Manuscript Submission Guidelines
To make the submission process smoother, we ask that you follow these guidelines:
- First, please make sure your manuscript fits our standards for content.
- Provide your entire manuscript in one document (if you have each chapter in a separate file, you’ll need to combine them all by cutting and pasting the text from each chapter into one manuscript named “Title_Full Manuscript”).
- Please use double-spaced lines and a 12-point font. This makes it easier for our typesetters and editors to handle your initial text.
- Do not use the space bar to indent a new paragraph. Instead, use the Tab button or the automatic feature.
- Do not include special formatting or layouts such as pull quotes, tables, diagrams, illustrations, font decorations, etc. We will handle those details during typesetting. Submit the text for these features in plain text format, along with clear instructions on how you want them to appear.
- Begin each chapter on a new page. For fiction books, number the chapters. For nonfiction, list the chapter title under the chapter number.
- Place a page heading in the upper left corner that includes the title of the book and your last name (in Word, select view, header/footer, and type in the title and your last name, Book Title, Smith.)
- Place a page number in the upper right corner, numbering the pages consecutively from beginning to end (in Word, select insert and page numbers.)
- Include a complete table of contents. Do not include page numbers; these will change in typesetting.
- If your manuscript includes illustrations or photos, do not place the image in the manuscript. Simply state {Place illustration 1 here - brief description of image.} State within the brackets whether you want the image only on the page, or the text to wrap around the image, or the text to be above and below the image. Make sure your images are named consecutively, illustration one, illustration two, etc.
- Footnotes should be converted to endnotes by cutting and pasting them into the last page of the manuscript.
- If you are not utilizing our copyediting services, be sure to proofread your manuscript carefully, following the Chicago Manual of Style 16th Edition (most libraries have copies of this useful tool.) If your computer has a grammar check or spell check, run your manuscript through it to catch errors. Ask someone else to read your work, or even read it aloud, to catch further mistakes.