When submitting a manuscript to a publisher (fiction ; novel)
Does the content have to be in paragraphs?
2007-06-21 09:44:51 · 5 answers · asked by Irisheyes 2 in Arts & Humanities ➔ Books & Authors
Yes. There 's a standard format for manuscript submission, more than I can cover here. See them at http://www.writerswrite.com/journal/dec98/shunn.htm , among other places.
If your novel is terrific, publishers or agents will ignore format gaffes, but why not make it perfect in terms of format when it's pretty easy?
Best of luck selling it.
2007-06-21 10:16:03 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
More and more publishers are asking for "on-line" submissions. And yes, they expect that your manuscript be grammatically correct with proper spelling. Remember, publishers get thousands of unsolicited manuscripts each year. Your best bet, if you are a truly talented writer, is to find yourself a literary agent and let that person find you a publisher. Remember, writing and publishing is a "business." Once you have written a novel that you believe is publishable, it still has to to be good enough for others to think it is publishable --especially those who will be investing great sums of money to print, advertise and sell it. That's why successful authors write book after book while the struggling "new" author has trouble getting even one looked at by a publisher. Those who are successful, marketable authors are a "known quantity" and the rest of us are not. I am sure that there has been many great novels written that have never gotten published. It is a difficult "Next Step" for any aspiring author. Good luck.
2007-06-21 23:13:53 · answer #2 · answered by Jenohio 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Yup. I suggest you look at a published book to see what a paragraph looks like. After that, pick up a little grammar book called The Elements of Style (Strunk & White) and learn the basics of writing.
2007-06-21 16:51:45 · answer #3 · answered by loryntoo 7 · 2⤊ 0⤋
All Mss. should be submitted double spaced, unjustified, with paragraphs. You should also submit the disc, so the publisher can assign an editor to edit the work without having to retype the entire thing.
2007-06-21 16:50:03 · answer #4 · answered by Elaine P...is for Poetry 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Proper manuscript format:
http://www.shunn.net/format/story.html
http://www.speculations.com/format.html
http://www.eharlequin.com/store/20060406001/images/pdf/SampleManuscriptPage.pdf
http://www.writing-world.com/basics/manuscript.shtml
http://www.ehow.com/how_18028_format-manuscript-submission.html
2007-06-21 17:40:31 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