Mentorship Program

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.

How it works

A 3-hour mentorship for your first 10 pages includes a mentor’s reading and assessment time.  Depending on your preference, your mentor can provide a written report or deliver their feedback via phone or video meeting.

A fiction first 10 pages mentorship will help you:

  • Introduce your cast of characters
  • Establish pacing, story set-up, and direction
  • Demonstrate the story’s hook

A non-fiction first 10 pages mentorship will help you:

  • Establish a distinctive narrative voice
  • Demonstrate a clear focus on the topic
  • Provide an indication of the main premise

In both instances, you will receive suggestions for further development.

Who is this for?

  • Authors seeking to strengthen the opening of their manuscript in preparation for the submission process
  • Authors without the time or financial resources to commit to a longer-form mentorship who still want to benefit from concise, professional feedback that could be independently applied throughout the rest of their manuscript

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.

Book your mentorship

$365 Member Price
$555
Book now

How to book

  • Read the ‘Who is this for?’ box at the top of this page to make sure this is the right service for you at this stage of your project or career.

If you’re unsure, please email [email protected] for advice.

  • Identify who you would like to nominate as your preferred mentor(s).

You will be asked to list the 3 mentors you would most like to work with, in order of preference, in your booking form. You can learn more about our mentors by browsing our mentor register. 

If you need help identifying suitable mentors, please email [email protected] prior to placing your booking.

  • Prepare the required documents you will be asked to include in your booking form.

For a first 10 pages mentorship, you will be asked to submit:

  •  A 300-word synopsis
  • The first 10 pages of your manuscript, typed in 12pt Times New Roman, double-spaced, with page numbers on the bottom right

If you are seeking a mentorship for a graphic novel, you will be asked to submit:

  • A 3-4 page outline of your story arc
  • The first 10 pages of your graphic novel’s script
  • Thumbnails/roughs are optional
  • Use the 'book now' button to submit your mentorship booking.

The ASA member fee for a first 10 pages mentorship is $365 (GST inclusive).

Please note that we ask for upfront payment for all our mentorships. This is to ensure our mentors are paid promptly for their work.

You should receive an automated email confirmation from [email protected], as well as an email receipt from our payment platform, Stripe. Please check your spam/junk folder if you don’t receive these emails after submitting your booking.

ASA staff will attend to your booking within 2-3 business days. We will contact your preferred mentors (in order of preference) and notify you as soon as we have a mentor confirmed or more information on their availability for your consideration. You will receive email updates about your booking from [email protected]. 

Once a mentor and time frame is confirmed for your booking, your mentor will be in direct contact to get the mentorship underway.

Meet our mentors

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

See Mentors