Manuscript Formatting Guidelines

General Specifications for the Manuscript

• Use a 1-inch margin on all sides.
• Use either 12-point Courier, 12-point Times Roman or 11-point Arial as the font.
• Double-space the manuscript. Do not leave a blank line between paragraphs.
• Set the indent for each new paragraph at 1/2 inch (this is approximately 5 spaces in 12-point Courier).
• Left-align your entire manuscript. Do not justify the text.
• Number each page consecutively in the top right corner. The title page should not display a number but should be counted as the first page (see the specs for title pages below for further details). The page numbering MUST be in the header to allow for easy removal before the text is imported into Quark Xpress.
• Use a slug line in the top left corner stating your name and the (abbreviated) novel title. The slug line MUST be in the header to allow for easy removal before the text is imported into Quark Xpress.
• Start each chapter on a new page, about a third of the way down the page. Type the chapter number and title in all caps, separated by two hyphens, and left-align it. Begin the text of the chapter four lines below the title.
• Do not italicize or otherwise format text. Text that should be italicized in the finished book should be underlined in the manuscript. IMPORTANT: Please use an underscore character (_) at the beginning and end of each word/section that needs to be italicized.
• Do not use special characters or symbols--as a general rule of thumb, any character that wouldn't be available on a typewriter is a special character or symbol (see Word Formatting Tips below for replacement options).
• Use standard copier/printer white paper (20 lb.).
• Don't staple or bind the manuscript.

General Specifications for the Title Page of the Manuscript

• Do not number the title page but include it in the number count (i.e. if the first chapter of your manuscript starts on the page immediately following the title page, the first page of the first chapter should be numbered "2").
• Do not use a slug line on the cover page.
• In the top left corner, type your legal name, address, phone number, and e-mail address, single-spaced.
• In the top right corner, type the word count of your manuscript, rounded to the nearest thousand.
• Center the title (in all caps), the subtitle (in regular type) and your pen name in the middle of the page, with a paragraph break between each element.

Word Formatting Tips

• Check your AutoCorrect settings. Then switch off all replace-as-you-type and AutoFormat options.
• To quickly convert a document that has spaces between paragraphs into one that doesn't, select your document and open "Replace" from the "Edit" menu. Then type "^p^p" into the "Find What" box (without the quotation marks) and "^p" into the "Replace With" box (without the quotation marks) and click on "Replace All."
• Search for and replace all em-dashes ("^+") with two hyphens.
• Search for and replace all word-formatted ellipses with three periods.
• Search for and replace two spaces after periods with a single space.
• Remove all section and page breaks.
• Do not use any special formatting (e.g. bold, italics, etc.) on your text.
• Indicate text that should be set in italics by underlining it. Please use an underscore character (_) at the beginning and end of each segment of text that should be set in italics.