Why couldn I just hire three or four readers from ads in the writing mags, myself?
You certainly could, but it’s often a challenge for writers to find readers with the experience and skill to do a professional caliber read. The various readers offering their services on the Internet and in those ads at the back of writers magazines include a great number who just aren’t up to the task (even if they have worked for major companies). So while you could go it alone and hire the various readers yourself, you would not have the advantage of our years of experience of hiring readers. Also, you’d be on your own when it came to evaluating their work and interpreting the results of multiple pieces of coverage. It’s likely you’d end up with multiple coverages that said contradictory things with no help in of determining which is valid and which is not. The Story Department service includes a detailed report drafted by an experienced Story Editor, which evaluates, assesses and, ultimately, makes unifying sense of the multiple coverages. Also, of particular benefit to newer writ