Manuscript File Preparation Checklist

Please take a few moments to make sure your manuscript file meets our formatting checklist below. It allows you to make sure everything is included so you don’t miss anything. This pre-formatting preparation also allows us to keep the costs and time for completion to a minimum.

1. Make sure your manuscript is clean with no track changes or comments.
2. All content and pages for your book should be included in the one Word.doc file. These include (but not limited to) contents, dedication, acknowledgements, and author information.
3. Make sure your text is default colour black.
4. No formatting of the table of contents. Keep as straight text. The table of contents (TOC) is added during formatting.
5. Do not use any ‘tabs’ or the ‘space bar’ to add indents or separate paragraphs. Instead use the format function in your text software program. (In Word, this is under the ‘Paragraph’ settings. See the image below for correct settings.

6. Use the standard font ‘Times New Roman’ for your whole manuscript file (font choice is disregarded because this changes in print layout or eBook conversion).
7. Use an 11pt or 12pt font size for your main body text, and the default ‘Heading 1’  or ‘Heading 2’ in the style pallet in Word for all chapter and page headings. If you’re using a generic text software program, change your headings to a 16pt font size.
8. Make sure your document has no headers, footers or page numbers (these elements change in print layout and eBook conversion).

Illustrations and graphics

1. Remove all images from your document, as these are treated separately. Instead, please mark the position of your graphic within your document full caps text: ‘IMAGE HERE (NAME OF IMAGE). You’ll send your illustrations as separate files. A Dropbox link to your images is preferred.
2. Images and illustrations are to be provided as 300 dpi (print resolution) images. Screenshots taken from your monitor will only be 72 dpi and will not print.