Made a bad typo/formatting error, so now I'm doomed.

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android415

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I was getting all excited, because I now have several partial/fulls out, after several months of no news.

But I just went to send out another query letter to one of my dream agents, and I was checking over nervously, one last time, and WHAT do I see?

I see that for some reason, one of my paragraphs is being repeated twice. On the first page.:rant:

So I click to remove it, because I thought I had stupidly typed up something twice. I click on it, and Microsoft Word deletes the whole page, and destroys my format.

Anyways, I figured it out. But I already sent out this copy on two of my partials. Dammit. :rant::rant::rant:

Well, I'm gonna go cry in a corner now.
 

Loquacis

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You're not doomed at all!! This is obviously a formatting error (not a "I don't know how to write" error), so I'm sure most agents will be willing to overlook it. Please don't despair :)
 

android415

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Well thanks Loquacis, for the encouragement. :) I made one actually stupid mistake before, and I was determined not to do it again, so this one hit a little hard.

-sigh-
 

Cricket18

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You're fine. An agent will look at this and realize it's a weird formatting error, nothing more.

And at least you didn't send out a huge batch.

Good luck! :)
 

Bluestone

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Agents are people too. If your query and the partial is strong and error free the double paragraph will be overlooked. Congratulations on getting partial and full requests! Concentrate on that! :)
 

kellion92

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I agree with all, especially since this is accompanying requested materials. What counts is the materials, not the letter. You already have a teeny bit of the agent's interest and good will.

There should be a sticky thread with this header, because it happens ALL the time.
 

leahzero

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That sucks, but like everyone else has said, it's just the type of error that sometimes happens with digital documents.

I think most agents will realize this and cut you some slack if the query and first pages are great.

Pretty sure the folks in this biz can and do distinguish between formatting mistakes/typos, and actual structural or other fundamental errors.

One good thing is that you'll probably never make this mistake again...right? :D
 

android415

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Thank you all :D I feel better now.

And Leah, I HOPE I won't make any more mistakes. But I shouldn't be surprised. I'm mistake-prone/clumsy in real life too. Heh.
 

mario_c

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Keep trying, android (named for your cellphone? :D). I hope we all learned a valuable lesson about proofreading today...it always helps to type up the pitch/query notes in the Notepad file, then step back, walk around the building and calm down before opening the eMail program and whatnot to send it. We creative types let our emotions run wild and it can lead to problems when selling your work.

Also, MS Word is evil :(. Use Notepad which is less prone to strange errors because of all the memory bloat, and is fine for formatting one page.
 

Miss Plum

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I used to be a one-woman publication machine in various technical and business writing jobs -- no proofreader, no editor, my eyes the last on the manuscript before it was off to production -- so I'm in the habit of eyeballing every single page I send out, even if it's a full manuscript. Good habits are safety nets.
 
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