Faber Full Report?

[IsabellaArcher]

Has anybody purchased a Full Report of their novel from Faber? I'm considering this, but it is pricey, and I am wondering if the review will be trustworthy.

I really just want to know if my novel is publishable, but I was thinking that the writers of the Full Reports might need to 'sweeten' their feedback to ensure that the service receives only positive reviews. Thoughts?

I can't see any advantage in sweetening their feedback. I would have thought they'd be really tough but fair, telling you what was good about it and what would need to change in order for you to be successful in getting an agent. If they think you're good, they recommend you to agents, don't they? If they say you're good when you're not, they'd be in a fix!

Thanks ImerialBlether! I didn't know they recommended manuscripts to agents: that certainly means I need to do another round of polishing before I sign up for the Full Report, I suppose. Have you heard of anybody being referred after purchasing a Report then?

Sorry, it's the Literary Consultancy site here that I was thinking of. They do recommend you to agents if they think you've got potential.

In any case you have to make it as great as you can before you send it off! There's no point sending it off if there are basic errors in it or if you haven't polished it up as much as you can.

It's actually cheaper than Faber, too.

Cornerstones are also worth a look. I have had a report from them in the past and it was very thorough and written by an editor working in industry. It was a great help in readying my ms for submission and I also learned a lot that I was able to apply in later mss.
Editorial reports do seem expensive, but they are very time consuming to produce so I think they are good value and well worth doing if you can afford it.

Don't forget The Writers' Workshop. I had a full report done last year and it's really helped me to tighten up my manuscript. I think any of the ones mentioned above should be alright though - they're all fairly well-respected.

Do these reports do a full (professional) proofread, checking for typos and grammatical issues etc, or is it focused on the bigger things like structure and character development?

Of course I'd hope I've caught all the spelling mistakes and so on but it would give me peace of mind if I knew they were definitely gone.

I don't think they're there to proofread in that way - I would have thought they might say something like "You had some errors" - you'd need to send it to a proofreader for that. If you're a reasonable speller then I wouldn't worry too much - focus on the plot, characters, narrative voice, dialogue and that sort of thing - any agent/editor will know that typos can easily be corrected.