We’ve spent a lot of time and effort developing an endorsement process that we believe is as objective as possible, but, in the end, we’re human. It can’t be helped. We, the owners of Compulsion Reads, promise on behalf of ourselves and our evaluators to be as honest and respectful as possible toward our authors and the novels they entrust to our evaluation. In return, we ask that you send us the best manuscript you are capable of writing and accept our endorsement decision and evaluator feedback as the good faith effort it is meant to be.
If we decide to endorse your manuscript – whoohoo! – that means we think that you’ve got a solid and quality manuscript on your hands. This, however, is just our opinion. We hope that readers will be falling over themselves to buy your opus and that our endorsement will help, but we can’t guarantee your success. That, my friend, will require a little luck and a whole lot of perseverance on your part.
If we decide not to endorse your manuscript, it means that we saw some areas that needed improvement. Again, this is just our opinion. You may think your baby is perfect. That’s fine. You may decide to publish right away. Go ahead. We’re not stopping you. While we strongly urge authors who don’t receive our endorsement to take some time to consider why; ultimately, only you can decide what changes to make to your manuscript and when it is ready for publication. We wish you all the best!
Okay, now to the technical version….
Compulsion Reads accepts indie and published novels for evaluation and offers the Compulsion Reads Endorsement to those manuscripts that meet our endorsement standards. This is a paid service. While we attempt to be as objective as possible, our endorsement is inherently subjective. We cannot nor will not guarantee endorsement of any manuscript before it has been read and evaluated. All endorsements are based on the Compulsion Reads’ carefully developed evaluation process.
We have the right to refuse any submission for any reason, including manuscripts that are not complete, not submitted in the correct file format, not a genre that we endorse or not in English. If we reject a submission, we reserve the right to charge a small refund processing fee.
Once a manuscript has entered the evaluation process, no refunds will be given unless Compulsion Reads fails to complete the evaluation within its promised five-week time frame. A special note on novels submitted as creative nonfiction: By claiming that a manuscript is nonfiction, the author assumes all responsibility for the truth and accuracy of the manuscript. Compulsion Reads is not responsible for validating the truth of a creative nonfiction manuscript, and CR reserves the right to rescind our endorsement if any endorsed creative nonfiction work is proven to be false in full or in part.
All endorsement decisions are final and may not be appealed. Customers agree to abide by this standard when they submit their manuscript. No refunds will be issued for those manuscripts which were not endorsed. If an author has a serious compliant regarding the endorsement process or outcome, they may contact us through our contact page.
A Compulsion Reads Endorsement is simply the acknowledgement that a manuscript met the quality criteria developed by Compulsion Reads. It does not guarantee an increase in book sales, positive reader reviews or the novel’s commercial success.
Likewise, failing to receive the Compulsion Reads Endorsement only means that the manuscript did not meet the endorsement standards developed by our company. It does not speak conclusively about the quality of the manuscript or indicate that the book should not be published or cannot be commercially successful.
If a manuscript was rejected after the initial review, the author may edit the manuscript and re-submit within 60 days at no charge. If the author fails to re-submit the manuscript within 60 days, they will be required to pay the full submission fee upon re-submission.
Authors may perform edits and re-submit rejected manuscripts for evaluation twice. Each re-submission will require the author to pay the full submission cost unless noted in the situation above.
If a manuscript is rejected three times, it may not be re-submitted.
Our evaluators must complete a short training process and pass a quality test in order to become part of our evaluator network. Their evaluations are periodically checked by our quality control department to ensure as much consistency and objectivity as possible.
Evaluators will provide feedback for each manuscript they evaluate. This feedback is inherently subjective and is the sole opinion of the evaluator. Authors are encouraged to view the feedback as helpful advice. Making the changes to a manuscript suggested by an evaluator will not guarantee that the manuscript will be endorsed if it is re-submitted.
Evaluator comments are not meant to be comprehensive. Ultimately, it is the responsibility of the author to process the evaluator feedback and to determine what, if any, edits are right for their manuscript.
Evaluators will provide a short review for each book they endorse. This review will automatically be posted on the book's individual page in our endorsed books library, on Goodreads if the book has a presence and on the retails sites the author included on their submission form.
The review is a subjective consideration of the book and represents the sole viewpoint of the evaluator. Reviews may include constructive criticism that is meant to provide potential readers with an honest assessment of the book.
All reviews are final. CR will not make any revisions to our review, with the exception of correcting factual and grammatical errors. The author will receive their book's review prior to its posting and will have four days to request that the review not be posted and shared.
