#WRITING A BOOK MANUSCRIPT HOW TO#

If not - or if you just want to check - here’s where to go: In most cases, this layout will be the default settings on your word processor. Publishers will spot this, so just go conventional. Don’t tinker with the margins to hide your book’s word count - this isn't high school, after all. You should also have one-inch margins on all four sides of the page. A4 (210 × 297mm) for any other territory.Letter Size (8.5” x 11”) for the US and Canada and.

Unless the submission guidelines explicitly state otherwise, the dimensions of your page should be: Our blank page now has its name badge, so it isn’t going anywhere. We suggest going with “Lastname_TITLE” (as in, 'White_CHARLOTTES_WEB') and leaving it at that. We know how tempting it is to call it “draft1” or “hello”, and tell yourself you’ll “change it later” - but name it something professional and searchable. In order to save it, you’ll need to give your file a name. This cloud symbol will tell you whether your work is being saved to Google Drive. Our reliable friend Google Docs is pretty good at taking care of this step for you, but you’ll want to double-check that everything is being automatically saved to the drive. If you’re working in MS Word, you absolutely need to do this or your work won’t be stored and might float off to Neverland. Right, Wilbur? If Winnie had remembered to save, she might not have lost her book of spells - or her cat! Even if you trust yourself not to accidentally delete your work, you never know when a pesky visitor might get their paws on it. Save and name your fileīefore you do literally anything else, save your file.

⚠️ Though this guide follows industry formatting conventions, some agents and publishers will have their own submission guidelines, which you should follow to a T - even if they stray from the generally accepted rules outlined in this post.

#WRITING A BOOK MANUSCRIPT HOW TO#

For more detailed instructions on how to format your children's book manuscript using MS Word or Google Docs, just keep on reading.

Writing a book manuscript