When you email manuscript pages

skelly said:

An agent only accepts queries by email. They want the query letter and the first ten pages of the manuscript. Is it okay if the ms pages are single spaced? I cannot figure out how to double space in my email. I don't think it has that function. Any help most appreciated

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There are exceptions, but the usual e-mail format is to single space, but to double-space between paragraphs. You have to do this manually, but for ten pages it's no big deal. Just takes a few minutes to go through and hit "enter" after each paragraph.

I would have thought you'd send it as an attachment?

good luck with the Sub, Scott. Yes, I think that is how subs go in email when you have to put the manu text directly into the body of the email.
Listen to James (I just wanted to say "good luck!")

Trish

Many people won't take attachments because of malware.

skelly said:

They won't take attachments. Picky picky picky. Thanks for the tip James. I'ma fixin to click OK on this beech. Wish me luck

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Good luck, but also, as a friend of mine says, "Good writing beats good luck every time," so good luck and good writing.

Attachments

I'm finding more and more places that won't take attachments. Too much worry over viruses, malware, etc. And more that do take them are saying, scan first at your end, and then they scan at their end, and they still worry about opening them.

Can't say I blame them. I never open an attachment from anyone, even people I know, unless I first call or e-mail and make sure they actually sent it, and where they got it.

I can understand the desire not to take attachements. Hell, I just found and rooted out a little virus that came along with someone's submission. I'm sure they didn't mean to, but that doesn't stop the virus from getting around.

No one ever said "When becoming an editor, get good anti-virus software" to me, but it's good advice.

When I send attachments, it seems that the formatting gets wonky at the other end. Blank pages appear where I didn't put any, and spacing becomes somewhat...uh, creative.

Anyone know what I'm doing wrong? Someone told me a while ago that it happens because different versions of Word can't play nicely together, but surely there must be something I can do to make them behave, isn't there?

Sending it as a Rich Text Document (.RTF) as opposed to a Word .DOC can help...but only to an extent. Eventually, it'll get wonky somewhere.

PeeDee said:

Sending it as a Rich Text Document (.RTF) as opposed to a Word .DOC can help...but only to an extent. Eventually, it'll get wonky somewhere.

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Thanks, I'll try that. *grin* Anything to cut down on the wonkiness.

When they write back and say your file got corrupted, get huffy and tell them ti was ON PURPOSE, because it's ART.

Then hold your breath until they pay you.

Anonymisty said:

When I send attachments, it seems that the formatting gets wonky at the other end. Blank pages appear where I didn't put any, and spacing becomes somewhat...uh, creative.

Anyone know what I'm doing wrong? Someone told me a while ago that it happens because different versions of Word can't play nicely together, but surely there must be something I can do to make them behave, isn't there?

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The trouble, I suspect, is most often that Word isn't the only word processor out there. Appleworks, WordPerfect, OpenOffice, etc., are not guaranteed to open a Word Doc without formatting problems.

Even when it is, new versions of Word usually work perfectly with older versions of Word, but older versions of Word do not always work as well with newer version.

In other words, with Word 2003 I can open anything made in Word 97, Word 2000, or Word XP, and it formats perfectly. But there may be problems if I try to open something I've written in Word 2003 with Word 2000.

And unless you turn the features off, Word can add quite a bit of junk to any file, which makes it tougher to use unless it's opened in the same version of Word.