The Literary Consultancy
| Formation | 1996 |
|---|---|
| Purpose | Professional editorial advice and assessment in the English language |
| Location |
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Chief Executive
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Rebecca Swift |
| Website | literaryconsultancy.co.uk |
The Literary Consultancy (TLC) is a UK-based editorial consultancy service that was founded in 1996, becoming the first service of its kind to offer "professional, in-depth editorial advice and assessment to anyone writing in the English language, anywhere in the world". Operating under the strapline "Literary Values in a Digital Age", TLC is based at the Free Word Centre in Farringdon Road, central London. Its Director is Rebecca Swift, who co-founded the organisation with Hannah Griffiths.
The Literary Consultancy was established in 1996 by its current Director, Rebecca Swift, together with Hannah Griffiths (who went on to become Publisher at Faber & Faber). While working as an editorial assistant at Virago Press, Swift realised the need for a professional editorial consultancy where writers could send manuscripts for assessment before they approached publishers and agents. As she explains:
"I felt that ... many more people were writing, as new technology made it easier than ever for people to want to put their stories down, yet the publishing environment was becoming more difficult than ever.... Editors were shed from the industry in large numbers, and editing was in some companies considered a time-wasting exercise! This is a crude generalisation, and of course all good publishers still have excellent editors working for them, but the main shift from editorially led buying to sales team buying, changed the flavour of publishing radically. ...there were so many good editors on the freelance market, and so many people writing who needed an opinion on their work. TLC was the first to establish itself in Britain, and to remove the stigma of people paying for editorial opinion and advice. After all, editing is a real skill, knowing the markets is another skill, and in my view people writing should consider paying for these skills—rather than expecting serious feedback for free.
According to TLC Editorial Services Manager, Aki Schilz, "We're lucky enough to be both well-connected and well-regarded, and can also refer writers onwards to various trusted services for things like copy-editing, proofreading, and publishing services. Where we see manuscripts of a particularly high quality, we are often able to help writers onwards towards publication, usually via agents."
For its manuscript reading and assessment service, TLC draws on a team of more than 80 editors and readers to assess writing at all levels, across fiction, non-fiction, short stories, poetry, scripts and screenplays. In addition, TLC offers the Chapter and Verse mentoring scheme, both commercially and with places available as bursaries enabled by Arts Council England funding, and also programmes and runs events, classes and a "Literary Adventure" holiday overseas.
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