Submitting queries w/ excerpts via e-mail

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Sunshine13

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So if part of the query process for a particular agent is the query, a synopsis and a few pages (first few I'm assuming), my thoughts were: query, excerpt, synopsis (since it has the ending). But I also wondered this: since it's in e-mail form, is the excerpt expected to be double spaced? Do I need to go and manually double space everything? If in doubt I will, but most of the agents asking this don't specify so I figured if they don't it's not a big deal, but thought I'd ask for my mental sake.
 

ChaosTitan

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When I sent pages along with e-queries, I used the same format for the pages as for the body of the query: single spaced lines of text, double spaces between paragraphs. Less chance of the formatting going crazy, and it's not that hard to read for only a few pages of text.
 

Danthia

I also used the same format in the e-mail. Query was single spaced, line breaks between paragraphs. Text was double spaced, indented paras. Synopsis was single spaced, indented paras.

As long as it's easy to read and clear what's what, it doesn't matter that much.
 

Snowbird

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It's best to format the same as the query text (single spaced, double between paragraphs), as attempting anything else oftentimes gets whompy-jawed in the transmission.
 

jclarkdawe

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Be very careful in emails of introducing formatting. Both programs and operating systems read things differently and formatting can really produce some weird results, including completely unreadable.

Makes sure you put a visual break between your query and the synopsis/partial. I tend to use the equal sign (========). Simple and doesn't get easily screwed up.

Best of luck,

Jim Clark-Dawe
 
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