Many literary magazines and even some agents are switching to sites like Submittable to handle their submissions. Those sites are great because it allows the author to fill in a form for general information, and then upload their story in a file format (usually .doc or .docx) so that the agent or editor can read it.
It's great for the author, too, because all their formatting stays firmly in place - all italics show up as italics, bolding is visible, and the formatting indentation of paragraphs stays secure.
Best of all, the receiving party doesn't have to worry about unintentionally opening a virus onto their computer because Submittable checks for bad omens like that.
However, a lot of magazines and agents still require that you submit to them through email with your submission in the body of the email. (Also so they don't download any nasty viruses by opening bad files.) This means that you can't attach a handy file. It means you must copy and paste your story (yes, even if it's 14,000 words) into the message box of the email.
Over the years, I've submitted hundreds of stories, poems, and article pitches this way. But even when you've done it a hundred times, it can still be boggling to know exactly how to format a submission for email. So, this week, I'm offering up a worksheet of my tried and true email formatting tips.
Step One: Highlight the text of your submission and right click COPY.
Step Two: Go to your email body and place the cursor where you want the submission to start (this is usually after a query letter or note of introduction to the agent/publisher/editor). Right click and make sure to select PASTE AS PLAIN TEXT.
[Note: Plain Text will remove ALL your formatting. This means no paragraph breaks, no indents, and no italicizing or bolding. Your submission will look like one giant text block. This is normal. Don't Panic. Trust me.]
Step Three: Go through your submission line-by-line. The spacing of text lines should be single spaced, between paragraphs double spaced, and no indentations anywhere in the submission. Basically, you want to format it just like this blog entry is showing up on your screen. See the single space between the line above and this line because they belong to the same paragraph?
And now, when I start a new paragraph, I add an extra space between them. Also notice that I did not indent the new paragraph because most email servers don't recognize indentation and will put funky alien symbols there in front of your words. Not appealing.
Step Four: Once the formatting is complete, go back to find all your stylized text like italics and bolding. They will appear just like normal words in the Plain Text version. You must place _underscores_ around the words like I just did. This translates to the reader that that particular portion of text needs stylization, whether it be italics or bold. So rather than saying that Sadie is such a bore. You must say that Sadie is _such_ a bore.
Make sense?
When all four steps are complete, you can go ahead and hit send with the knowledge that your email will show up in an appealing and legible fashion in any email, regardless of the server service.
It can be a bit time consuming and tedious, but when it's already so difficult to get published, isn't it better to take the half hour to format it correctly, then to have your wonderful story turned down because the editor got fatigued reading: ^#$@I%m in big trouble<%#$&* I said. ?
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