full time writer in 1989 and since then has regularly contributed both features and fiction to a wide variety of magazines.  She is the author of four published romantic novels, a children's novel and three writing manuals.

Sue Wilkes has a Physics degree from Oxford and a Diploma in Technical Science in Solid State Electronics from UMIST.  She now specialises in non-fiction writing and has been published in magazines in the UK and USA.  Her main interests are literary and historical topics: titles such as The Lady, The Countryman, My Weekly, Woman's Weekly and Best of British are just a few of the wide variety of magazines which have published her work. She is a regular contributor to BBC History magazine and has also broadcast on local radio.

Lesley Cryer is the author of fifteen contemporary novels, two period novels and a humorous book. Lesley has also written for children's TV and BBC. She has been a regular contributor of short stories and features to national publications and worked for a time as an editor and writer on several company magazines. Her other experience includes producing scripts on a wide variety of subjects for independent film and video production companies.

Alison Chisholm has had hundreds of poems published in various magazines, anthologies and collections.  She is poetry consultant to BBC Radio Merseyside and has led courses at The Writers' Summer School in Derbyshire and The Writers' Holiday, Caerleon. In addition to being a regular competition adjudicator she has received major competition awards herself.  She is a regular contributor to the poetry columns in Writers News and Springboard magazines.  Three of her books on  writing poetry are included in the Allison and Busby Writers' Guides series.  She has also co-written the book  How to Write About Yourself and the course Writing Competitions – The Way to Win.

Stephanie Baudet is a freelance writer of fiction and non-fiction for children and has had work published in the following fields: articles and short stories for both adults and children, storybooks, historical novels, books for reluctant readers, assembly books and educational books. She visits schools, runs adult workshops, works as a reader assessing mss and teaches creative writing by correspondence and online.  She also reviews books for Armadillo magazine, regularly does proof-reading work and occasionally copy-editing.

Simon Whaley is the author of several non-fiction books, including the bestselling 'One Hundred Ways For A Dog To Train Its Human' and hundreds of magazine articles for publications in the UK and America, including British Heritage, Writers' Journal, The Lady, Discover Britain, BBC Countryfile, Country Walking and Dogs Monthly. His short stories have been published in the UK, Ireland and Australia, in publications as diverse as Take a Break, Take a Break's Fiction Feast, People's Friend, Yours and Ireland's Own. He regularly leads courses and workshops at events in the UK, and is the author of The Positvely Productive Writer.

David Kinchin has worked with the Writers Bureau since 1994. Prior to that he was a student with the Bureau, earning the title of “Distance Learning Student of the Year” in 1991 following his very successful launch into his varied writing career. David is experienced in a number of different writing genres, having successfully written and had published/broadcast drama scripts, text books, short stories and hundreds of feature articles for publications in Europe, South Africa and North America. He is in the fortunate position of never having had a book proposal turned down by a publisher, and has enjoyed publication by HarperCollins, Jessica Kingsley, David Fulton, and others. More recently, David has branched out into magazine editing.

Karen King is the author of over one hundred children’s books, many children’s comics, short stories for women’s magazines and a romance novella. She was one of the authors of the Writer’s Bureau 'Writing for Children' course and their 'Write for Profit using the Internet' course.

Karen runs writing workshops for adults and in schools. She was a lecturer on the MA Professional Writing course and the BA Illustration course at the University College Falmouth for many years. She has tutored for the TrAce Online Writing Centre, the Open College of Arts, Oxford Open Learning and ICS.

She has a Certificate in Education and is currently studying for a degree with the Open University. She is a member of the Society of Authors, the National Association of Writers in Education, the Institute for Learning and the Scattered Author’s Society.

Lorraine Mace is the humour columnist for Writing Magazine and also the deputy editor of the writing e-zine Words with JAM. Winner of a Petra Kenney International Poetry Award, she write features for monthly magazines, non-fiction books, short fiction for the women’s magazine market and is a short story competition judge for Writers’ Forum. A tutor in fiction, non-fiction and poetry for the Writers Bureau, she is also author of the Writers Bureau course, Marketing Your Book and co-author, with Maureen Vincent-Northam, of The Writer’s ABC Checklist (Accent Press).

Lorraine specialises in critiquing poetry, short stories, novels and all aspects of non-fiction.

Simon Maginn says: I am an award-nominated novelist. I have published seven novels under two different names, with another one out next year (2012). I have sold in translation and in the USA. My novel, Sheep, was filmed as The Dark (2005). I was a winner of the WHSmith Fresh Talent award in 1994, and was nominated for Novel of the Year by the British Fantasy Society for Methods of Confinement (1996). I have also published short stories, one of which was broadcast on BBC Radio 4.

I write two kinds of novels: horror/psychological thrillers (Simon Maginn) and raucous urban comedies (Simon Nolan). My interests are in horror, science fiction, fantasy, literary fiction, thrillers, comedy and general fiction. Nonfiction interests include science, philosophy, music, history, politics and psychology.

I have been a tutor with Writers Bureau since 2007, teaching fiction and nonfiction.

Esther Newton has a social science degree specialising in psychology and sociology. She also studied for her banking exams whilst working for one of the country’s leading banks. Though, writing was always a passion and since joining the Writers Bureau as a student many years ago, Esther hasn’t looked back. She now writes and tutors full-time. Esther has written for numerous writing magazines and had articles published in a broad range of publications including Prima, Your Cat, Lifeinfo and Collect It! to name a few. She has many short story competition wins to her credit and has also enjoyed judging competitions. Her fiction stories have appeared in The People’s Friend, My Weekly, Your Cat and Independent Newspapers, as well as teenage and children’s publications.

Nicola Taylor says: I started my writing career over 20 years ago when I joined the Writers Bureau as a student and, after successfully completing the comprehensive course, have been tutoring for them since 1995. I have four non-fiction reference books to my name, in addition to many articles and short stories published in a wide variety of publications.

I have ghost-written a novel and a volume of memoirs, as well as writing and self-publishing my mother’s family history. I have edited a number of travel books, and a personal memoir of medical malpractice for an Australian client. I am currently working on a crime novel.

I am a member of the Society of Authors and the Society for Editors and Proofreaders. In 2007 I set up Unbound Press, a small publishing house, selecting, editing and working with authors on fiction and non-fiction books and anthologies, and running writing competitions.

I approach appraisals from three angles, as a writer, an editor and a publisher, and give students the benefit of my experience in all these areas.

My writing specialisms are:.

• Travel and Lifestyle – particularly Scotland and the UK
• Family history/memoirs
• Short stories
• Articles
• Self-publishing – print and online

Alex Gazzola has been writing professionally since 1996. He is the author of four health books in the field of food allergies and intolerances, and has written for around two hundred magazines and newspapers in twenty countries, mostly in the areas of food, diet, nutrition, health and general lifestyle topics. In the UK, his work has appeared in the Daily Mail, The Guardian, The Guardian Weekend, The Times Educational Supplement, Reader’s Digest, Healthy Magazine, Health & Fitness, Vegetarian Living and Writing Magazine. He has tutored for the Writers Bureau for over seven years, he writes a blog for new writers called Mistakes Writers Make, and he offers non-fiction critiques and appraisals of articles, features, books and book proposals.

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