The role and composition of the reading committee

Traditionally, the reading committee is found in fairly large publishing houses, but also, sometimes, in small structures that do not have a manuscript department as such. The publisher, who often receives a large number of texts, thus delegates the initial selection work to pre-selected readers. Historically, the reading committee comes from the theater: from 1683, the actors of the Comédie Française gathered to read the texts of the plays submitted to them by the playwright. They debated and voted whether to include the play in their repertoire or not. In 1697, they formalized this meeting under the name of "reading committee". Publishing houses with sufficient resources also use professional readers, whether employees or freelancers, whose role is to assess the publication potential of the manuscript. The reading committee aims to verify that the project corresponds to the editorial line of the publishing house and that it has the potential to be published.

A reading grid for each collection

Each reader on the committee receives a variable number of manuscripts to evaluate, depending on their time and reading pace. Their role: is to read each manuscript, but above all to give a critical opinion so that the editor can decide whether the project goes further or not. To do this, the committee's readers have a reading grid with specific criteria defined by the publisher. It covers all aspects of the manuscript: style, spelling, syntax, accessibility of the work, plot, characters, dialogues, descriptions, themes, interest, etc. Often, a part is reserved for the reader's personal opinion. Each criterion is rated according to a very specific scale to facilitate sorting. Readers must submit a very complete reading sheet containing all the elements rated. Reading in committee is therefore not a pleasure reading: very often, readers opt for a quick or "diagonal" reading to take the temperature of the text. Sometimes, they do not need to go beyond the first few pages to determine whether the work meets the expectations of the house. A poorly written or poorly constructed manuscript is quickly spotted with experience.

How to seduce a committee

The reading committee therefore plays a key role in the book's path to publishing. To seduce it with your manuscript, it is important to respect certain rules:

• ensure that the manuscript complies with the publisher's editorial line;
• follow the instructions regarding sending (by mail, by email, adding a synopsis or not, etc.);
• send a corrected, proofread, and well-presented manuscript;
• add a summary or a synthesis of your book (or even a detailed synopsis if the publisher requests it);
• include a brief biography to introduce yourself and your project.

The first impression is crucial and largely determines the committee's decision. The main thing is to target the house to send your manuscript and to respect the publisher's basic criteria. Never send your project by trusting chance!

After the reading committee stage

If the manuscript passes the reading committee stage, it is often reread by other readers, then by the editorial manager and the publisher himself, who give a final opinion. This is partly why the response times from publishing houses are very long! Conversely, if the manuscript is not accepted by the committee, the author receives an email or letter of rejection. This may be a "standard" rejection, which does not provide any precise explanations of the reasons for the committee's decision, or, more rarely, a detailed" rejection, which offers the author some avenues for improvement. Even if negative, such feedback is proof that your manuscript has generated enough interest for the committee to decide to personalize its response! Sometimes, the author does not receive any response at all: this is called a refusal "by silence". Beyond the deadline indicated by the publishing house on its website, generally between 3 and 6 months, a lack of response corresponds to a refusal by the reading committee. This may seem unfair, especially when you have spent so much time working on writing your book. But, even with a service dedicated to reading manuscripts, publishing houses are not always able to absorb all the texts they receive! For example, Gallimard announced in 2021 that it received more than 60 manuscripts per day.

Reading committees are a valuable ally for prizes

To save time, but also to engage their audience, more and more publishing houses are calling on readers to join their reading committees. In the context of a literary prize, the role of the committee changes, because the members must read manuscripts that have already been published. Among these readers joining the reading committees, we increasingly find literary influencers, present on social networks in the literary sphere (bookstagram, booktok, etc.) or on YouTube. The advantage of publishing houses? Benefit from the audience of these influencers when the selected novels are published. At Librinova, the readers' committee is made up of 200 readers selected each year. They receive two books to read every month from all the books published by Librinova and evaluate them according to criteria defined by our editorial team. These evaluations allow us to multiply the opinions on the books and to detect titles with potential, particularly in the context of the Prix des etoiles.