Seconding this. A bunch of us were cold emailed by Quiethouse Editing. Their rates are not only low to start with, but they take 30% of what a reader makes off the top as part of the service. The only thing they do—based on the info I got directly —is some facilitating. https://twitter.com/justinaireland/status/1273643953334759424

On top of that, their payment schedule says that clients pay Quiethouse directly, and then Quiethouse PayPals the reader afterwards, with payments being made between “ten days to a (sic) six weeks later.”

I’m sorry, that is a MASSIVE date range.

There’s also some really weird shit about how Quiethouse will act as an intermediary in case a client gives “negative” feedback and you’re required to discuss it with Quiethouse in a “civil” manner.

I understand the impulse to want to get your foot in the door or to have some organization. But let’s break this down. Let’s say you get a standard manuscript at 60k words. You’d “earn” $360. Quiethouse takes their 30%. You earn $250 for that read.

I can’t speak for everyone, but most sensitivity readers read a book 2-3 times because you’re missing stuff in those initial reads. You do in-line comments, you summarize it all for the editor/editorial assistant, etc.

At minimum, I put in about 15 hours of work as a reader into a book. It is almost always more. I take this seriously. Once you break that down with what you’re actually earning, that rate starts feeling SUPER gross.

So no, this is probably a bad, bad route. Stop undervaluing those of us who are doing the work to make publishing less of a trashfire, please.