We accept chapter and query submissions via email.  Each month, we select one chapter and one query from this pile to be critiqued (for free) by the majority of our staff.  Some staff members may offer one-on-one critiques based on their time and interest.  Please visit our author pages if you would like to know more about our genre preferences.  There you can also view a .pdf sample critique.

When you submit, please let us know what style of critique you are interested in.

We keep very busy with our own writing and cannot work with every submission we receive.  If we are unable to review your work, we recommend you visit our Beta Reader Forum to exchange critiques with other writers.

You can submit chapters and queries to us whether or not you have a completed manuscript.

If you would like to submit a chapter other than the first or second of the novel, we can offer a more comprehensive critique if you include a short (1-2 paragraph) summary to orient us to your characters, world, and conflicts.

When using our email address “-at-” is a spam precaution that really means use “@” and ‘dot’ means ‘.’

We respond to all emails so if you don’t hear from us, please alert Zellie at zellieblake-at-gmail -dot- com

Chapter submissions:

Email us [staff-at-chimeracritiques dot com] with the chapter text in the body of the email. You may need to convert the file to a .txt or .rtf before copy/pasting it to avoid quote marks becoming question marks.

Include “CH# from [title] by [name]” in the subject line.  We prefer chapters around 5,000 words or less.

You can submit any chapter within your work but the first chapter is easiest because it won’t rely on us knowing background information from the rest of the book.

Query submissions:
Please review these query guidelines before submitting. We do not accept queries that do not follow the guidelines.  We focus on the pitch or mini-synopsis, but can answer questions about the introduction and conclusion too.

Email us [staff-at-chimeracritiques.com] with your one-two paragraph pitch in the body of the email.  Include “Query from [title] by [name]” in the subject line.

Partial manuscript submissions (by invitation only):
In the future, individual staff members plan to offer partial manuscript critiques (approximately fifty pages). Submissions should end on a chapter break.

A full chapter must be critiqued twice before we will offer to review a longer portion of the work.

Please attach the file to your email as a Rich Text Document. Include “Partial critique for [title] by [name]” in the subject line.

Send the email to the particular staff member who has chosen to review your partial submission.