Hey guys, I am on the verge of switching from a casual writer, to taking my craft seriously and seeking out publication. I have a few questions if you guys don't mind blessing me with your advice. I don't use Microsoft Word, I write all of my stuff in Open Office. My plan at the moment is to send out email queries with a .pdf file attached which contains the first three chapters and a synopsis. I'm wondering if a .pdf file is a good idea? Or if they would need a .doc file? I do have WordPad... Should I be using that for my writing instead, or does it really matter? I mean, they just need to read it right? They don't need to edit it or anything like that... Thanks in advance for your help! Oh, and I'm also going to be sending out some of my short stories for publication in magazines as well. I know when people ask which magazines to send you usually just direct them to duotrope, but what are some of the "House Hold Names", you know, the magazines that would really impress an agent or editor?
Regarding the PDF versus DOC question, you need to check the guidelines of the publisher you are submitting to. They will generally tell you what format they want.
The de facto standard is Microsoft Word .doc files (many are now also accepting Microsoft Word .docx files). PDF files may be accepted in some cases, but they are not standard. PDF is more of a presentation format, to keep page images from changing due to differences in view/print device capabilities. OpenOffice .doc files are supposed to be Word compatible, so you are probably okay using that. However, compatibility is not absolutely guaranteed, so actually using Word is a slightly safer choice. As for other magazines, you should only list magazines that have similar content and payment levels to the one you are submitting to. For example, having been published in Cat Fancy will probably not impress the submissions editor of a horror fiction mag.
Always look at individual agent guidelines. If you do you'll quickly learn that most of them won't want chapters as attachments because of the chance of a virus. They prefer it pasted in the body of the email. There are a few exceptions though.
the virus threat is a good thing to think about. if you look at publishers guidelines, you'll find thay they vary in the way they ask the document to be formated.
The most requested formats I see are .doc or .rtf, as Cog said, many will accept .docx now. I use a later version of Word so my files start life as .docx, but frequently I will have to make a copy and save it as a .doc file for submission purposes. I cannot recall seeing very many agents or, in the case of shorts, editors who will accept submissions in .pdf format.