If you are serious about publishing, why reduce your chances with a sloppy presentation? If you can master the craft of writing, you can master the general rules of presentation. That part is linear thinking which should become automatic. It would be a shame for good work to go to waste for reasons so easy to avoid.
Maxwell Perkins edited and made sense out of the jumbled, handwritten pages of Thomas Wolfe. There are no editors like Maxwell Perkins in the publishing houses today. If Wolfe were just starting out today, he would have to do his own editing, his own formatting, and his own rearranging and deleting or remain unpublished. Think what the literary world would miss.
Think about your own work not making it. We have an advantage Wolfe and our other predecessors didn't have--the computer. In the good old days, when fingers did the walking over and over on the typewriter keyboards, the temptation was to simply let it stand as it was. Laura Hobson, author of "Gentleman's Agreement", said, "...I find that I keep on editing and rewriting even while I am typing the final, final, final." She depended upon a typewriter. Count your blessings; get a computer. And if you're not serious, get that way.
For your finished product: Use only white 8 1/2 X 11 sheets; plain 20 lb. copier paper is good. Editors hate erasable bond because it smears. And do use good, dark typewriter/printer ribbons and a conventional typeface; save the italics, script, and gothic print for writing to your friends.
Q. Does the writer have to check all factual information (whether for
fiction or nonfiction)?
A. You better believe it. Even one guessed-at piece of information
that is wrong makes everything else you write suspect (which can lead to
rejection). It's the writer's job to check the facts.
Q. Why should the writer have to send a self-addressed stamped envelope
(SASE) with a submission? Shouldn't the publishers be willing to send these
back as part of the interaction of having work submitted to them?
A. It's a bummer, but there are so many writers clamoring to be published
that it's still a publisher's world. Manuscripts sent without SASE most
often end up in the "round file" otherwise called a waste basket. Writers
have to bear the cost of marketing their works. (When you think about it
that way, doesn't any manufacturer have to bear the cost of marketing offerings?)
Q. Couldn't I just tell the editor to let me know "yes" or "no" and
to throw away the manuscript rather than my paying the return postage for
the whole manuscript instead of just a postcard?
A. You can, but many editors say they consider that writers who do
this have little regard for their own work.
Q. Do I really have to send only a query if an editor or agent says
that's all they want? How can they tell the style of my writing from a
short query?
A. Sigh along with your fellow-writers. It's best to "give 'em what
they want." By doing so, you show you understand what is required of you
professionally. But do work over that query until it hums with promise.
Q. Wouldn't it be clever to send my manuscript in a red or other bright
envelope, so it would be noticeable on an editor's desk?
A. Do so at your own peril. Nothing screams "amateur" to an editor
as much as such tricks; it sets up that automatic "Oh, no" negative reaction.
Some writers have been known to put a page upside down, or insert a leaf
between two pages to "see if the editor really looked at my manuscript."
And some editors leave the tricks just that way as they return the novice
submissions.
Q. Does professional presentation matter?
A. YES!
- copyright © 1992, 1999, 2000 Gloria T. Delamar