Posts Tagged ‘beginners’

Authors! 8 Tips For Your Website’s Usability and Design

Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010

by Monica Valentinelli

In today’s article, I’d like to share with you some tips to consider when you’re reviewing your current website or when you’re thinking about creating one. Let’s take a look at these tips for your website’s design and usability.

1. Structure Your Theme Around Your Update Frequency – First and foremost, I believe that you have to make a decision, up front, about how often you plan on updating your website. If you’re not going to blog or update very often, you can simply choose a different website theme that’s a little more static than a blog, but still attractive and professional. If your website isn’t focused around a blog, visitors won’t expect you to update your website as often, but you can still provide good, useful information for anyone who visits. Several themes offer you the ability to have a blog component integrated separately into your website, too.

2. Balance Text with Images – Images can be a great enhancement to your website and they can allow you to easily share content with your readers that they might enjoy seeing. However, your website copy is arguably the most important asset you have for many reasons. Copy allows you to reach your readers and search engines, and it also allows you to attract new visitors through Google and similar places. As an author, your content is exceptionally important because it’s a reflection of you and your work. (more…)

Tags: beginners, business, Monica Valentinelli, web
Posted in Networking and Self-Promotion, SFWA Blog | 7 Comments »

Copyrights and Meteorites

Tuesday, January 4th, 2005

Do I need to Copyright my unpublished manuscript?

No.

No? Won’t an editor steal it?

No. Editors don’t steal. That’s a myth. And, unfortunately, many new writers believe it.

Think about it. How would stealing a manuscript benefit an editor? If he doesn’t like the story, there’s no reason to steal. If he does like the story enough to publish it, what advantage would he get from stealing? Saving the cost of paying you? If the magazine pays in copies, all he’s saving is postage. If the magazine pays cash, the money is already budgeted for that story. Why risk your reputation over money you were planning to spend anyway?

And if an editor did steal stories, word would get around. Top authors would stop sending anything. Without top authors, the quality of the magazine would drop. As quality drops, so does circulation. Very soon, an editor who stole stories would be out of business, with no one willing to hire her (would you hire a thief?).

Maybe they’ll print it with the name of a famous author to boost sales.

Nope. First of all, do you really think a big-name author would allow that to happen? If a magazine put, say, John Grisham’s name on your story, Grisham’s attorneys would be on the line within a week.

Besides, names don’t make that much of a difference to a magazine. They get plenty of big names just in the course of doing business — legitimate stories from these people. Also, a big name on the cover doesn’t make that much of a difference except for newsstand sales, which, for most fiction magazines, are not a major source of income (most magazines lose money on newsstand sales).

In addition, one of the joys of editing is discovering a new author. Editors are delighted when they can publish someone for the first time.

OK, so they may not steal my story. What if they steal my ideas?

Editors don’t buy ideas; they buy stories and articles.

Ideas are a dime a gross; there isn’t a person walking the street who can’t come up with an idea that could potentially make a first-rate story. It’s the execution of that idea that makes a story. A brilliant idea is worthless if the story is poorly written, with weak characters and no plot. Similarly, some excellent stories have been written from very unimpressive ideas.

Since the chances are quite good that someone thought up an idea similar to yours independently, you can’t depend on ideas to succeed as a writer. You need to know how to write.

In any case, all this doesn’t matter. You can’t Copyright an idea, just its expression. Even if someone did steal an idea, Copyright wouldn’t protect you.

But I’ve heard about people suing publishers for stealing their stories?

Those stories involve either movie studios or songwriters; things are different in Hollywood. And in the vast majority of these, the cases are thrown out of court. Why? Because these were all groundless. Whenever a movie or song becomes successful, people come out of the woodwork and try to cash in.

Also, most people complain about people stealing their ideas and, as I mentioned, ideas aren’t Copyrightable.

But that’s Hollywood. It is not book or magazine publishing. In sixteen years of writing fiction professionally I have never heard of an editor taking a submitted story and stealing it. Never. It just does not happen.

I’m still concerned. How do I know I won’t be the first?

If you’re not going to trust the editor not to steal your story, why are you going to trust her to publish it?

Publishing is based on trust. The editor trusts that you haven’t stolen the story from someone else, for instance (plagiarized submissions considerably outnumber those stolen by editors). As an author, you are expected to keep your word to the editor. And vice versa. Nearly all editors do.

Still, it can’t hurt to get Copyright, can it?

Yes, it can. It can hurt your pocketbook, and it can hurt your chances of getting a story published.

Pocketbook issues first. It costs money to register a Copyright. (By the way, you do have some Copyright protection from the moment you create a story, whether you register it or not. You cannot sue for damages, but you can prevent anyone from publishing without permission.) The last I checked, it cost $20. Now if you don’t sell the story, this isn’t very cost-effective. The same if you sell to a market that pays in copies. If you write twenty stories a year, you will have to earn over $400 from sales to pay for Copyright costs. That’s $400 a year for the equivalent of meteorite insurance. Is that worth it? I’d rather spend that money on postage or books or new computer equipment or even a night at the theater. I make little enough money writing as it to waste it on nonessentials.

Also, if you do Copyright a story, technically, you are required to include a Copyright notice. This has to indicate the date of Copyright. Now, suppose an editor sees a story of yours with the line “Copyright © 1988.” His first thought will be “This story hasn’t sold in nine years?” Not a good first impression.*

What should I do, then?

What all professional writers do: send your stories off without worrying about theft. The publisher will Copyright the story when they buy it; let them deal with it. There are too many other problems facing a writer to have to worry about meteorites.

For a look at Copyright law, you can go to the Copyright Office Website

Tags: beginners, Chuck Rothman, copyright, Publishing
Posted in Advice for New Writers, Contracts and Copyrights, Copyright Education, Information Center | Comments Off

Common Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

Tuesday, January 4th, 2005

• The Apostrophe
• Phrase Matching
• Spelling
• Identifying Your Pronouns
• Being Consistent

The Apostrophe: When In Doubt, Leave It Out

The omitted apostrophe confuses meaning less often than the needless one does. If I write a note to tell you, “This is Janes dog,” you’ll likely know I mean to let you know the dog belongs to Jane. If I write instead, “Jane’s friend’s are writer’s,” and you know anything about the punctuation of English, you will be in some confusion as to what belongs to whom.

In general, the apostrophe means one of two things.

1. There is a missing letter where it is. For example, in “don’t” there is a missing “o”; in “it’s” there is a missing “i”: each of these is a one-word contraction commonly used to represent two words. “Don’t” means “do not,” and “it’s” means “it is.”
2. Something belongs to someone. For example, “Jane’s dog” means the dog belongs to Jane. “Fred’s house” means the house belongs to Fred (or at least that he lives in it). Apostrophe-S is used to indicate possession.

Unfortunately, number 2 above presents a problem when a thing belongs to a thing. If we want to say, “The box has its label now,” shouldn’t we use “it’s” to show possession? The answer is most emphatically no, we should not. “It’s” means “it is.” It never means “belonging to it.”

And here I present you with a writerly secret about apostrophes: if the reader sees none where there should be one, she will imagine you’ve dropped it by accident, and that the result is a typographical error (a “tyop”) rather than an indication of ignorance.

But if she sees an apostrophe where there should be none, she is unlikely to imagine that you added it by accident. Even if in this one case you really did hit that key without noticing, your reader is going to assume that you did it deliberately, in ignorance. It is a sad truth about readers. As a result, you’re much safer if you follow the apostrophe rule: when in doubt, leave it out.

Phrase-Matching

A participial phrase at the beginning of a sentence must refer to the grammatical subject.

Luckily this rather daunting injunction is simpler than it sounds. An example from Strunk’s The Elements of Style:

Walking slowly down the road, he saw a woman accompanied by two children.

The word walking refers to the subject of the sentence, not to the woman. If the writer wishes to make it refer to the woman, he must recast the sentence.

He saw a woman, accompanied by two children, walking slowly down the road.

Strunk considers this example adequate, and perhaps it is. Even without an understanding of “participial phrases” and “grammatical subjects,” you should be able with moderate effort to extend this logic to other, similar sentences.

The next rule contains even more daunting terms:

Participial phrases preceded by a conjunction or by a preposition, nouns in apposition, adjectives, and adjective phrases come under the same rule if they begin the sentence.

If you don’t know what those terms mean, you should still be able to see by example what is meant.

Wrong: On arriving in Chicago, his friends met him at the station.
Better: On arriving in Chicago, he was met at the station by his friends.

Wrong: A writer of popular self-help books, they hired her to write their company manual.
Better: A writer of popular self-help books, she was hired to write the company manual.

Wrong: Inexperienced as he was, it sounded easy to write a book.
Better: Inexperienced as he was, he thought writing a book would be easy.

Sentences that violate these rules are often ludicrous:

Being weather-damaged and badly infested with termites, I was able to buy the house at quite a low price.

Wondering which way to turn, a bird soiled my hat.

As a writer of popular romances, his computer was quite fast.

Spelling

If your word processor has a spell-checker, use it. Be aware, however, that spell-checkers can only determine whether words are spelled correctly. They cannot determine whether the word in question is the one wanted. For example, had I written “they cannot determine weather the word … is the one wanted,” a spell-checker would not have flagged it because, although “weather” was quite the wrong word, it was spelled correctly.

It is therefore necessary not only to spell-check by hand, but also to know more than your computer does about which word you wanted. A hardcopy dictionary is essential. If you know there are other words that sound like the one you used, it’s a good idea to look them up, to make sure you selected the right one.

Did you say “they’re” or “there” when you meant “their”? What about two, too, and to–have you used the right one? Do you know how to decide which of “you’re” and “your” and “yore” you want? Depending on your regional accent, the words within these groups may sound identical. Have you really selected the correct one? Do you know how to tell?

A dictionary will help in every case. If you look up the word you selected and the meaning turns out to be quite different from what you intended, look up similar-sounding words until you find the one you wanted. You may be surprised how many words are commonly used incorrectly or mistaken for each other in speech.

Identifying Your Pronouns

Fred went to his brother’s house to get his hat.

Whose hat is that? Can you tell from that sentence? I can’t: the hat could belong to either Fred or his brother, or even to someone else entirely. All we know is that it belongs to someone male.

Sometimes it feels awkward to identify a pronoun. In the above example neither “Fred went to his brother’s house to get Fred’s hat” nor “Fred went to his brother’s house to get his brother’s hat” sounds quite as satisfactory as the original. Yet you do want your reader to know just whose hat it is; otherwise she may fuss about it so much she doesn’t enjoy the rest of your story. Readers are like that.

The solution is to recast the sentence:

Fred went to his brother’s house to get the hat he left there the previous day.

This is still mildly ambiguous, but will be understood in context. The probability that it is Fred’s hat is increased.

Or if the hat belongs to the brother, you could say,

Fred went to his brother’s house to borrow a hat for the party.

It could be that Fred’s brother keeps a houseful of hats belonging to persons we have not met, but very likely he does not, and the hat in question actually belongs to him.

This sort of thing is important to the reader. If she is left in doubt as to whose a hat is, she will all too often keep worrying the problem long after a more rational being might have gone on to something else. What’s worse, she’ll bring it up again and again at the most inopportune moments, reminding anyone who’ll listen that she was left in doubt in the middle of your book (she may make it sound as bad as having been left without water in the middle of a desert) as to the ownership of a hat.

Far better simply to tell her at the first mention of it that the hat is Fred’s, or you may never hear the end of it. Nobody wants to spend her entire literary career worrying about Fred’s hat.

Being Consistent

Now that we have settled this pesky matter of the hat I feel comfortable mentioning that although the reader often seems to have only the frailest grasp of what’s going on and therefore needs every clue possible to stay abreast of the fictional situation, it is unwise to assume that he or she will overlook the smallest discrepancy in your logic.

Perhaps you think that the person who could not tell that was Fred’s hat you were talking about will not notice that Fred lived on Elm Street at the beginning of your novel and yet goes home to Ellis Street at the end with never a change of address mentioned in between. Not so. Readers will notice the oddest things.

If your protagonist puts down her blaster on page one, walks away from it, and yet has it handy in her holster to shoot another villain on page three, your reader will be testy about it.

If your protagonist has blue eyes and yellow hair on page forty-two, but has become a brown-eyed brunette by page ninety-eight, your reader will very likely be vexed.

There are a great many hazards in the path of a beginning writer that I have not even mentioned, and seemingly endless skills you will need to acquire. And when you have mastered them all, you will be left alone with that shockingly dense and perversely astute creature called “the reader,” who cannot be trusted to divine the ownership of a hat but will relentlessly examine your every apostrophe for its purpose, meaning, and needfulness.

That creature is the one to whom you are telling your stories. That is your audience, and it can be appeased only with the greatest of care and attention to detail. It will notice when you change tenses in mid-sentence. It will snarl when you change points of view without warning or explanation. It will show its teeth when you confuse it, and it will be easily confused … except when you want it confused so it won’t notice prestidigitation. Then it will remain steadfastly alert and attentive despite your best efforts to bludgeon it into insensibility.

That is the nature of the beast. Fortunately it is willing, even eager, to be amused. If you have done your research, mastered the tools of your trade, exercised all the skill at your command, and been consistent in your choices, you may please it.

Tags: beginners, Melisa Michaels, writing
Posted in News | Comments Off

The Basics

Tuesday, January 4th, 2005

As a writter, these sentences look odd to me.
This essay will be of interest to many writer’s and literary type’s.
I use to think things like this were a waist of time if you just want to write fiction.
Now I know that writers half to know there basics.

If you cannot find at least two errors in each of the above lines, this article is for you.

Those lines should read:

As a writer, I find that these sentences look odd.
This article will be of interest to many writers and literary types.
I used to think things like this were a waste of time if you just want to write fiction.
Now I know that writers have to know their basics.

We aren’t concerned here with flowing prose, glowing phrases, or any stylistic questions; before you worry about those things you need to know how to spell the words you want, how to choose from among similar words with different meanings, how to punctuate, and how to put the parts of a sentence together in such a way that the result makes sense.

Without this basic knowledge, not only will you have difficulty communicating, but you may produce unintentionally hilarious results. There are reasons for all the seemingly arbitrary rules of grammar and punctuation. Some of them can be dismissed once you know what they are; others cannot. To communicate what you really mean, you must know which rules can be safely broken; and to know that, you must know the rules.

The easiest way to learn them is (this is the good part) by reading the sort of fiction you want to write. But you have to (this is the hard part) pay attention to what you read. For best results you need to read a wide range of works by a number of authors, carefully noticing their spelling, punctuation, and grammar. And you need some way of determining which one is right when you find two or more of them in opposition on a given usage.

A copy of Strunk’s The Elements of Style, read carefully and its lessons taken to heart, will help you avoid the most common errors. Between that and a few dozen of your favorite novels you’ll have the beginning of a good education in accepted usage. Later you may choose to disagree with Strunk on certain points: but until you understand what he instructs and why, any deviation from his rules stands a good chance of getting you in trouble.

There are, of course, other works on usage and style that you might choose instead of Strunk. I suggest this one because it is not only available free on the web, but very small and inexpensive in paperback form, relatively easy to find, and as uncontroversial as an authoritative work on a sometimes ambiguous topic can be.

As you may already know, even the experts don’t agree on some usages. This may sound as though it provides a ready excuse for any, er, let us say original usages you may introduce in your prose, but it does not. You will realize when you’ve learned the rules yourself that the astute reader can tell the difference between rules broken by choice and those broken in ignorance. The former sort may be innovative, imaginative, even brilliant, or only a careful rendition of some common oral tradition. The latter sort will seldom be anything but illiterate or amusing (or both).

Even to successfully render the careless speech of the streets into printed words that will “sound” to the eye the way the oral version would sound to the ear, the author must know precisely what rules are used and what rules are broken.

This is not to say that all this knowledge must be available on a conscious level, that you must memorize parts of speech and rules of usage and punctuation as children used to do in grade school. That might or might not be valuable. What is invaluable, possibly indispensible, is that you should pay attention to these matters, know what you’re doing, and deviate from the accepted norm only by intention.

If the only way you can be certain of that is by learning remedial English by rote, then do so. If you already have a sufficient understanding of the parts of speech (whether or not you know them by name) that you can grasp the purpose of the rules laid down in Strunk, then you probably have no need of remedial English.

In any case and no matter what you wish to achieve with your use of words, language is your only real tool as a writer. You would not expect to successfully construct a wooden house without first learning how to use hammers, nails, saws, screws, and other woodworking tools (and quite probably practicing with them on smaller projects before embarking on the house). You should not expect to successfully construct a work of fiction without first learning the written language that will be your tool.

Of course, we all speak at least one language, and it is perhaps not amazing that so many people imagine that qualifies them to write in their native tongue. After all, they’ve been speaking it since babyhood. They are surely intimate with it by now.

What this does not take into account is the many differences between a spoken and a written language. You have no need, for example, to understand spelling and the rules of punctuation in order to accomplish oral communication. When you say, “the bare bear threw the ball through the wall,” the person to whom you say it will very probably be surprised, but she should have no trouble understanding your meaning.

If you were to write, “the bear bare through the ball threw the wall,” however, your reader would have to do strong mental contortions to get any sense out of it at all. Perhaps you can see from this alone that intimacy with a spoken language is not sufficient for the writer.

Punctuation presents some of the same problems. In speech you know when to hesitate for a comma and when to come to a full stop for a period. You’ve no need to know when spoken words should contain an apostrophe and when not. The person to whom you’re speaking will determine your meaning from context.

If, however, you, don’t. Know where’ to put; punc’tuation, in your” writing: you’ll run into some serious difficulties right quickly; and while many’s the writer who can’t spell worth a darn, we almost all of us know that “spelling” is not spelled “speling” and that “writer” is not spelled “writter.” I am dismayed to have to tell you that a great many hopeful writers do not. Very likely they are able to pronounce these words correctly and so do not, in their everyday activities, reveal their illiteracy: but they are probably not competent to write marketable prose. They have not acquired even a cursory familiarity with their tools.

Written language is the tool of the trade. With skilled use of it you can work wonders, build universes, create gods if you like, and entertain thousands. Without sufficient understanding to enable skill, you will more likely amuse by accident than by design.

Melisa Michaels is the author of the science fiction novels Skirmish, First Battle, Last War, Pirate Prince, Floater Factor, and Far Harbor, the fantasy novel Cold Iron,and the mystery novel Through the Eyes of the Dead.

Tags: beginners, Melisa Michaels, writing
Posted in Advice for New Writers, Information Center, Tips for Beginners | Comments Off

“Excuse Me, How Much Did It Cost You?”

Tuesday, January 4th, 2005

Some time ago I did a book signing in a mall, and the strangest thing happened. I was sitting there with books heaped around me, and a man approached me and stood there looking diffident. I smiled at him and said, “Hi.” This person was in his early 40’s, perhaps, well-dressed, well-spoken, with his young son in tow. The kid grabbed a copy of Rebel Dawn, my newest Star Wars novel, and said, “Look Dad, Star Wars! Can I have it?” After the book was signed to the boy, the man cleared his throat. “I’m really interested in writing, too.” After hundreds of book signings over the past 14 years, this is hardly a new comment. I smiled and nodded. “I … well, I have a couple of publishers who are very interested in publishing my book,” the man continued. “So, I, uh … well, I wondered. Would you mind if I ask you how much it cost you to have these books published?”

If I hadn’t been spending the last few months helping out Literaryscams, I would have been surprised and horrified by his question. Instead, I handed him a copy of Rebel Dawn. “How much do you think it cost me to publish that book?” I asked. He hefted the book, riffled the pages. “Well, it’s pretty long,” he said. “Longer than mine. Uh … eight thousand dollars?” I gestured at the books in front of me. “What would you say if I told you that this publisher — Bantam — paid me to write these books? About twenty thousand dollars apiece. And I’ll most likely earn royalties above and beyond that.” The man could not have appeared more thunderstruck if I’d leaped up on my chair and done my Roseanne Barr imitation. “They paid you?”

“Yes, they did,” I said. I waved at the books surrounding us in the bookstore. “All these authors got paid to write these books. Did you really think they all paid to get published?” He blinked. “Well, I knew they probably paid Stephen King and Grisham,” he muttered. “But the rest … the new writers … ” “Sir,” I said, “money is supposed to come from the publisher to the author. Not the other way around. Not ever, unless you’re wanting to publish something extremely specialized, like your family history, or a volume of your poetry or something. Writers are supposed to get paid for writing commercial books.” Minutes later, I sent the gentleman on his way, armed with the Literaryscams URL, and an earnest entreaty to look up the page. I also cautioned him not to send his work to any publisher whose books he couldn’t find in the average general-purpose bookstore.

This incident brought home to me how much harm the scam agents and publishers are doing to the once proud tradition of publishing. I realize that most of you who are reading this have done your research and know the pitfalls. But for those who are new to writing, I offer the following guidelines. Feel free to copy them and pass them along. If you follow them, you are unlikely to be rooked:

1. If an agent charges a fee, they are highly suspect. I don’t care what they call it: reading fee, processing fee, contract fee, whatever … any kind of fee is bad. If an agent charges more than $50.00, I suggest you run away. Agents who charge fees in the hundreds of dollars make their money off charging writers, not by selling their manuscripts to publishers. It’s very likely that after you pay the large fee, the agent will never even submit your manuscript to a real publisher.
2. If an agent refers you to a “book doctor” be very wary. Any agent that says your ms. needs editing should provide you with a list of a number of independent editors, and then allow you to pick the one you want to use. There should be NO financial connection whatsoever between the agent and the independent editor.
3. If an agent refers you to a co-op or subsidy press, run away. No reputable agent will do that.
4. If an agent you’ve never heard of solicits your work, that’s not a good sign. Real literary agents have to fight off clients, not go out looking for them. If an agent advertises via direct mail, the internet, or in writers’ magazines, back off!
5. If an agent has an office in some out-of-the-way place like Bumpass, West Virginia, be very suspicious. Most real agents operate out of New York or California. There are exceptions, particularly on the East Coast; but if Agent X from Bent Fork North Dakota writes to you and begs to see your ms., chances are excellent he’s a crook. Be smart!
6. Any reputable agent should be willing to provide you with a list of sales and clients. Go to a bookstore and verify that these books and authors exist. Check references. If an agent claims to be an AAR (Association of Authors Representatives) member, go to the AAR site and look him/her up. Fake agents have lied about this before.
7. If an agent tells you you’re brilliant, and your book is sure to be a bestseller, be wary. Real agents don’t make statements like that — at least not to unknown authors.
8. Never pay a vanity press or subsidy publisher to publish your book. This includes “co-op” publishers. If you must get your book published and have exhausted all professional, commercial avenues, check into self-publishing with a reputable printing company. Many poets, for example, self-publish their books. Your money will go a lot further that way. Go to your local bookstore and get a book on self-publishing. Check a printer’s references before you sign any contracts. You will not receive the distribution and other services normally expected of a publisher, but you will get the books — after they are printed they will be shipped to you. Be aware that most bookstores will not stock self-published books.
9. Having a poor agent is frequently worse than having no agent at all. If you can’t find a reputable agent to submit your manuscript, go ahead and submit it yourself. Most sf and fantasy publishers will still read unagented manuscripts these days. Check out the market reports in the SFWA Bulletin or Speculations. Even the ones who say they won’t may still read manuscripts from writers who impress them with a well-crafted, dynamic query letter.

So, to all you prospective writers out there … Never forget. If you’re paying anyone to agent, publish, or edit your work, the money’s going in the wrong direction, and, quite likely, you’ve fallen for a scam. You will end up losing money and gaining nothing. You deserve to be paid for your work! Becoming a writer is difficult, and requires a great deal of perseverance. As James Gunn once said, “Anyone who can be discouraged from becoming a writer should be discouraged.” In other words, hang in there and don’t expect a bed of roses. But people do “break in” every day, and that’s the good news!

There is more information that may prove helpful at: Writer Beware and Preditors and Editors)

Tags: A. C. Crispin, beginners, scams
Posted in Advice for New Writers, Information Center | Comments Off

FAQ for Beginning Writers

Tuesday, January 4th, 2005

Q: How do I keep from looking like an amateur when I submit a story?

A: By acting like a professional.

Do your homework. Find out what the editor you are submitting to wants. Let the story speak for itself. Be willing to work with the editor on requested changes. Learn what you can do to make the editor’s job easier. Pay attention to the following:

Do not put extra spaces between the paragraphs (set them off by indenting at the beginning of each paragraph instead). Do not put the creation date on the manuscript, a rights-offered statement, or the Copyright notice (see the question on manuscript format). Do not end the story with -30- (this used to be a telegraphic signal for the end of a message when the message was long, and was later used by journalists–it has no place in fiction).

Do not bind or staple your manuscript. Do not use ring binders, clamp binders, comb binders, brads, string, or any other thing that cannot be easily removed. Paper clips or rubber bands are OK. (See also the question on how to send the manuscript.)

Always include a SASE (self-addressed, stamped envelope) that is large enough and has enough postage. Do not send a letter-sized envelope if you expect to get your manuscript back.

Do not attempt to draw attention to your manuscript by using colored paper or colored ink. Do not use specialty typefaces. Do not put each page of the manuscript in sheet protectors. Do not try to write a “memorable” submission letter. Don’t be cute. Although your manuscript may be funny, its surroundings should not. Gifts for the editor, tie-dyed envelopes, and the like mark your submission as unprofessional.

Making your manuscript appear to be a thing of intrinsic value is a ploy much beloved of unpublished writers. That’s why editors get submissions in safe-deposit boxes, or couriered envelopes, or wrapped in fancy paper, etc. That’s why people worry about the effect of saying that a manuscript is disposable. However, a moment’s consideration will tell you that people like editors, who handle thousands of manuscripts a year, writing on them, copying them, sending them here and there, generally treating them like the pieces of paper they are–don’t place much value on physical manuscripts. The first thing an editor must learn to do is read the =text= and not the packaging. The words and story are the thing, not the frills.

Do not paste pages together, or turn a page upside down, or use any other clever device to find out if the editor has read the manuscript all the way through. Editors have seen these things over and over again.

Don’t ever miss your deadlines, even if the editor says it’s okay. Publishing seems to run on a slower clock some of the time, but when an editor gives you a deadline, that means there’s money involved. People don’t like it very much when you cost them money. If you are going to miss a deadline, please give them at least two months notice.

Don’t be afraid to call your editor or agent to talk about questions or problems concerning business. That’s what they’re there for. They won’t thank you if you don’t tell them about something vital because you didn’t want to bother them.

Remember that editors try to be nice and gentle and may understate things. Don’t take advantage of that. If an editor goes to the trouble of saying something to you, take it very seriously.

Q: Will it really hurt my manuscript’s chances if I don’t format it exactly right?

