A second read before you decide

One wrong detail lands on your list, not the author's.

We read. We don't rewrite.

You have to make the call. SecondRead checks a finished manuscript for internal consistency and factual accuracy, cites every finding to the page, names a source for every claim, and hands you the evidence. The call stays yours.

Contact us Reply within 48 hours · Confidential · No obligation
For the editor who has to make the call

Three books. The same problem.

01

A submission you believe in, but you can't fully vouch for the history without weeks you don't have.

02

A manuscript in your queue that deserves a close read against the record before you commit budget to it.

03

Your own book, and you want to know what a careful reviewer will find before you send it out.

SecondRead gives you the evidence to weigh them, page by page, so the call you make rests on more than a hunch. We report what holds and what to footnote. Whether a book belongs on your list stays yours to decide.

Handled in confidence

Your manuscript stays yours.

We read it, report on it, and return it. We don't circulate it, and we don't retain it after the read. Every read is conditioned on the author's written permission.

NDA on request. Send one with the manuscript, or use ours. Either way, the read and its findings never leave the two of us.

What a read hands you

A score, and the evidence behind every point of it.

SecondRead Report · Sample
Historical fiction · 94,000 words
72/100
More work to standardAt standard

VerdictClose to standard. A short endnote worklist and two continuity fixes before submission. The score measures distance to one named house's own documented standard, and every point traces back to the findings behind it.

Below the score, every claim is cited to the page and sorted against the documented record. In the full report each line also names the source it was checked against. A few lines from the ledger:

Claim
Page
Verdict
Tomatoes served at the royal feast
p. 12Contradicts
Bronze coins with the ruler's profile
p. 41Supported
The general's speech before the battle
p. 88From the chronicle
The hanging gardens beside the palace
p. 103Supported (tradition)
A thunderstorm on the wedding night
p. 156Liberty
Five verdicts, no sixth: Supported · Supported (tradition) · Contradicts · From [source] · Liberty. Contradicts states the gap. From [source] traces a claim to a named text rather than the independent record. Liberty names a deliberate reframing. None of the five is a rejection.
Under the hood

A fine-tooth comb.

One wrong detail can undo a book. A detective novel whose murderer fires a gun that had not yet been manufactured draws the one-star review, however good the rest is.

We read every page and check every claim against the record, one at a time. We can't promise to catch everything, no read can, but we catch most, and we show our work: every finding cited to its page and traceable back to the record.

Standard turnaround is three to four weeks.

Let's begin a conversation

A second read before you decide.

Confidential and with no obligation. Send us the manuscript you're weighing and you'll hear back within forty-eight hours.

Contact us

Decided, and ready to build the book? Meet BookLab.

SecondRead
A service of Grain Valley Publishing Company, LLC
1828 West 18th Street North, Unit 1108
Wichita, KS 67203