Cynthia Laufenberg divides Formatting & Submitting Your Manuscript (ISBN: 1-58297-290-7, Publication Date 2004) into five sections; Nonfiction, Fiction, Children’s Writing, Scripts, and Verse. All the sections are further divided into chapters covering specific types of writing.
Nonfiction
The Nonfiction Section covers submitting articles, books, and specialized pieces. The chapter on articles covers query letters, formatting the manuscript, the cover letter, sidebars, and submitting images. The chapter on books includes querying an agent or editor, creating book proposals, writing cover letters, the cover page, marketing analysis, author information, chapter outlines, and table of contents among things. The specialized pieces chapter explains submitting fillers, columns, opinion pieces, essays, and media commentaries. The nonfiction section details the way professional writers submit their work and how editors expect to see submissions.
Fiction
The Fiction section discusses short stories, novels, genre fiction, comics and graphic novels. The chapter on short stories explains how the cover letter should be written and the manuscript formatted. The chapter on novels details how novel submissions differ from nonfiction book proposals. For example, the chapter on novels explains how to write a synopsis instead of using a chapter outline. In separate chapters, Laufenberg describes the subtle differences in submissions for the mystery, romance, and science fiction/fantasy/horror genres. Comic and Graphic Novel submissions are explained in another chapter. The section on fiction demonstrates how to make professional submissions of any work of fiction.
Children’s Writing
The Children’s Writing section provides chapters on Picture Books, MidGrade and Young Adult Books, Children’s Magazines. Formatting the manuscript, understanding the categories, and writing the query letter are all explained in chapters on each type of children’s writing.
Scripts
The section on Scripts shows script writers how to prepare screenplays, TV scripts, audio/video scripts, and play scripts. The chapters explain how to write query letters, format and submit the script for each of the types of submission pointing out the subtleties of each. Also demonstrated is the difference between submitting scripts and manuscripts.
Verse
The section on submitting verse demonstrates how to submit poetry and greeting cards. Each is handled differently and the differences are explained in individual chapters. In addition, Laufenberg explains that submitting verse requires its own unique formatting when compared to other submissions.
Common Elements
Each chapter includes examples of the elements of the submission done the correct way and the incorrect way. The examples may make the reader cringe in sympathy for the writer who made the mistakes being detailed. The examples of the professional way to format submissions are easy to follow guides to check a submission against. Each chapter also includes a list of dos and don’ts for submitting that type of written work. When appropriate information about how submitting work electronically or by fax differs from snail mail submissions is provided.
Formatting & Submitting Your Manuscript is a terrific starting point for writers to learn basic techniques for preparing submissions in a professional manner. Seasoned authors may find it a nice refresher course especially if they are looking at submitting work in an area in which they’ve not submitted in a long time or have questions about changes in the submission process. Writers should use this guide in conjunction with publishers’ submission guidelines to make written work more attractive to agents and editors.
