Writers and artists need guidance. To that end our first step is an evaluation of a project. This enables us to determine if we think the project has merit or viability. If it does, we’ll say so and give some suggestions for how to develop it. The author can then proceed as she sees fit. If she wants to continue to work with us, we will discuss the next level, what goal we see, and what the cost will be. In some cases this might be a phone conversation about the project, or it might be an assessment of a full draft of a novel with a complete editorial workup, just like what an author under contract receives from her editor when she submits a draft of a project. Services will be incremental; each level will be assessed and priced. We won’t move to the next level unless we feel the previous level was successfully achieved. If we do not feel a project is viable, we will suggest ways that the writer might improve it and move forward, but we won’t recommend that we work with the author on that project. Our intention is not to take money for work on projects that have no future potential for publication or to work beyond a substantially productive point. When a project is, in our opinion, publishable, we will give the author guidelines for and help presenting it. In summary, we are the bridge between an author with a project that needs work and that same author with a publishable project ready to be handled by an agent or sold to a publisher.

Agents need publishable projects to represent. At namelos we develop projects. Successful agents are enormously busy staying in touch with the industry and tending to their clients’ business. Few have time for the kind of sustained editorial development that many authors need to make their work publishable. Our services are a natural and often necessary prerequisite for acquiring an agent. Agents will direct clients to namelos for editorial development, and namelos will deliver publishable projects to agents.

Publishers need good books to publish. Increasingly their resources are devoted to the sales and marketing end of the process. Development is time-consuming and expensive. In these difficult times, publishers are reducing staff, laying off editors, art directors, designers, and all sorts of support staff. But they still need books. namelos is a source for books and for support with virtually every aspect of the publishing process. With in-house staff reductions and the consequent strain on resources, we can supplement publishers’ efforts for a fraction of the cost of permanent in-house staff.