Should the manuscript be stapled? Does it matter? Do you put your title, name, and page number on every page? What do you put? Is paid writing paid writing? What do you think about university publications vs. other print/online mags? What else you know, Joe?
Paper clips, always. Unless otherwise specified. I would check with the publishers submission guidelines because they have different expectations. If it puts money in your pocket it's paid writing, imo. I'm no elitist. Not much!
Unless otherwise specified, paper-clips are the norm. Yes. If some of your pages get mixed up, don't think for a second that a magazine will try to re-organise them. Avoid this by labelling all pages with all three of those, including putting your contact details on the first page, at the top, left-aligned. If it takes money out of their pocket and puts it into your pocket, it's paid writing. What else do you want to know?
Unless otherwise stated: Generally a paperclip isn't necessary. Title and information on the first page with the story's title and such starting in the middle of the first page. Header have title of the story (or key words), last name and page #. For a cover letter, it depends on the market. Some credits will make more sense to include than others. Of course, unless otherwise instructed in the guidelines. Use a normal font (Times Roman or Courier) 12 pt. Double space. Turn off paragraph orphan option. 1 inch margin around minimum. Don't forget the SASE with the submission sent by mail. Good luck. Terry
Thanks for the info, especially the tip on orphan control. Do you typically double space a cover letter? Or maybe 1.5 space?
NEVER!... and yes, it does!... pages should be loose, not even paper clipped... if it's a full ms, you can get ms boxes at your local office supply shop or order them online... i used to get freebies from my local office store folks, who'd let me have their empty letter-sized manila folder boxes, which are the perfect size for a book ms... and the smaller than ream-sized fancy stationery boxes are good for sample chapters... ...you should have a header with this in it at the far right: last name / key word of title / page # uh, yes... what else could it be?... that if you can get your work in them, it's a credit, just like any other... and cover or query letters should never be anything but single-spaced... same goes for proposals... only the ms pages should be double-spaced... and nothing you submit gets 1.5 spacing...
