Formatting & Submitting Your Manuscript

"Perfect margins and ideal spacing won't prevail over dull, poorly written work," counsel the authors of this book. Still, why would you let sloppy formatting obscure an editor's first encounter with your brilliant words? Formatting & Submitting Your Manuscript will help you, yes, format and submit articles, nonfiction books, short stories, novels, scripts, poetry, even greeting cards. There's no reason, the authors say, to "mangle or otherwise abuse" your work in order to get it to fit a format, but whenever possible, you might as well give the editors what they want. It's all here: queries (electronic, faxed, and otherwise), sidebars, market analyses, manuscripts, treatments, etc. Each element is handled through the use of examples, submission tips, formatting specs, and "other dos and don'ts." Strewn throughout are words of wisdom from those on the submission-receiving end, among them Robin Dolch, a senior editor at ICON Thoughtstyle. "We can always tell when people are going to be very hard to work with," Dolch says. "It's when they're willing to do very little work up front before getting a contract." --Jane Steinberg