Proper formatting is by far the easiest thing you can do to make your book project appear as professional as possible to literary agents and the various professionals you will work with throughout the publication process.
There isn’t an ironclad industry standard format for manuscripts that’s as exacting as, say, a Chicago Manual of Style. Instead, there are a mix of “must haves” and “some people do these things.”
Here are the must-haves:
- A cover page. If you’re submitting to literary agents it’s helpful to have a cover page that includes the title, your name, your contact information (phone number and email are fine but include your physical address if you want to), and the word count.
- Times New Roman, 12 point font. It used to be Times New Roman or Courier, but in my experience Courier has gotten a little old school. Go with Times New Roman.
- Double spacing. This means, very simply, double spacing without any other changes. Do not add any extra spacing before or after paragraphs. And absolutely do not get crazy with facing pages or trying to make your manuscript look like a book. It’s a manuscript. Go with it.
- Left justified. Do not turn on full justification. Words should be evenly spaced.
- 1″ margins. Just 1″ margins all around. Double-check this because some programs default to 1.25″ or 1.5″.
- 1/2 inch indent for a new paragraph. Best: Setting an automatic indent for new paragraphs (this saves your future interior designer a step). Fine: Tabs for new paragraphs. Red flag: Spaces. Don’t. do. this.
- Numbered pages. The best way to drive a publishing professional insane is to send them a manuscript where the pages aren’t numbered or, even worse, where the pages start over with every chapter. NUMBER YOUR PAGES. Optional but not a bad idea: include your last name or the book title in the header or footer case an agent prints out your manuscript and gets trapped in a wind storm.
- Page breaks after the end of a chapter. New chapters should start on a new page. And use the page break function in your word processing program, not returns, so future additions or subtractions don’t turn your manuscript into a hot mess. Also, I would still number chapters even if you decide to use chapter titles so that the people giving you feedback can easily reference the chapter #.
- Section breaks. If you have a section break within a chapter, at minimum include an extra space between the paragraphs denoting the break. I would advocate including three asterisks or some other symbol denoting the break so it’s clear it’s not a mistake and for situations when it falls near the end of a page and the break might be easily missable.
Here are some areas where people tend to vary a bit more:
- Spacing for chapter breaks. Some people don’t include extra spacing for chapter breaks, some include quite a lot of extra padding. I just include one extra space before the chapter title and one extra space after.
- Denoting alternate text like text messages, handwritten letters, signage. There aren’t hard and fast rules here, but I would recommend extra spaces around the alternative text and italicizing or changing the font to denote that it’s a break from the narrative voice. If you change the font, don’t get too crazy, and err on the side of legibility (e.g. don’t use some hard to read cursive font for a handwritten letter).
- Italicizing a character’s inner monologue in a third person narrative. It’s become a convention but it’s not a standard to italicize a character’s first person thoughts within a third person narrative, such as: “Why do I find this all so complicated, he thought.” (There was quite a Twitter beef about this a few weeks back). There’s room for author discretion here.
Once more for emphasis: Don’t try to make your manuscript look like a physical book. Publishing professionals are used to working with manuscripts in industry standard formula and it’s sort of baked into their brain, meaning they have a sense of how long chapters and entire books are with this formatting in mind.
See anything I missed? Have any questions? Take to the comments!
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Art: Fabrique de cartes à jouer dans une maison de la place Dauphine, à Paris by Anonymous
This is great. Thanks! Question: Is it necessary for the chapters to have titles? I’ve read books that numbered the chapters and gave the page but no titles.
Chapters definitely don’t need titles, those are optional. But even if you decide to use titles, at the manuscript stage I would still number the chapters so that people who are giving you feedback can easily reference the chapter # rather than having to cite the chapter name.
Thanks!
Here’s one more: Turn off widow/orphan control and maximize words per page.
I have no idea what that means. Sounds intriguing. I’ll have to check it out. Thanks for the tip.
What is the Page Break Function in Word and how does it work?
Rather than tell you the answer that, I think it’s ultimately more helpful to you to give you this: https://nathanbransford.com/blog/2009/07/importance-of-basic-computer-skills/
Hello. If images under each chapter title are planned, should they be included in the formatting? Thanks
1″ margins don’t cut it (way too big) when the book is formatted for 5.5″ x 8.5″, which is a very popular size these days, A 0.5″ is max on this page size, otherwise it looks like a column of words rather than a page, or are you saying you should reformat you manuscript to fit 8.5×11″ pages, which is a lot of work?
Why Double spaced? Makes the document 3 times larger even in electronic format. Does not look like a book manuscript to me when everything is double spaced. And what about Dialog? I have a lot of dialog which is already extra spaced when the character speaking changes.
RSVP
Thank you
Steve
I think the point is that this manuscript format is /not/ book format. Instead, it’s a format that is very clean and easy to read on a screen. If you’re submitting your manuscript to agents, all that matters is that it’s easy to read, navigate, and/or print on standard paper. If you’re preparing to self-publish, then you’re formatting it to look like a book, and different rules apply.
Standard manuscript formatting also includes text that is aligned left, not fully justified. If it’s fully justified (flush to left and right margins), you get big gaps between words in some lines of text that make it irritating to read. With align left, there is consistently one space between words. So much easier on the eyes.
Yes, good point! I’ll add that.
Nathan, thank you so much for this post. It is extremely helpful!
One question on quotations for dialogue: In final manuscripts, should we use single quotes (‘ ‘) for dialogue, and only use double quotes (” “) for when a speaker is quoting someone else?
Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks again!
I would check some authoritative Style Manuals such as University of Chicago for an answer to your question. There are differences in dialogue punctuation in British vs. American writing.
I would check some authoritative Style Manuals such as University of Chicago for an answer to your question. There are differences in dialogue punctuation in British vs. American writing.
How would format differ if the query was for children’s books with illustrations you want to show?
Hi, on alternate text like a child’s note- would I scan this in in its original form or transcribe using a different font/ italics etc considering it might be difficult to make out or read some words. I’d appreciate some advice on what would be best option? Thank you
Absolutely do not scan/paste as it’s going to make the file really big which increases the chance it’s going to land in a spam filter. Just italicize or something.
Am I missing something? Is this for email manuscript submissions? Also I will look at your computer literacy link, but I am confused about copying and pasting from my document which is in Word.
Am I missing something? Is this for email manuscript submissions? What is the best format to use? Also I will look at your computer literacy link, but I am confused about copying and pasting from my document which is in Word.