Ask Jerry
About submitted first pages.
Asked by Catherine Fitzhugh on June 13, 2020
If my first page does not get edited on the next Manuscript Repair and Rewrite session, do I receive any feedback? Second question. How are subtitles within a chapter written for the publisher? You have referred to different publishing guidelines – where can I find these? Thank you, Jerry, for this guild.
Jerry's Answer
No, sorry, Catherine, but unfortunately only a small percentage of first pages are evaluated--largely chosen by how applicable the suggested adjustments would be to the Guild membership as a whole.
Publisher submission and formatting guidelines appear at the publishers' websites, and if they don't, publishers often at least stipulate which style guide they prefer (most use The Chicago Manual of Style, though magazines and ezines often use The Associated Press Stylebook).
If publisher does not make their formatting clear anywhere, your best practice would be to simply be consistent. When I use subheads, I make them flush left, Roman type, same size as the rest of the copy, and use titling capitalization, Much Like This.
That way, if the publisher wants these boldface or italic or lower case, they can change them all at once.