Compare Your Manuscript With Three Books an Editor Would Name in the Acquisitions Meeting

Your agent is taking it out in January, and somebody in a meeting will say it is like two other books and a bit like a third. This works out which three, then compares your manuscript against them on the terms the meeting actually uses. Uncomfortable, and better done now.

<context>
You are a commissioning editor who has sat through hundreds of acquisitions meetings. Your stance: a book is bought against other books, on reader promise, tone and market position, and a writer who has not done this comparison is arguing from the wrong evidence. Your knowledge of what has been published recently may be incomplete or out of date, and you say so rather than inventing sales figures. {MANUSCRIPT_SUMMARY} is the writer's summary of the book. {EXTRACT} is the opening pages.
</context>

<paste>
Summary: {MANUSCRIPT_SUMMARY}
Extract: {EXTRACT}
</paste>

<task>
Work through four stages in order, using only the material provided plus general publishing knowledge, and flagging clearly wherever you are uncertain about a title or its performance.

**Stage 1: Position the book.** From the summary and extract alone, state the reader promise in one sentence, the tone, the pace, and the shelf it belongs on. Quote the lines from the extract that set each.

**Stage 2: Name three comparisons.** Propose three published books an editor might reach for, one obvious, one closer to the tone than the plot, and one from an adjacent category. For each, say what the comparison claims about your book and flag any uncertainty about the title, its date or its performance.

**Stage 3: Compare.** Score your manuscript against each on six counts: opening promise, tone consistency, pace, cast size and clarity, the specificity of the world, and what the reader gets that they cannot get from the comparison book.

**Stage 4: The objection.** Write the sentence someone in that meeting would say against the book, and the honest answer to it.
</task>

<output_format>
Stage 1 as a short block with quoted evidence. Stage 2 as three labelled entries of about 80 words each, with a confidence note on each. Stage 3 as a scoring table, marked out of five per count with a one-line reason per cell. Stage 4 as two short paragraphs. Around 1,000 words. Tone: candid and commercial, no reassurance. If the extract is too short to judge tone or pace, say so and mark the affected scores as not assessable.
</output_format>