Do you have a story to tell? Writing for children is a common dream, but how do you know if your story has what it takes in today’s competitive market? Enter Rate Your Story.
Rate Your Story is a free manuscript ranking service. Submit your story, and an RYS judge will rank it using a scale of 1 through 10, with one being the highest. The judges also provide general comments for improving your story, though this is not a line-by-line critique. The site does have links for fee-based critique services, as well as free critique group resources.
All RYS judges are recently published authors with editing/critique experience. RYS is always looking for volunteer judges.
I’ve submitted three manuscripts to this service. Typically, I submit to my critique group first, incorporate their feedback and then submit my work to RYS only when I feel it’s publication ready. I find it helpful to have feedback from someone who doesn’t know me (and whom I don’t know). My story has to stand on its own.
I highly recommend Rate Your Story. A big shout out to Miranda Paul who started this venture.
Kirsten W. Larson 
Yeah RYS!
Happy Birthday to RYS, I couldn’t live without them now and I have to stop myself from sending them too much. Like you say, it’s a great barrier between critique group ready and agent submission.
I love RYS. Good job, highlighting them.
I think I will use RYS when I get finished typing up all the edits I made for my book, send it off to a friend to get edited, type those edits in, look over it once more, and type those changes in too. Thank you for telling me about this!
It’s a wonderful, free service, and I highly recommend it. Good luck with your MS.