Thursday, April 25, 2013

The Business Basics for Today’s Writer—Part Two—Submission Standards


Last week I began a new series on the Business Basics for Today’s Writer. This morning I preempted that post with my Calendar Days post. But I know you all are looking forward to this series, so I didn’t want to disappoint you.

Today I’m continuing with a link on submission standards. I’m going to go over the standards today. If you’re unfamiliar how to make these changes in Microsoft Word, leave your question in the comments section and I’ll walk you through it.

Every industry has standards and the writing community is no different. However, since the advent of email submissions, the rules have gotten muddy. Today I’ll share some rules to follow that will help you present yourself professionally.
Font Size and Selection
Times New Roman or Courier – 12 point – are still the gold standard. Try not to vary from these two options unless the submission guidelines SPECIFICALLY request it.

Justification
Always justify your margins left. NEVER justify them left and right (like a newspaper).

Margins
Adjust your margins so you have one-inch margins all around your document.

Spacing
There are now two, equally acceptable ways to space your document for submission.
In times past, there was only one acceptable spacing option, double spacing. This has changed with the formatting needs of the Internet.

SPECIAL NOTE: these are not equally acceptable in every case. THEY ARE CASE SPECIFIC, so pay attention.

Single Spaced Document, Standard Formatting—Used almost exclusively for a one or two page synopsis
The entire document is single spaced and paragraphs are indented. There is NOT an extra blank line between paragraphs

Single Spaced Document, Block Formatting—Used for numerous blog and Internet articles
The entire document is single-spaced and paragraphs are NOT indented. There IS an extra blank line between paragraphs.

Example of Block Formatting
When painting your garage floor the first thing you have to do is prepare the surface. You need to give it a thorough cleaning. Consider using a pressure washer to save time when you need to remove stubborn dirt and debris. If the garage floor has been painted in the past, it’ll be necessary to remove all traces of the old paint.

After cleaning, allow the concrete time to dry. This may take several days depending on the climate and weather. After it’s dry you’ll need to fill any cracks or holes. You can find the correct supplies at your local hardware store. Be sure to follow the manufacturer’s directions when applying.

Double Spaced Document, Standard Formatting—This is used when sending a book submission, and most traditional article submissions
The entire document is double spaced and paragraphs ARE indented. There is NO extra space between paragraphs.

Example of Standard Formatting
       When painting your garage floor the first thing you have to do is

prepare the surface. You need to give it a thorough cleaning.

Consider using a pressure washer to save time when you need to

remove stubborn dirt and debris. If the garage floor has been painted

in the past, it’ll be necessary to remove all traces of the old paint.

       After cleaning, allow the concrete time to dry. This may take several

days depending on the climate and weather. After it’s dry you’ll need

to fill any cracks or holes. You can find the correct supplies at your

local hardware store. Be sure to follow the manufacturer’s directions

when applying.

All of these rules may seem random and arbitrary, but they're not. They help an editor avoid eyestrain when reading hundreds of manuscripts during the course of a week. They also help those who upload or in rare cases, typeset the submitted material.

If you have any questions about how to make these changes in Microsoft Word, or questions about when to use which type of formatting, please leave a comment in the section below.

Don’t forget to join the conversation!
Blessings,
Edie

10 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. Pat, thanks! And especially thanks for stopping by, Blessings, E

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  2. Edie, am I able to do this without using the mouse? I'm not sure how to do any of what you said or send attached work. Love you!

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  3. Edie, thanks so much for this information. It is very helpful. Especially about the paragraphs, indenting or skipping an extra space. Great stuff!

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    Replies
    1. Crickett, I'm so glad you've found this helpful! Blessings, E

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  4. Oops! Help! In the second example above, (Example of standard formatting, double spaced,), the top 3 sentence 'parts' are oddly broken. The rest makes total sense.

    However, what intrigues (and scares) me, is like those sentence fragments at the top, broken randomly, is how some of my email subs/missives have been received, although the look and formatting on the email itself appears correct before sending.

    It has actually put an "oh, No!" on my wanting to submit shorts, (or just about anything else), e-wise.

    Is there any known way to check (and set!) email formatting of content as it will appear on the other end first, so that it doesn't come out broken and jumpy? (Especially if it is email plus something pasted in body, done in Word. Also, I do not always first compose in a word processor - (say verse, short story, etc).

    Thank you for clarifying the above current points. - I am still attached to the dinosaur days of snail mail submitting, and am a bit trepidatious of this e-sub bit. lol.

    Jen

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    Replies
    1. Jen, the spacing is off (oddly broken) because of the picture inserted into the text. A blog uses a TEXT EDITor program, not a WORD PROCESSING program so things don't always translate. And yes, this also happens in email. BUT and this is vital that everyone gets this. When an editor requests that something be submitted in the body of the email, it is understood that the formatting won't come through 100% (or sometimes even 50% accurate).

      The thing most people don't get is that editors are interested in our words—NOT our formatting. We editors are pretty savvy and we can see what is a formatting issue and what is just plain bad (or unclear) writing.

      FORMATTING ISSUES SHOULD NEVER KEEP YOU FROM SUBMITTING!

      Unfortunately, however attached we are to snail mail, if we want to move forward in our writing career we must embrace this change. BLessings, E

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  5. I have a study that I have used with many groups, so it is formatted for use rather than a proposal. Do I reformat for the proposal?

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    Replies
    1. For a study (I assume a Bible study) it's less critical that you keep with the double-spacing. If you've spoken with an editor and they asked you to send it, send it in the format they requested. If they didn't specify or you forgot to ask, just be consistent through out the submission. I hope this helps, Blessings, E

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  6. Ooh. I wish I'd had this last week. I think I double-spaced my synopsis. I could have included another page or two of my book... Oh well, now I know. Thank you!

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