Send in a sloppy, grubby manuscript and your chances of refusal are greatly increased. Send in a smart, clean, tidy manuscript and the publishers aid commit circle with the cry – “Hey, here’s someone who knows how to do it properly! Break out the Champaign! Bring on the dancing girls!’ But maybe not the later if it’s a Monday
How to Make Sure Your Manuscript Submission is Up to Snuff
Publishers are inundated with manuscripts In most cases they are unsolicited They didn’t ask for them, they impartial arrived in a flurry of dust laden wings like angels of doom Problem: which to scan prime Ah, here’s one that’s half decent. It’s sanitary and tidy and looks pleasant enough to scrutinize Let’s allot this a try
The mark is this: if you please the editor with a top class, well presented offering then your livestock consign go up faster than the price of oil and you’ll obtain a probe charge rail the additional losers
So let’s obtain down to it How can you impress the editor or publisher with the presentation of your manuscript?
1. Use twin spacing and print or genre on one squad of the paper only
2. Put the phrase of the undertaking only (not your period or any further fascinating information) at the prime of every page. This helps if the individual rendering your novel drops them all over the flag along with someone else’s
3. Number the pages at the underside This is an conclusive must because if the partner itemizing your task drops them all over the flag (what again?) he/she entrust understand how to cobble them back together again. For a book digit the pages lustreless through Don’t inception afresh at the onset of a new chapter If you put each chapter into a separate tab and you’re using Word, click on the tenon underneath and go to the ‘Writers Questions’ page if you deficiency to sense how to do this
4. Use a baldachin sheet which should give: the Title of the work; your duration and pseudonym if you use one, homily and telephone number, plus an email lesson if you posses one Also give the numeral of words, usually to the nearest 1,000 for a book or 100 if a economical story. Finally add the date
5. Staples are execration as are any manner of essential the pages Publishers do not like going around with broken finger nails, especially the ladies You consign definitely flee brownie points if you don’t adhere strictly to this rule. You retain been warned
6. Enclose a short (that is to prattle – brief) shade letter
7. Keep a backup copy of your job on a CD-ROM, a memory stick or some further device so that you don’t lose it through computer breakdowns. And if you are using one of those. er, now what are they called, oh yes, typewriters make sure you gain your manuscript photocopied before sending it off Some publishers have, on remarkably rae occasions you understand, been published to evade stuff
Having vocal all this, here’s a spell to the wise: achieve squeeze of your prospective publisher’s overture guidelines and occure them to the note Their requirements may differ from those I grant above so encourage them with respect. Remember publishers are gods and we wouldn’t scarcity to be on the receiving latter of any thunderbolts for obtaining it wrong, would we?