For Literary Agents · Completed Fiction Manuscripts

Find the Manuscripts Worth Your Time.

More manuscript intelligence before you commit your attention.

Every promising query eventually creates a harder question:

Is this manuscript worth going deeper on?

KATXY evaluates completed fiction manuscripts across 150+ evaluation parameters to produce one KATXY Score and a comprehensive Manuscript Intelligence Report.

See more of the manuscript — craft, readership, market, positioning, revision and submission readiness — before deciding where to invest your attention.

Find a Manuscript's KATXY Score

KATXY / Manuscript IntelligenceReport overview

KATXY Score

823One reference point.
A complete publishing perspective.

01 / Report contents

Inside the
manuscript

01 Structural & Craft Analysis

02 Genre & Audience

03 Comparable Landscape

04 Commercial Positioning

05 Submission Readiness

150+Evaluation ParametersComprehensive Manuscript Analysis
450+Analytical ChecksPublishing Risk Profile
OneKATXY ScoreA Standardized Decision Signal
50+Page Intelligence ReportInformed Publishing Decision

Attention & opportunity

Thousands of Queries. A Finite Amount of Attention.

The opportunity isn't finding more manuscripts. It's identifying which ones deserve hours rather than minutes.

For many agents, new queries arrive by the dozens every week. For some, by the hundreds. Across a year, that can mean thousands of manuscripts competing for attention alongside the work already being done for existing clients.

Thousands of queriesFinite attentionWhich deserve hours?

But that volume isn't simply noise.

More than a third of surveyed agents said the majority of their client list had come directly from unsolicited queries.

The opportunity can be somewhere inside the pile.

The question is:

Which manuscripts deserve more of your attention?

KATXY gives you another layer of manuscript intelligence before you make that investment.

Structural & Craft

Is the Promise Sustained Across the Whole Manuscript?

The opening got your attention. Now the complete manuscript has to keep it.

A query can establish the premise. Opening pages can establish voice.

Neither tells you everything about what happens across the complete manuscript.

And a full read is a meaningful commitment.

80,000 wordsmore than five hours of uninterrupted reading

At typical fiction-reading speeds, an 80,000-word manuscript represents more than five hours of uninterrupted reading — before notes, rereading, analysis or editorial thinking begin. A large meta-analysis puts average silent fiction reading at about 260 words per minute.

Does the structure hold?

Premise · Architecture · Structure

See premise, narrative architecture and structural execution across the complete work.

Does the manuscript sustain momentum?

Pacing · Conflict · Progression

Examine pacing, conflict and progression beyond the opening chapters.

Do the characters sustain the story?

Character · Agency · Emotion

See character depth, protagonist agency and emotional resonance.

Does the execution fulfil the premise?

World · Voice · Craft · Theme

Examine world-building, voice, technical craft and thematic depth.

KATXY perspectiveKATXY doesn't replace the full read. It gives you more information when deciding which manuscripts deserve one.

Genre & Audience

Can You See the Readers Behind the Manuscript?

A manuscript you represent eventually needs readers you can believe are there.

The question isn't simply whether the genre label fits.

It's whether the manuscript creates a sufficiently clear picture of who might choose this book and what they are choosing it for.

The manuscript at the centerThe BookReader · Experience · Genre · Orientation

Who is the natural reader?

Audience Profile

See the audience profile emerging from the manuscript.

What expectations does the book create?

Genre · Subgenres

Understand its primary genre and meaningful subgenre relationships.

What does it ask from its audience?

Complexity · Accessibility

See reading complexity, accessibility and intellectual density.

How broad or selective might the readership be?

Literary ↔ Commercial

Understand its literary–commercial orientation and reading experience.

KATXY perspectiveGive your own market judgment a richer picture of the readership behind the manuscript.

Comparable Landscape

Can You See Where It Belongs?

A manuscript can be distinctive and still need a clear place in the market.

More than 64,000 fiction releases entered traditional publishing across the major fiction categories reported in the U.S. in 2025.

