Submitting your Manuscript

Step 4: Submitting Your Manuscript

It’s now time to submit your manuscript!

If you are not an illustrator and do not plan on illustrating the book, I suggest that you do not try. Drawings that are not professional will give your manuscript an amateur appearance. This may detract from your writings and give the editor the wrong impression. Publishers have a “gallery” of professional illustrators that they like to work with. They will choose one of the artists and assign your manuscript upon acceptance.

Type your manuscript. Double space it with 1” margins on white paper. Center the title about a third of the way down the page. Put your name, address, email address and phone number in the upper left corner. Your name and title of the book should appear on subsequent pages, and all pages should be numbered in order. You may add a blank line where the page turns happen in the real book. Do not add art directions to your text. Your text should be strong enough to stand on its own. The words should evoke a pictoral story line in the editors mind without any prompting.

If you would like to illustrate the book:

Type your manuscript same as above. Include a dummy. Make a “paste up book” with the correct number of pages stapled (picture books are generally 32 pages with about 28 pages of art). Sketch out the pages. Paste up the text blocks on all the page spreads. Consider adding 3 or 4 of the final art pieces in the dummy. This will give the art director an idea of the finished style of art. NEVER send original art.