COVER SHEET FOR A MANUSCRIPT PRO
COVER SHEET FOR A MANUSCRIPT PROFESSIONAL

You can title your chapters, or just write Chapter One or Chapter 1. Chapter header - can be anywhere from one to six double-spaced lines down from the top of the page, and can be centered or left justified.Header - should be in the upper right-hand corner of the page, and page number should be 1.Agent’s contact information - Name, business name, mailing address, phone number (e-mail address if you have the agent’s okay first), left justified, single spaced, bottom of the page.Word count - centered and rounded to the nearest thousand, one double-spaced line beneath your name or pen name.Name or pen name - centered and one double-spaced line beneath the word by.

by - centered and one double-spaced line beneath the title.

Title - centered, just above the middle of the page.

Contact information - Name and address, phone number and e-mail address in the top left corner of the page, single spaced, left-justified.

Cover page - depends on whether you’re agented or not.

Start headers on page one of the actual manuscript.

Header - right justified, contains the following information: Last name/ TITLE/ page#Ī header does not belong on the cover page.

Font - Courier, Courier New, or other clean monospace serif font from 10-12 pt.

Margins - 1.5 inches all the way around.

COVER SHEET FOR A MANUSCRIPT PRO

I know of no pro markets that do this, though amateur markets seem to be rife with this sort of ‘our way or the highway’ nit-picking.) (Unless, of course, your particular market specifies a specific format.

COVER SHEET FOR A MANUSCRIPT PROFESSIONAL

I’ll give you both formats that I use here, and if you decide to use them, you can rest comfortable in the knowledge that, no matter what else happens, your work will not be rejected by a professional market because of its format. There is, contrary to beginner myth and legend, no one single correct format, nor even one single correct typeface. These are not the only correct manuscript formats out there. I have never had a complaint about my formatting, I have never had work bounced for formatting, so I know that both of these formats are professionally acceptable. I use two formats - one for novels, and one for short work, both fiction and nonfiction.

Once you’ve decided when you’re going to format, however, the next question is… how?

It uses more paper for print-outs, but I can revise my work easily, and I don’t have to mess around with it later - when the words are done, so is the formatting. I format first - that is, I do the whole novel in exactly the same format in which I will submit it. You have two choices with manuscript formatting - you can either format first or format last.

Cover sheet for a manuscript