Hotmail messed with my query format, what do I do?

[KDexter]

I apologize if this is the wrong place for this thread, but I didn't know where it belonged, and since I'm querying for a novel, I figured I'd try it.

I spent all morning formatting an e-query for an agent I was really looking forward to querying. Everything looked beautiful, so I sent it out. To my horror, when I checked my sent messages folder to observe the work I was so proud of, the format had somehow gotten screwed up. While it's not a garbled mess of unintelligible crap, the font is inexplicably gray, the paragraphs I had so perfectly aligned had shifted, and there were spaces where spaces were not meant to be. Oh yes, one sentence was written in black font, looking as though I meant to highlight it.

I'm sure this has happened to others, but I haven't dealt with it before. I don't want to send it again so soon, but I'm loathe to look like an unprofessional nincompoop who can't be bothered to format. Is there a chance the strength of the story will still shine through, or have the query gods ultimately sabotaged me?

[Clair Dickson]

I'm guessing that agents are used to the occasional oddball formatting in your email. I don't think it will inherently kill your chances, but it may damage them a little. Hopefully-- unless the agent's having a bad day already-- they'll read it anyway.

What do you mean, though, that you 'spent all morning formatting an e-query.' I thought there was minimal, if no formatting in a query-- esp. an emailed one. And I'd be careful messing with the formatting in an email besides, because what hotmail codes, another mail program may not like. Text is usually the best and safest route-- all plain text. (And if you type in Word or another word processor, saving as a text file will make sure you don't have any goofy formatting to make things look or act strange)

[Me&BacchusGoIntoABar]

As Clair said, I've heard that if you save your text as a text file (not a Word file, for example), it will format correctly into email.

[KDexter]

Hopefully it will be okay, I'll keep my fingers crossed.

Sorry, I realize how I made it sound, but I wasn't making an effort to do anything fancy with the query. Just trying to keep everything properly spaced and professional looking. "All morning" was an extreme overstatement brought on by frustration and my current lack of breakfast.

Will go find some food and chill out.

[Kathleen42]

Other than spaces between paragraphs, I'm not sure what spacing your query would need?

Incidentally, Hotmail might not be the best email client to use. I've read (in another thread on AW) that it has a higher chance of being flagged as spam. Not sure if that's true, or not.

[KDexter]

Other than spaces between paragraphs, I'm not sure what spacing your query would need?

I tried to indent the start of paragraphs, which I'm learning is not necessary in a query.

Well, there's nothing to be done about it now. Sometimes making a mistake is the only way to realize you've done something wrong. In the future I'll save as plain text and be leery of hotmail.

Thanks for the replies all.

[DeadlyAccurate]

See if there's an option to strip all formatting from your email (or send as plain text; not sure how the wording is in your program). That *should* make it so you don't have anything fancy that might screw up when it's sent. You can also do a test send in the future to another email account (yours or a friend's).

[Kaylee]

Kathleen42, Hot mail does the same to my manuscript what E-mail account do you suggest?

[Hittman]

Did you compose it in Word and then paste it directly into the e-mail? Word copies not only the text, but a huge amount of unnecessary garbage that won't usually be visible but can really screw things up.

It's easy to get around this, though. Just paste it into Notepad first, then copy it from notepad into your web mail and all that extra garbage is gone.

Do it with the CTRL key a few times and it becomes second nature.

Ctrl A selects all the text, Ctrl/C copies it to the clipboard (the computers memory, basicly) and Ctrl/V pastes the copied text.

In Word: Ctrl/A, Ctrl/C

In Notepad Ctrl/V Ctrl/A, Ctrl/C

In your web mail client" Ctrl/V

[Kathleen42]

Kathleen42, Hot mail does the same to my manuscript what E-mail account do you suggest?

Are you talking about the formatting? Cause I'm not sure there is an email client that will help with that. If you're worried about the spam issue (which, again, have not experienced but have heard) I've had good luck with gmail.

[Maxinquaye]

I would in all sincerety suggest moving over to GMail instead of hotmail. Hotmail was earlier very abused by spammers, and the history of that still lingers on the net, which is why many automatically filter out hotmail-mails as spam.

[KDexter]

Did you compose it in Word and then paste it directly into the e-mail? Word copies not only the text, but a huge amount of unnecessary garbage that won't usually be visible but can really screw things up.

Yes! Therein lies the problem.


It's easy to get around this, though. Just paste it into Notepad first, then copy it from notepad into your web mail and all that extra garbage is gone.

This was a great suggestion, thank you.

Also, thanks again to everyone for replies and for suggesting other e-mail providers. I'm definitely going to look into GMail.

[veinglory]

In the future I suggest sticking with plain text and block formating. With an email query, less is more :). In terms of pasted MSWords all emailm programs are about the same--it just goes wrong.

[kathleen_grant]

I apologize if this is the wrong place for this thread, but I didn't know where it belonged, and since I'm querying for a novel, I figured I'd try it.

I spent all morning formatting an e-query for an agent I was really looking forward to querying. Everything looked beautiful, so I sent it out. To my horror, when I checked my sent messages folder to observe the work I was so proud of, the format had somehow gotten screwed up. While it's not a garbled mess of unintelligible crap, the font is inexplicably gray, the paragraphs I had so perfectly aligned had shifted, and there were spaces where spaces were not meant to be. Oh yes, one sentence was written in black font, looking as though I meant to highlight it.

I'm sure this has happened to others, but I haven't dealt with it before. I don't want to send it again so soon, but I'm loathe to look like an unprofessional nincompoop who can't be bothered to format. Is there a chance the strength of the story will still shine through, or have the query gods ultimately sabotaged me?

I've learned the hard way too and now I always click "Save As Draft" then check it in my Drafts folder, view it, make sure it's perfect, then click "Continue Composing This Message" to add the agent's email address to send it out! :)

[Straka]

I went through many revisions to get this right. I also used Yahoo. I don't like hotmail.