At this point–unless you have been told that your manuscript requires some developmental edits–you should be completely comfortable with your manuscript overall. This means you should not be sending us a first draft and you should have already had your manuscript with critique partners/beta readers/family members or friends who gave you honest editorial feedback, and you should have made ALL necessary changes per that feedback. There should be NO need to make any major changes and it should be as polished as you can possibly get it before your copy/line edit and proofread. You can also use ProWritingAid and Grammarly to help you self-edit your manuscript before you send it in to us.
If you or your agent submitted a manuscript that you have since made changes to, please ensure we have the most recent/correct manuscript file.
The following is how your manuscript should be formatted when you send it to us:
12-point, Times New Roman font. Left justified.
Please do not include any headers or footers in your document.
Chapter headings should be centered on the first line of the page. DO NOT start the chapter in the middle of a page. Include two lines between the chapter heading and the first line of the chapter (press ENTER/RETURN twice). If you have subheadings, please italicize and center them below the chapter heading, and include two lines (press ENTER/RETURN twice) between the subheading and the first line of your chapter.
All first lines should be left justified. DO NOT center or right justify any lines.
DO NOT include ANY anchors. DO NOT hit SPACE twice after periods. DO NOT include a table of contents. It should JUST be your manuscript formatted per the instructions above. Nothing else. Please.
Your dedication page and acknowledgments page need to be in a separate document. Send that to us after your last round of edits, if you want those included in your book.
Save your manuscript file as TITLE by YOUR AUTHOR NAME_pre-edit.docx
During the editorial process, please follow the instructions your editor gives you to a T:
We do not have these instructions just for fun or to be a PITA for you. There is a reason we NEED track changes turned on and ALL necessary comments to be made in the document where the error or question/concern arises. We cannot express how crucial this is. If you do not know how to do these things, please ask your editor for help. It’s better to ask and get it figured out than simply disregard the instructions and make your editor have to go back through all over again and figure out what you changed. This holds up the publishing process not only for your book but for other authors’ books on our editors’ schedules as well.
There will be UP TO two rounds of edits and one proofread:
With that said, ALL changes and errors must be corrected during our editorial process. Once your manuscript is off to formatting, you cannot make any additional changes.
Harbor Lane Books 