![]() It was extremely well written and edited. I recently read a fantastic self-published book on my kindle. ![]() They’ll adjust the kerning and leading, and hopefully they’ll choose a pro-looking font, design a cool fleuron to open each chapter, and make sure your pagination is correct. ![]() Sure you can upload it yourself in minutes, but it won’t look nearly as professional.Īn experienced interior designer will make sure you don’t have orphans or widows or any other distracting page or line breaks. After you’ve edited your book within an inch of its life, I highly recommend you hire an interior designer. ![]() Unlike a manuscript you’re submitting, here you do want to mimic other published books. Include a title page with the name of the book, your name, and your address, phone, and email.įor the table of contents, if possible, link your page numbers so they’ll jump to the corresponding section of the proposal. The goal is to make it easy to read and edit, not to mimic a published book.įor the businessey parts of the proposal itself, use single spacing. Think business plan + term paperįor the sample chapters, use the same format I just recommended above (Times New Roman, 12 pt, double space etc.). The only difference with format, is that you’ll treat the business section and the sample chapters differently. This section demonstrates how and why the publisher should take a risk on this book in the expectation of earning a profit. Rest assured that all the other submissions they get will also look weird, so they’ll expect irregularities.Ī book proposal is a lot like a manuscript, but in addition to the sample chapters, it has a section that functions like a business plan, with an overview, author bio, audience analysis, comparative and competitive titles, marketing, publicity, and promotion. As annoying as it is to submit this way, it can be easier for them to log and track submissions, and it may also help them stay safe from viruses.Ĭopy and paste from your original document, fix up anything glaringly weird at the beginning, and hope for the best. What if an agent asks you to paste the entire manuscript into an online submission form or email? And remember, they get infinitely more good manuscripts than they could ever publish. To make money from your book, they will need you out there publicizing it. According to copyright law, you already own the copyright, and agents and publishers are not trying to steal people’s unpublished work. That is a dead giveaway that you’re an amateur. You do not need to write Copyright anywhere on the manuscript and certainly not on every page. So if you’re using Google Docs, save as a Word doc. Unless someone requests a PDF or other file type, default to a Microsoft Word doc, which is still the gold standard. But only do this deliberately and sparingly so you don’t look like you’re writing a blog post or an email. If you want to add emphasis or change topics or time frames, definitely go ahead and add an extra line between grafs to flag that. Indented paragraphs with NO space between paragraphs. If you’re of a certain age, your typing teacher is rolling over in her grave.) One space after a period (I know, I know. For this, you want to look like all the other pro writers they work with. You want your book to stand out for its gripping writing, not for unorthodox formatting. The goal is to make it easy for the agent to read and edit, which means it’ll look a little more like a college paper-boring, but functional. It seems like you’d want it to look just like a book with drop caps and single spacing, but no. (Though actually you should run from someone who requests that!)įormatting a complete manuscript for agents ![]() So if they say to use comic sans red font, do it. They each have different purposes and call for slightly different approaches.įirst, no matter what I say here, always, always, always follow an agent or publisher’s guidelines. Your format actually depends on what you mean by “book,” so today I’ll go over formatting a manuscript for literary agents, formatting a book proposal, and formatting a finished book in order to self-publish. Single space or double space? One or two spaces after a period? What font? ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |