Is it mandatory to include one’s personal pronouns on a manuscript submission? And is it acceptable to obscure one’s gender when submitting to certain publications?
A reader writes to ask: The font I have been using for 10 years is Arial. I like it alot. Any comments. Should I check with Sheila Williams, the editor at Azimovs. No. No. No. A thousand times no. Use Courier or Times New Roman. Do not use Arial, and
A reader writes to ask: When sending stories via email attachment, some markets insist on RTF, so I'll go to my Open Office files, where all my stories are .DOC, formatted in Standard Manuscript Format (SMF), and save the .DOC as RTF. Opened as RTF, the first paragraph
A reader writes to ask: Thanks for all the useful, easy-to-follow information about formatting on your web site. If I were submitting pages by snail mail, I think I'd be set. But the vast majority of agents I'm planning on querying ask for sample pages along
I wrote the original version of my manuscript formatting guide in 1993, modeling it after a much older two-page guide I received from Damon Knight in 1985. Back in those days, even for those who'd made the switch to composing prose on computers, the goal of formatting was
A reader writes to ask: I am going to FEDEX my short fiction story to [a certain American] magazine, who were the only gracious ones to send me a response to my e-mail query (out of hundreds of e-mail queries sent). Before i do that, i need to enclose a
A reader writes to ask: I am submitting a short story collection, but the publisher requests just the first 50 pages. How do I handle this in terms of what I would write for word count? Do I include the number of words in first 50 pages? The entire manuscript?
A reader writes to ask: I came upon your blog when asking a question about short story indentation at ask.com. I don't know if you'll ever read this, but if you do and can spare some time, I'd appreciate a response. I was
A reader writes to ask: At the end of your podcasts, you include the important fact that your podcasts have a Creative Commons license on them, and I'd like to ask how I can be sure my own work has that protection. I've uploaded some of
Back up to 848 ms pages. Manuscript goes in the mail to my agent first thing tomorrow. Or today, rather.
Okay, I've taken the memoir about as far down as I can go now, from 947 pages to 833. That a little more than 12% shrinkage, or almost an eighth of the book. Wow! I've also gone from 47 chapters to 41. Now I have just
So my agent has an editor at HarperCollins interested in the memoir. Unfortunately, a different Harper editor has already rejected it, so the title has to change for this new submission. Therefore, the book henceforth is called Missionary Man, not The Accidental Terrorist. (It will also help, of course, that
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