A: Probably not.

The bare-bones basics of manuscript preparation– double-spaced, right unjustified, margins of about an inch–really covers 99% of getting it right. Many aspiring writers can become a bit obsessive about the minutiae, as if submitting a letter-perfect manuscript format can supplement their stories’ uncertain merits. A perfect manuscript will not save a poor story.

Q: What’s the preferred format for a manuscript?

A: Paper: White 8 1/2″ x 11″ bond. At least 20-pound. Not erasable.

Type face: 10 pitch (12-point) Courier monospace, or other clearly readable face. Not proportionate. Do not use specialty typefaces. If you simply can’t abide Courier, use some other monospaced font. (See question on pitch versus point for clarification.)

Printer: In order of preference, 1) laser printer with fresh toner cartridge, 2) inkjet printer with fresh toner, 3) typewriter with a new carbon ribbon, 4) 24-pin dot matrix printer in near-letter-quality mode with a fresh ribbon. Not draft-quality dot matrix printers with faded ribbons, or anything else that makes the editor’s eyes hurt.

Page format: Double spaced. Indent first lines of paragraphs 3-5 spaces. Do not add an extra line space after paragraphs. Type the manuscript on one side of the page only.

Margins: 1″ to 1.5″ on all sides.

Character and line count: 65-72 characters per line. 25-27 lines per page. Do not justify your lines. Justified left, ragged right is what’s required.

Headers: About an inch from the top. Include your name, the title (or a few words from the title), and the page number on all pages–the page number should go in the upper right corner and nowhere else, but the rest of the format for the header is up to you as long as you have everything there somehow. (Putting the page number anywhere but in the upper right corner makes unnecessary trouble for editorial staff who have to make sure all the pages are there, refer to specific pages in notes and correspondence, etc.)

First page: Include your name, address, phone number, and an approximate word count (but do not put “approximate” by your word count number), on the first page. (See question on how editors count words.) Do not print/type the creation date on the manuscript. There’s no point in telling an editor how long a story has been circulating. SF/F practice is not to put a rights-offered statement on the first page of a manuscript, as in “First North American Serial Rights” in spite of standard writers’-manual advice.

Q: So I should put that in the cover letter instead?

A: No. Don’t put it anywhere. It is not needed. If the editor accepts your work, the contract she offers will tell you what rights she wants to buy. You can negotiate at that time.

Do not include a Copyright notice unless you have specific market information which suggests that such a notice may be appropriate. If the manuscript is disposable, you may put that on the first page. Center the title 10 or 15 lines from the top, put “by” and your name beneath the title, also centered. (Use the name you wish it published under, if different from your legal name.) If this is a title page (a title page is optional but recommended, especially for longer works), start the text on the next page. If this is the first page of the story, skip a line and start the text below your name. This should give you about 13 lines of story text on your first page.

Special characters: Avoid italic typefaces (use underlines instead), bold-face, and other special formats. If you have a long passage that you want printed in italics, you don’t need to underline the whole thing. It’s enough to mark the passage with a vertical line in the margin, write “set in italic” next to the line, and circle the phrase. (Please reconsider having a long passage in italics, though.) Foreign characters are okay, if your printer can do them right. If not, hand-correct them in black ink. Dashes can be indicated by a pair of hyphens. (Do =not= put spaces before and after them. Do it–like this, rather than — this –) Don’t break words at the ends of lines with a hyphen, even hyphenated words. To indicate a line break, you may type the character “#” centered, on a line by itself (or the character “*” or three of them, or you may just leave an extra space–this isn’t crucial to perfect manuscript format). Be sure your punctuation is correct–get a copy of The Chicago Manual of Style or Words Into Type and study it often.

Endings: If you want to let the reader know your story or novel is ended, just center the word “END” in capital letters two lines below the last line of the work. You don’t need to do this, though, since the story should be written so it is clear to the readers when they have reached the end.

Q: What about formatting electronic submissions?

A: For the most part formatting it as a print submission works well, but the preferences vary market by market.

Start by reading the guidelines, some markets don’t allow e-subs at all.  Others want them in the body of an email, some attached as a .doc or .rtf, and some have special webforms. The bottom line is that, as with any market, reading the guidelines is extremely important.

Q: Is 12 POINT Courier the same as 10 PITCH Courier?

A: Yes, it works out that way. What the Mac calls “12-point Courier” (measuring by height of character) is 10 pitch, meaning there are ten letters and/or spaces in an inch.

Point describes the vertical height of typefaces in 1/72nds of an inch.

