Lars Eighner's Homepage Writers' Workshop FAQ: Q. I have desktop publishing software or a word processor with lots of desktop publishing features. Won't the editor be more likely to buy my stuff if the work of setting it up has already been done?

Q. I have desktop publishing software or a word processor with lots of desktop publishing features. Won't the editor be more likely to buy my stuff if the work of setting it up has already been done?

A. One hopes that your manuscript is not the final form of the work. Please do not submit "camera ready" manuscripts to commercial publishers. Indeed, try to forget all of the desktop publishing abilities your word processor may have.

The perfect manuscript, from the standpoint of being unlikely to offend anyone because of its form, looks as if it were typed on a Selectric typewriter with the Courier 10-pitch typing element. Most word processing software offers the choice of Courier or Pica at 10 characters per inch. Use one of these if you have it. Use it for all parts of the manuscript. Do not make title bigger.

You cannot possibly know enough of the variables involved in magazine layout to be at all helpful, even if you had a laser printer that could set type that was up to professional standards, which is highly unlikely. If you try to make your manuscript look like pages in a finished book or magazine, you are not making things easier for your editor, but harder.

All commercial book publishers have book designers on staff. Let them do their jobs. You do yours, which is to write the book.

A few mostly technical and textbook publishers will subcontract the makeup back to you if you are set up to do this kind of work. This is an issue to be considered after your manuscript has been accepted.