M The Manuscript Desk

Guides

Things worth knowing before you send your book anywhere

Written for authors, not for search engines. Everything here is what I'd tell you if you rang me up and asked — including the parts where the answer is that you don't need to pay anybody.

Submission

Standard manuscript format: what agents actually expect

Every agency asks for it; almost none explains it. Font, spacing, margins, indents, title page, running headers, chapter breaks and scene breaks — with the reasoning behind each, and the mistakes that mark a submission out before it's read.

More to come

I add to these as questions come up. If there's something you've been trying to find a straight answer to and can't, tell me — it's usually a sign that nobody has written it down properly, which makes it exactly the sort of thing that belongs here.