Professional critiques - a query

[UnquietDad]

A bit of writing-related market research - hope it's OK to post this here.

Would you, as an unpublished writer, consider getting your book critiqued by a professional (writer-cum-tutor with much experience, several times published)? What would you expect to pay - for a pro critique of a) a synopsis and sample chapters (up to 20,000 words) and b) a full book-length MS (up to 100,000 words)?

Let's say you would get for your money:

• Full critical overview, say 700-1000 words, covering elements such as plot, character, dialogue, style, pacing, structure, viewpoint etc.
• Annotations/ comments with page references.
• Analysis of potential audience and marketability.
• Constructive suggestions for amendments/editing.

Would you even do it? Do you think it's worth it or do you prefer to be peer-reviewed in a writing group/ workshop?

NB
Bear in mind of course that no freelancer can give an undertaking to get you published, nor to put you in touch with an agent. That's not what it's about.

Depending on the professional's credentials (and style/genre, tbh), yes. What I would pay - no idea, as I certainly couldn't afford it atm.

Writing groups/workshops can be very very productive, but have the downside that they can, in certain compositions, give rise to backstabbing (= unreliable critique).

The cheapest one I've seen advertised (for a comprehensive crit) is about £150, Unquietdad.
So if you could do it for £70ish, I'd snap your hand off!
Won't take you long to tell me it's all crap

I'd rather pay a professional than have it 'done' by a writing group. Much less chance of bias and much less excruciating. I've been planning to have it done for a while, but shelved it when I had an agent actually ask to see the whole of my ms. She didn't like it in the end, but getting past 3rd base gave me the confidence to plough on with reworking.

I thought I'd posted on this ages ago, but a gremlin seems to have eaten it. So here goes again.

Personally, I'd need to know a fair amount about the person before I signed up - so much depends on how sympathetic they are to what you are trying to do.

i belong to a writer-led writing group, which has been a profound help to me, but where it comes unstuck is in trying to sort out overall structure/plot etc. (Writing groups tend to produce people who can create intense passages of 1-2000 words rather than structure a whole novel..)

However I can get the writer who runs our group to look at bigger chunks - and he charges £50 for up to 50 pages, for comparison.

hth