A Labor of Love

A lot of you may not know this, but many moons ago, before I ever began teaching English, I dabbled in editing as a possible career.

I worked for three literary magazines: I was an intern for Swink, a fiction editor for Willow Springs, and the editor for Inroads.

From being on the other side of the publishing spectrum, I’ve compiled a list of tips to help give you the best possible chance of receiving a fair read.

How you format your manuscript is certainly one of these tips.

I want you to imagine that you are part of an editorial staff. Your job as a reader is to sift through the slush pile of submissions. (“Slush” refers to anything unsolicited.) You might have a specific quota per week–say fifty manuscripts. After reading manuscripts for some time, you eventually find yourself skimming them, searching for reasons to give a rejection, thereby allowing you to move on to the next submission in your ever-growing stack of slush.

My point is: Although formatting may not be an egregious error, it can give the editor a negative impression before she/he ever begins to read your first paragraph, and that negative impression will, more often that not, prove fatal.

Think of this process as selecting your outfit for a job interview. The way you present your manuscript can tell a lot about you as a writer, both good and bad. If you show little attention to detail while formatting, chances are, you’ll show little attention to detail with your story. And that signals danger to any reader.

Most magazines will have specific submission guidelines that the staff would like you to follow. However, these guidelines are relatively standard:

1. Use Microsoft Word, or any similar word processing program, to create a .doc or .docx file.
2. Use 1″ margins.
3. Double-space the entire document.
4. Use 12 pt. Times New Roman.
5. Include your approximate word count on your first page.
6. Include your contact information on the first page, too.
7. Include your last name, title, and page number in the header of each following page.

(On a side note, some magazines only accept blind submissions. These magazines will instruct you to remove any identifiable personal information from the manuscript. This is usually to give the impression that the editorial staff is judging each submission purely off of its content, not your fame or network connections.)

I’ve provided a copy of my manuscript template for you to download below. Please feel free to use it when you submit your own work. I hope you find it helpful!

That’s it for now. Write your heart out!

Photo credit: Robbert van der Steeg / Foter.com / CC BY-SA