The Right Start
Before you can submit your manuscript, you have to have one! And you might as well make things easier on yourself by starting off the right way.
Editors and publishers expect works submitted to be a certain way. The best approach is to start with a standard manuscript format.
Google can provide links to many, many descriptions of what a standard manuscript looks like. You might be surprised. They are very boring and very uncreative. And very STANDARD.
As an editor for a family of small, on-line magazines, we received several submissions daily, each from 2,000 to 15,000 words—most hit around the 5,000 word range. When I saw a manuscript that was not like the rest, my first thought was that the submitter didn't know what they were doing. They hadn't bothered to look at our guidelines (more on that later) and, therefore, I didn't feel very excited to wade through pages and pages of 9 pt Felt Tip font.
If you want your submission to be considered carefully, you need to start off with standard manuscript format. Google it and you will find that, though there might be slight variations, they will all tend toward something like this:
Source: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~mslee/format.html (Jan. 31, 2017)
Standard Manuscript Format
Before submitting your stories make sure they are in the standard manuscript format. This is described in many, many "How to Write" books -- and I strongly recommend that you read at least one such book. Pared down to the bare essentials, the rules are as follows....
- Your manuscript should look as though you typed it. Neither handwritten manuscripts nor ones that use a dozen amazingly nifty fonts are likely to be well received. If you are using a word processor try to select a non-proportional font (one where every character has the same width).
- Do not justify the text. By this I mean don't select the option from your word processor that makes every line of text end exactly at the right margin. Remember, you want your manuscript to look as though you typed it, even if you are printing it on the world's most expensive laserwriter.
- Use high quality 8 1/2 x 11 inch white paper.
- Only print on one side of the paper.
- Do not staple the pages together.
- Use wide margins -- at least an inch all around the text.
- Double space the text.
- Show new paragraphs by indenting the first line of the new paragraph by five spaces. Thus:
This is the end of one paragraph. And this is the start of the next paragraph. Note that the text is double-spaced, and non-justified.
- The top of the first page: Put your name, address, and telephone number at the top left of the first page. Put the word count to the nearest 100 words at the top right of the first page. Something like this:
Jane Smith 3200 words 123 Home Lane Writers' Ville PA 15206- The rest of the first page: The story's title and your name should appear a little less than halfway down the first page. Then leave a couple of blank lines, and start the story. The title and your name should be centered:
GREAT STORY by Jane Smith- Put the page number, your surname, and a keyword or two from the title on the top right of every page after the first one. Something like this:
Smith/Great Story/20- To show a scene break, leave a blank line, then have a line with a single asterix centered in the middle, then have another blank line. Thus:
With a whimper, Bob died. * It was a dark and stormy night, very dark, very- Do not use italics. To show text that should be italicized in the final published version of the story, underline that section of text.
- At the end of your story, leave a couple of blank lines, then write "THE END" or "###" centered on a line.
- And that's all there is to it.
And that's all there is to it. Simple, and ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY!
Once your manuscript is created in standard format, you must then be ready to adapt it as required by whatever place (market) you are trying to submit. You must, must, must, must, must read and follow the guidelines with regard to any changes to standard form.
The magazines published by the company I ran clearly listed a couple of departures from standard form. They were expected because it allowed us to more easily prepare them for publication. We burdened our submitters to do a little work.
Many people freak out about the font. Okay, so do you have a computer? Just type it in whatever font you want. When you are ready to submit, if the market does not specify anything otherwise, do select-all and change the font to Courier 12pt. Done.
The italics rule could cost you some time, but if you are a wiz at Word® or other word processors, you can probably do a global search/replace (I think) to change italic to underline. Better you just underline to start off with.
The take-away from this section is simple: Start with standard format, and if an editor/publisher asks for deviations in their published guidelines, be ready to make the changes. Unless there are clear calls for changes, assume that they want the standard format.
The Right Place
An editor from a major publishing company once, at a convention, said writers should NOT say their work isn't like anything else out there. He said that meant there was no shelf at the bookstore for it.
With the ever-expanding range of electronic markets, there are a lot of shelves out there! The ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY thing is this: make sure you submit your work to the right place!
Back to those guidelines! Almost every publication I have considered as a place I would submit clearly outlined the types of work they wanted to see. If you submit something to the wrong place, you are wasting the editors' time and you might be tying up a manuscript that could be submitted to a proper market for as long as it takes for the editors to reject it.
Make sure you read the submission guidelines completely. Every word. Future articles will discuss some of the things to look for, but if you don't completely read the guidelines, you very well could miss things.
For example, some markets clearly specify word-count expectations. Follow them! Don't submit a 6000 word short story to a market that wants works in the 2500-5000 word range.
Likewise, if they call for mysteries and thrillers, don't submit fantasy. This seems like a very simple concept, but my experience reading submissions suggest that not all writers pay attention to this.
Another thing to look for is who their audience is. If they publish Y/A then make sure your work fits. If their guidelines calls for works to conform to some religious or moral standard, be sure yours fits. The key is to read all of the guidelines and make sure you follow them.
While there are a lot of "shelves out there" in this era, there are also a lot of writers, too. In order to give your work the best chance of being accepted, you need to make sure you understand the expectations of the market to which you are submitting, and make sure your manuscript (properly formatted) fits them.
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