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Services

Mentorship Program

Ready to take your project to the next level? Our mentorships pair you with an experienced writer, illustrator, or book industry professional who will offer guidance, support, and professional insight as you work closely together to achieve your goals.

A mentorship gives you the opportunity to converse with and ask questions of a mentor over a period of time. This back-and-forth communication is particularly valuable if you are in the earlier stages of your manuscript or if you’ve hit a wall and are unsure how to proceed. It’s also an opportunity to workshop your completed manuscript and receive tailored advice. A mentor’s feedback can be verbal, written, or a combination of the two; the format is decided between you and your mentor.

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Who is this for?

  • Authors with a work in progress or completed manuscript undergoing development
  • Author-illustrators and illustrators with a flatplan undergoing development
  • Illustrators with a portfolio undergoing development

If you have any questions about our Mentorship Program, please email [email protected].

  • Is your manuscript in the final stages of development and you want to make sure it’s submission-ready?

The ASA’s Manuscript Assessment Service can help you get your manuscript to a publishable standard for the consideration of publishers and agents.

  • Are you seeking tailored advice about a particular aspect of the publishing industry?

A one-hour consultation through the ASA’s member-exclusive Publishing Consultancy Service can help guide you through key career decisions.

See our range of mentorships

5 - 30 Hours

Build your own mentorship

Have a first draft but don’t know how to improve it? Need help with structure or character development? Looking for professional support to strengthen your manuscript? A mentor can help you achieve your creative goals.

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3 Hours

First 10 pages mentorship

The first 10 pages of your manuscript, be it fiction or non-fiction, are the most crucial. These pages are what hooks the interest of your reader, publisher, or agent, and compels them to read more — but they are also the hardest to get right.

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5 Hours

Picture book collaborations mentorship

Receiving input from both the writing and illustrating perspectives, a collaborations mentorship allows individual picture book authors and illustrators, or an author/illustrator duo, to bring your work to its most publishable form and confidently present your picture book to publishers.

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3 Hours

Picture book mentorship

Developing a successful picture book requires significant time, planning, and collaboration, and it can be challenging to navigate the format’s unique characteristics and competitive market on your own.

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3 Hours

Portfolio mentorship

An illustration portfolio is vital for representing who you are as an artist and is a key way of putting your work in front of art directors, publishers, or people commissioning artists/illustrators.

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Meet our mentors

Our current list of mentors includes specialists in diverse areas from fiction of all genres to non-fiction, illustration, and beyond. They’re all highly credentialled, with multiple publications and at least 5 years of professional mentoring experience.

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Enter our prestigious award mentorships

Every year, we award multiple free mentorships to authors and illustrators whose work shows significant merit and potential.

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