Your manuscript won't enter an empty shelf.

The useful question isn't simply: “What are the comps?”

It's: “What do the comps tell me about this manuscript?”

Is it entering crowded territory?

See market density around the manuscript.

Is its differentiation meaningful?

Understand where similarity ends and distinction begins.

Where could readership transfer?

See audience overlap with adjacent titles.

What does the competitive landscape reveal?

Examine comparative positioning, risk and market-entry advantage.

KATXY perspectiveUse comparable titles as evidence about the manuscript's market — not as substitutes for evaluating the manuscript itself.

Commercial Positioning

Is There a Publishing Proposition Inside the Manuscript?

Before you pitch the book, you need to see what can carry the pitch.

A strong manuscript can still be difficult to position.

And getting acquired is only one threshold.

Quality matters.

So does being able to see where the book belongs, who it is for and why it might matter in the market.

ManuscriptPositioningPitchable Proposition

Can the manuscript be expressed clearly?

See its positioning and pitch clarity.

Is its publishing position legible?

Understand shelf legibility and commercial position.

What will it ask from readers?

See accessibility pressure and reader commitment.

How broad could the opportunity become?

Examine readership elasticity, acquisition temperature and market competitiveness.

KATXY perspectiveKATXY doesn't write the pitch for you. It helps surface the manuscript intelligence you can build one from.

Revision Outlook

If You Take It On, What Are You Taking On?

The manuscript you sign isn't always the manuscript you submit.

You may see an author worth representing while also seeing work that needs to happen before submission.

The useful question isn't whether revision is required.

It's:

What kind of development commitment are you stepping into?

The investment decisionDevelopment Commitment

TimeEditorial attentionDevelopment exposure

Is the foundation stable?

Foundation

See whether the underlying manuscript gives you something strong to build from.

How extensive could the work be?

Revision Scope

Understand whether revision appears contained or interconnected.

Where is there room to move?

Commercial Flexibility

See the manuscript's commercial flexibility.

What should remain untouched?

Preservation Sensitivity

Identify the elements most sensitive to preservation.

KATXY perspectiveSee more of the development commitment before deciding how much of your time and expertise you want to put behind it.

Submission Readiness

Is This the Manuscript You're Ready to Send?

Believing in the manuscript and being ready to submit it are different decisions.

By this point, you already have your own view.

KATXY gives you another way to interrogate it.

Craft looks strong — but is the positioning ready?

The market looks interesting — but is revision exposure still high?

The concept is compelling — but does the complete manuscript support it?

Everything works individually — but does it work together?

KATXY perspectiveKATXY brings those signals into one submission-facing view. Not to decide whether you should submit. To give you another layer of evidence before you do.

Publishing Campaign

The Real Opportunity Is Bigger Than One Manuscript.

You're not simply discovering books. You're discovering authors.

And there is still a substantial fiction market on the other side of that discovery.

The opportunity is real.

More than $15 billion

Fiction publishing represents a market of more than $15 billion across traditional and independent publishing estimates.

The upside of finding the right manuscript isn't simply one successful submission.It can be the beginning of:

A First BookA Second BookA Growing ReadershipRights OpportunitiesA BacklistAn Author Career

That is why the objective isn't to process more manuscripts.

It's to identify where your attention could create disproportionate value.

KATXY carries the manuscript intelligence forward:

Who are the readers?

Turn audience intelligence into reader priorities.

What should lead?

Identify the strongest market-facing qualities.

Where can the book enter?

Connect comparable and positioning intelligence.

What can the campaign build around?

Carry the manuscript's strongest signals toward its eventual readers.

KATXY perspectiveOne manuscript can be the beginning of a relationship worth years of attention.

Score + Full Report

One KATXY Score. The Intelligence Behind It.

Your judgment remains the most important part of the decision.

KATXY gives you more to exercise that judgment on.

One KATXY Score provides a standardized reference point for the manuscript.

The 50+ page Intelligence Report gives you the evidence behind it.