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Formatting Standards for Manuscript Submissions (or SMF: Standard Manuscript Format, from the appendices to DON'T SABOTAGE YOUR SUBMISSION and DON'T MURDER YOUR MYSTERY by Chris Roerden (but with a few updates after each book was published).

Always
check the individual websites of your intended recipients for each agent's and each editor's SUBMISSION GUIDELINES. These may seem identical but slight variations can be significant, making your own submission appear to be part of a mass mailing and thereby ignored.

 

Times or Courierthat is the question having caused some strong disagreements among writers. Here’s the most important guideline you need to know for deciding how to submit your own writing to an agent or publishing house, or (first) to your own beta readers and manuscript editor.

Always follow the submission preferences stated by each recipient. With today's word processors, it is simple for writers to change typeface, point size, line spacing, and other options that adjust your manuscript to the reading preferences of each recipient. If no specifications are stated, use the following standards, which have long been preferred among professional hands-on manuscript editors.

Typeface: Unless Times is specified, when submitting work to an editor for actual line editing or copy editing, use a monospaced type such as Courier.

• This is Courier (it’s monospaced: all letters and punctuation marks have the identical width)
.

• This is Times New Roman (it’s proportionally spaced; every letter and punctuation mark tucks closely into each other). 

Times is preferred by agents and editors who want a quick read to get a quck impression of your writing.
Courier is preferred by hands-on manuscript editors who need to see all the keystrokes and other elements of your submission.

Note: Trying to mimic the appearance of typesetting makes the writer look like an amateur. So do variations from standard manuscript format that attempt to be "attention-getting." The only attention-getting factor that matters to professional editors is the quality of your writing.

To those using a typewriter (yes, a few are still living and writing): “pitch” refers to characters per inch. Therefore: elite = 12 pitch (or 10 points); pica = 10 pitch (or 12 points).

Title page, other headings: Use the same size and typeface as the text throughout. Your title may be typed in upper and lower case or in all caps. Put your name, address, phone, and edress in the upper left corner of your title page, and put the approximate word count, rounded off, in the upper right corner. Space halfway down the page and center the full title of your manuscript and your byline. This title page is not numbered. (For older word processing programs, you may have to use a separate computer file to keep your title page from automatically being given the page number 1. Newer programs offer the option of not numbering your title page.)

For the first page of your text and for every subsequent page, type—one time only—the following into the automatic "header" feature of your word processor: your last name, then a slash, followed by one identifying word from your title. Here's an ideal header:
Salinger / Catcher / 3

Next, click the page numbering option, which lets your page numbers appear after your second slash that follows your abbreviated title -- or, if you prefer, you can position the page number at the far right of that first line. Never actually type individual page numbers; that's an automated process, provided you click on the correct option. If you use the footer feature for the page number, you diminish the number of lines (and the number of words) that can appear on a manuscript page, and that might create the impression of your trying to "pad' the length of your manuscript.

Typeface: Courier and Times are serif typefaces; they have little “feet” that make them easier to read than sans serif typefaces. For manuscripts, never use a sans serif typeface (such as Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, or Gill Sans). Go easy on the italics option and avoid ALL CAPS and all decorative and display type.

 

Double-spaced typed text: This does NOT mean half a line of blank space between lines, or one-and-a-half lines. It does mean that for 12-point type, line spacing (aka leading) should be a full 12 points. Your word processor probably specifies 'double.' Also use 12-point double-spaced type for all quotations, extracts, endnotes, and footnotes, even though you've seen these printed in books with small type or closer type. Remember: you are not to simulate the look of a page in a finished book. These guidelines are for manuscripts. Margins: Minimum 1" top and bottom, 1.25" sides. Large margins make it easier for an editor to offer you comments and for you, the author, to read them.

Alignment: Flush left, also known as ragged right. Never justify the lines of a manuscript.

Paragraphs: Don’t skip lines between. To indicate a new paragraph, set your word processor's ruler or "tab" option to equal 5 spaces or half an inch. To separate scenes within a chapter, hit “return” once, and centered on the blank double-spaced line you just created type # # # or * * * (with spaces between each character). To separate chapters from each other begin each on a new page. (THIS editor doesn't need your using extra paper to do what agents and publishers require for a completed manuscript; simply run subsequent chapters directly after a couple of skipped lines at the end of each chapter; but if you've been asked to submit more than one chapter, be sure you type CHAPTER TWO (and so on) at the start of each.) Paragraph indents: One tab or 5 spaces. (Publishers sometimes specify which they prefer.)

Tabs: Use only for indents that you have set in your word document's "ruler." Never attempt to simulate columns, tables, or centering by using tabs. Instead, use the word processor’s features meant for those functions.

Italics and underscoring: Underscoring (or underlining) has always signaled to copyeditors and traditional typesetters that certain words are to be set in italic type. At one time writers knew to avoid certain keyboard shortcuts and use a special italics font, which few writers understood. However, with today's software programs, publishers prefer that writers use keyboard italicizing instead of underlining. NOTE: italics are always required for uncommon foreign words and for the titles of books, plays, movies, TV series, newspapers, magazines, and other publications. Quotation marks are used when referring to the titles of: articles in those publications, essays, chapters in books, acts and scenes in a script, poems, short stories, and individual TV episodes in a series. A standalone TV documentary, like the name of a movie, is italicized. (To correct mistakenly italicized words on a hard copy (such as in page proofs) use a pencil or pen to underline each incorrectly italicized word and in the margin also write rom (for roman, which is the opposite of italics), then underline the abbreviation.

