Quick e-mail query question

I'm fairly certain (IANAA/E) that they mean the first ten manuscript pages.

And if it's in the body of an email, they're probably just going to reformat it anyway, so I wouldn't worry too much about it.

RG570 said:

If the agent asks for "the first ten pages of the first chapter" to be pasted into the body of an email, what exactly does that ten pages mean? Ten pages of double spaced manuscript or single spaced? None of the agents I'm looking at specify what they mean. I don't want to send them too much, or too little.

And, just to be sure, you don't double space the sample if it's in the body of an email, right?

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If the agent asks for the first 10 pages, you paste them exactly how they appear in your manuscript, which should be double spaced, 1 inch margins.

Manuscript pages.

Basically, the agent wants to scan the first few pages and ask himself/herself "Do I want the rest of this?"

They're correct. Manuscript pages. And if they like what they see, they will request the full manuscript and it better matches what you sent them.

Definitely start with the first ten double-spaced pages, not ten single-spaced pages. I'm not sure the formatting will carry over when it's pasted into the email, though, so if you're not doing it by attachment (which you would only do if the person specifically said to do an attachment), and when you paste it, the text becomes single-spaced, then put an extra line between each paragraph, so it's more readable, like the posts in these forums. I believe Miss Snark recommended this format for material that's sent by email, and you could check the archives there.

JD