July 2003 - Issue 8

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Not so long ago, all writers had to worry about when submitting a manuscript to a publisher were things like double spacing and 3cm margins. With electronic submissions, there is so much more a writer needs to know to present a quality "electronic" manuscript.

Paper-based manuscripts often hide a multitude of sins. The visual effect may be quite pleasing, or even perfect, but if an editor were to investigate the actual electronic manuscript document, in some instances there could be factors involved that would make the manuscript hard to work with in production.

Livewire Publishing now only accepts "electronic submissions", so we are keen to show writers how to prepare this important documentation so it is electronically effective.

The electronic manuscripts we receive are used for typesetting the books for production. This is the main reason for requiring such high standards of input in the document.

When you type your manuscript, every keystroke is important.

Anyone who learned to type a long time ago would have been taught to always put two spaces after a full stop before the beginning of the next sentence. That was fine for the days when "typewriter" ruled. Everything was re-typed by the typesetter.

Because manuscripts are now processed electronically and the re-typing phase has been eliminated, the correct way to finish a sentence is with a full stop and one (1) space. Why?

• Book production is based on getting the maximum print coverage onto a page. In a full manuscript of say 400 A4 double spaced pages, eliminating the additional space after a sentence ending decreases the number of pages in the completed book significantly.
• Books are typeset with left and right-justified text. Having one space after the full stop decreases the amount of "white space" between words.
• Proportionally spaced type fonts are usually used for text presentation in books. The computer programme used for type-setting adds proportional amounts of space between words. Two spaces at the end of a sentence creates a larger "white space" than one.

If there is so much to consider because of sentence endings, what else should writers be focussing on when typing their manuscripts?

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