Tirgearr Publishing

akaria said:

You could say the same thing about the indent. Sure, it's annoying, but it's not super hard to fix. It's not like these guys are cranking out 125 titles every week. So what they're saying is you could send them the next Harry Potter, but they're not gonna read it because two spaces between sentences. That's just stupid.

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Actually, it's not. A successful publisher (of any size) will always receive more work than they are able to take on. Making your manuscript harder to format is a good reason for them to pass for someone who knows how to do the work on their end. An author not doing the work is like showing up to an interview in your pajamas - it shows a lack of respect for the publisher.

And, while it seems like two spaces after the period is "simple enough to fix" on the publisher's end, that attitude quickly rolls out into not using the correct fonts, or putting in weird colors, or failing to write a proper query/cover letter. All of it demonstrating an author who is likely to be difficult to work with because they either can't or won't follow simple directions. Or who wants complete control over the product. (Which, btw, is fine if you aren't working with a publisher. But if you're wanting to work with a publisher it should be because you feel they have something to offer that you don't, which means working together and respecting what they bring to the table.)

If all they're doing is reading the work in the slush pile, though, formatting is only an issue if it stops the work from being readable. If they want to take a book on and it's not formatted to their requirements all they have to do is give the author information to sort the formatting out for themselves prior to editing. It's not a big deal.

Well, and I don't know if these formatting requirements we were sent as authors are for all submissions. Maybe it's more like, "Now that you're one of our authors we want it done like this."

I agree with Aggy. Just format your submission the way they tell you to. Publishers will usually put the formatting requirements right on the Submissions page. Don't be lazy. Just do it.
zmethos, I wish you the best, but this publisher gives me a bad vibe.

Yeah. I agree with Old Hack that the key issue is readability, but when it comes to submissions there is no good reason to ignore formatting requests from a successful publisher. I usually write MSs in Courier New, but if someone specifically requests Times New Roman, I change it before submission because there is no reason for me not to try and meet their requests to make something more readable for them. Even if it's something that wouldn't bother me if it were a different way. Because my goal is to make it as easy as possible for the editor to read in the way that they want.

I was just in a Writers' Conference yesterday. One of the speakers was a long-time editor, who worked with Simon & Schuster for years. She said that many times editors will put precise formatting rules for the purpose of weeding out authors who can't or won't follow precise directions. If they don't follow the instructions on the submission, they'll be too difficult to work with, so goes the philosophy.

It may depend a little on how off the style guide you are. Something snail mailed in a comic sans font on pink scented paper might set off a few alarms as to how much trouble you might be as a partner. I'm not in publishing but applicants who insist on doing things a quirky way rather than following the instructions are less likely to get short listed by me. I mean, I'll still read it, but if it is borderline in quality that is a mark against an application.

Any further news on this publisher? I'm technically challenged as it is when it comes to correct manuscript formatting or changes in my habitual structure. Which made it doubly hard for me to understand they're formatting instructions--totally wiped out and confused about it. I think Old Hack saw the same thing. Things weren't making sense there, and I'm STUPID.

In formatting terms, this means EVERY PARAGRAPH has to be hand edited before publication to remove those extra spaces. This is extremely time consuming, especially for lengthier tomes. So PLEASE. Period and one space between sentences and no space after the period at the end of a paragraph.

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Writing life hacks:

1. Invisible double spaces:

In Word, click on Edit and Find->Replace.

Enter two spaces in the 'find' field. Enter one space in the 'replace' field. Click on 'replace all.'

Repeat this one or two more times until 'not found' pops up.


2. Space at the end of a paragraph:

In Word, click on Edit and Find->Replace.

Enter a ^p followed by space in the 'find' field. Enter ^p in the 'replace' field. Click on 'replace all.'

Repeat this one or two more times until 'not found' pops up.


3. Space at the beginning of a paragraph:

In Word, click on Edit and Find->Replace.

Enter a space followed by a ^p. Enter ^p in the 'replace' field. Click on 'replace all.'

Repeat this one or two more times until 'not found' pops up.




Takes less than 30 seconds to clean up these errors in the manuscript, at least in Word. (If anyone knows a hack to find formatted text (italics etc) I'd appreciate knowing.)

Oh, that was soooo great and helpful to me. I'm pasting this in my files. Is this standard for just about every publisher?

No idea but it's a good habit to do these clean ups before submitting anywhere.

Patty said:

No idea but it's a good habit to do these clean ups before submitting anywhere.

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I swear I saw something in this post about finding italics. But.... apparently not. LOL

Here is the info anyway, in case someone needs it.

For Word:

Go to Advanced Find --> "More" --> "Format" --> "Font" --> "Italic" --> "Okay"

Use "Find next" to go to each occurrence.

You can also replace italics with normal text automatically, if you want, using the replace feature and going through the same steps to have no formatting in "Replace with:", if it's not already defaulted to that.

Great advice. I'll practice these moves. I'm going to look up 'hard return' and figure what that has to do with anything.