Pitch defines typefaces horizontally, by the number of characters that can fit in an inch. “Point up, pitch across.”

One problem with pitch vs. point is that, if you have a PostScript printer, the fonts on your menu are defined by point size – Courier 10 point, Courier 12 point. But the HP PCL fonts for your laserjet will be given in cpi–characters per inch (=pitch). So if you change the printer selection on your PC from the HP Laserjet III with the Post Script option on, you select Courier 12 point. If you decide to use THE VERY SAME PRINTER BUT WITHOUT POST SCRIPT, you have to choose Courier 10 cpi.

So, pitch = cpi.

It doesn’t help that 12 cpi/pitch = 10 point and 10 cpi/pitch = 12 point, more or less.

Q: How do you correctly package a novel manuscript?

I’m using a box that bond paper came in, but how do I handle the postage and label and wrapping for the return trip? I plan on putting the postage and label in a separate envelope. Will the publishing house use their own wrapping paper, or am I expected to provide a large envelope or something?

A: For the return of your novel, provide a envelope big enough to hold the box your manuscript is in. Put an address label on the envelope, along with the postage.

If you sent your manuscript in one of those heavy-duty manuscript mailing boxes, you can include a return label and postage inside. The publisher will tape the box shut, and apply the label and new postage. Nobody wraps manuscript boxes.

Don’t send the manuscript in a box that is twenty times the size of the manuscript. And make sure the box is easy to open. If you want the editor to use the box to return the manuscript, make sure the box is also easy to seal.

Bubble-pak envelopes are a good choice if you use an envelope.

Jiffy Paks are a royal pain to open (especially when sealed with fifteen heavy-duty staples and five yards of strapping tape) and they tend to cover the innocent editor with clinging gray fluff.

Tyvek envelopes seem to result in very battered manuscripts which are harder to page through. Particularly when a 250-page manuscript is left loose in a Tyvek envelope the size of a small desktop, as seems to happen constantly.

Office Depot (and probably lots of other places) has quite inexpensive manuscript boxes that you fold up, nice and sturdy and easy to use; all the editor has to do to return the ms is paste on a new label which you can provide. (Return postage could be included in a labeled envelope taped inside the top). No gray fluff, easy to stack on a desk, and a nice neat manuscript both ways if such should be the writer’s fate.

Another possibility is to use those corrugated cardboard manuscript boxes. Affix the return postage and address on the box, then wrap it in brown postal wrapping paper and address the whole thing to the publisher. That way, all the publisher has to do to return it is pop it back in the box, seal it up and drop it in the outgoing mail. Keeps the manuscript presentable enough to go out again, as well.

Do NOT submit your only copy.

Do NOT send by mail formats that require the recipient to sign for delivery (such as registered or certified mail or return receipt).

Do NOT use metered postage for your return postage. Use stamps. The post office will not accept outdated metered postage, and you won’t get your manuscript back.

Q: Do you need to include a cover letter when you send in a manuscript?

A: There are several reasons why an editor would want a cover letter:

It has the author’s name, address and phone number on it, along with the name of the story. It’s a good place to make notes about the story and the editor’s reaction to it. If the editor decides to acquire the story, it is also a good place for notes about the offer. And it is used to draft a rejection letter if the editor doesn’t buy the story. A cover letter just makes it easier to keep things straight when an editor is dealing with dozens of manuscripts.

You definitely need a cover letter to tell the editor if you are making a simultaneous submission, or if the manuscript is disposable (in which case, the SASE only needs to be a standard letter-sized envelope).

This material was developed as a service to writers by members of GEnie’s Science Fiction Roundtable, many of them professional writers and editors. Contributors include James Brunet, John C. Bunnell, Gregory Feeley, Larry Hammer, David M. Harris, Glenn Hauman, John E. Johnston III, Tappan King, Damon Knight, James D. Macdonald, Beth Meacham, Kevin O’Donnell Jr., Elizabeth Perry, Susan Shwartz, Martha Soukup, Judith Tarr and Mitch Wagner.

It was compiled by Kathleen Dalton-Woodbury. Copyright © 1994 by GEnie Information Service. All rights reserved.

Tags: beginners, Beth Meacham, Damon Knight, David M. Harris, Elizabeth Perry, Glenn Hauman, Gregory Feeley, James Brunet, James D. Macdonald, John C. Bunnell, John E. Johnston III, Judith Tarr, Kathleen Dalton-Woodbury, Kevin O'Donnell Jr., Larry Hammer, manuscript, Martha Soukup, Mitch Wagner, Susan Shwartz, Tappan King, writing
Posted in Advice for New Writers, Manuscript Formatting | Comments Off