Rate Your Story

Remember my post about rhyming picture books? I said it was difficult to do rhyming verse and do it well. I also said I had written a picture book in rhyme that I thought was pretty good but I hadn't been able to find a publishing home for it.

Well, I don't have a publisher for it, but I did get some good news about it. I recently sent it to a website called Rate Your Story. They will rate a story you've written if you send it to them. They have published writers who volunteer to read your story and give it both a rating and a bit of feed-back. There is no charge for this service but there are some rules you must follow.

I sent my rhyming picture book to Rate Your Story on June 3rd and got my rating on June 17th. Now, bear in mind, it's a very short picture book, so that could be why the rating was received so quickly. I got a rating of 3 on my story! I'm very excited about that. I also got some positive feedback as well as some suggestions for revisions.According to their rating scale, it's a "Good story - Get a critique or two and polish before submitting." That's what I intend to do.

Because I got a 3 rating, I am allowed to post this badge on my website to tell the world about my accomplishment.

If you want to have your story rated, you can check out their complete guidelines on their website. The guidelines are simple, but you must adhere to them.

* They will rate only one story at at time. If they give it a rating you don't agree with, and offer suggestions for revisions, you may revise it and resend it, for a total of three ratings per story.
* They only accept submissions on the 1st through the 7th of any month. So, the next window of opportunity will be July 1 - July 7, 2013.
* It usually takes about 2 weeks to receive your rating.
* They rate stories on a scale of 1-10, with 1 being the highest rating you can get.

Now that I've received a rating of 3 on my story, I'm going to see if I can get a couple of my writing friends to critique it to see what they think. Then, I'm going to try sending it out to see if I can finally find a good publishing home for it.

Wish me luck, and good luck with your writing, too!