Bold face: May be used for chapter headings in fiction and for headings and subheadings in nonfiction. Never use bold or all caps within text. If emphasis is desired, italicize. But don't overdo. Often, restructuring a sentence creates its own emphasis, something that's much preferred because restructuring usually demonstrates more sophisticated usage.

Dash: To be safe, type a dash as a double hyphen--without spaces--so its length is unmistakable. Some word-processing programs automatically substitute a 1-em dash for double hyphens, but the length of a dash can change when your text is converted to a different typeface. Today, you can often change your word processing's preferences to eliminate the number of defaults your program chooses for you, thereby gaining greater control over such details as dashes and ellipses.

Ellipsis: An ellipsis indicates the trailing off of a speaker's dialogue, consisting of 3 spaced dots (periods), like this: . . . When the trailed-off sentence is complete (as far as it goes) or it falls at the end of a line, use 4 dots—with the first one where the normal period would appear (even though the fragment of dialogue is not a complete sentence), and follow that end of "sentence" with a space and 3 spaced dots. (To create a non-breaking spaced ellipsis or any non-breaking space, please see the TIP on page 193 of Don't Sabotage Your Submission or on page 177 of Don't Murder Your Mystery.) Turn off your software's automated keystroke feature that creates 3 condensed dots. To keep a 3-dot ellipsis from breaking apart if it should happen to fall at the end of a line, skip 1 space before the first of 3 dots and use a nonbreaking space after both the 1st and 2nd dots. For an ellipsis that follows a sentence, whether it's grammatically complete or not, type the usual period in the usual place followed by 1 space before starting your spaced 3-dot ellipsis. Note: you never know where later revisions could cause an ellipsis to move to the end of a line or the beginning of the next line; hence, using the spacing just described gives you some control over the look and readability of your work.

Hyphenation: Turn it off, whether you're preparing a draft manuscript for editing or a fnal draft for a publisher.

Widows and orphans: Also off.

Page numbers: Must be in sequence throughout, including front matter but starting after your title page. Remember, you're submitting a draft manuscript for editing, not a finished book to a printer. If submitting a hard copy for editing, be sure no pages are missing, repeated, or out of order. Use the auto-numbering feature that’s part of your word processor’s header and footer options. If you don't know how to use that function, hand-write page numbers on your printout; never type individual page numbers on the electronic pages of a word-processed manuscript because text shifts whenever revisions are made, and individually typed page numbers become scrambled within the body of your text.

Footnotes (for nonfiction): If the work is being submitted for editing, use your word processor’s footnote or endnote feature and set all notes and bibliographic material to print the same as other text: 12-pt Courier double-spaced. Or type the actual note directly into the text where you want it referenced and enclose it in parentheses, without numbering. Do not attempt to make the point size smaller as if in a printed book, because you are preparing text to first be edited, and your editor must be able to easily read and correct your content.

Graphics (for nonfiction): Avoid embedding charts, tables, figures, etc., in the main text. Number each separate graphic, print it on its own page, and show where it belongs by typing its corresponding number in the text itself, adding these words: “Insert figure x here.” As for illustrations in children's books, do not include your own unless you are a professional illustrator in addition to a writer. If publishers like both your concept for a book and your writing, they almost always use their own illustrators.

Paper: If you are asked to submit hard copy, use only standard 20-lb white 8-1/2" by 11"; no hole punching or pin-feed tear-offs (are these even used today? Occasionally, when someone has an ancient stash of computer paper they are still trying to use up.) Avoid using erasable bond, which smudges. Avoid heavy bond; the added weight increases shipping costs when mailed to a beta reader or editor who prefers working on hard copy, and the extra weight can cause an editor to misjudge a manuscript's length as excessive.

Printing: Use one side of the paper only and one column of text—despite ecologically sensible efforts to use both sides of a sheet; publishing has its own rules for manuscript submission and economizing on your paper isn't one of them.

Black ink: Use a laser or ink cartridge that produces clear, sharp, black text. If submitting a photocopy, it should be a first generation copy. Handwritten text must be typed. If accepted for publication, text must be available electronically, so use a computer. Scanning is not recommended.

Binding: None. For hard copy, loose pages only, not stapled, not clipped, not bound in a looseleaf or any kind of binder. Punched holes get in the way of an editor’s marginal notations. Use a large or "supersized" rubber band (available from office supply stores).

Never fold manuscript pages unless you are mailing only a single replacement page.

Never send photos
or drawings or your only copy of anything without permission from the recipient.

Exceptions: When in doubt, your recipient’s stated specifications take precedence over any formatting standard that says otherwise.

END: Type this word at the end of your manuscript. This, together with consecutive page numbering, lets editors know they have your entire manuscript. When submitting a partial manuscript (if that's what's been asked for), type at the end of it "END OF PARTIAL." Tip: When asked to send only a certain number of sample pages or chapters, always begin at the beginning and keep pages in sequence. If you begin a partial at any place other than page 1, professionals understand that you regard your opening as not good enough to represent your writing.

To see a sample of pages prepared in SMF, please click here: THE BIGGEST PROBLEM FOR WRITERS

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