This video is for authors looking to traditionally publish. I’m going to do some quick definitions to help make the final answer easier:

Querying – is the first step in traditional publishing. You have a finished, polished, as perfect as it can be fiction book or a finished, polished non-fiction pitch. You are reaching out to literary agents to ask for representation.
Submission – this is the step when you have an agent, you two have revised or polished the manuscript or the pitch and now the agent is bringing your book to publishers to get you a deal. In some cases, publishers do have open submissions where authors can directly submit to them

Those are two different phases. A query is to an agent. A submission is to an editor.

When you query the agent will have a specific request for what they want. Every agent is a little different. Some just want a query letter. Some want a query letter and the first 5 pages, 10 pages, 15 pages, etc. Some want a synopsis which is a 1-2 page beat-by-beat of what happens in the book.

For the query letter or the pitch, it should be max 400 to 500 words. It should have the hook, the book, and the cook. I have a video all about querying and I will have a video on my successful query letter soon. Indent para start or do a space between para – doesn’t seem to matter unless the agent specifically asks for it to appear one way. Any reference to your book title or a comp book title should be in CAPS. Whether you are emailing this query letter or submitting it on a form via QueryTracker the formatting in terms of bold or italics may be stripped out. Don’t stress that.

For the pages, I had my entire manuscript in Times New Roman 11 pt font, double-spaced. I will say, don’t get sneaky. With 10 pt font, single-spaced so you can cram more into the sample pages. Not following directions will be a ding against you. So when I pulled the 5 pages, 10 pages, 15 pages whatever grab I could copy and page into a new document of TITLE – 5 Page, TITLE – 10 page, etc. The agent will give instructions on how they want the file titled if they want the query letter repeated at the head of that file. They will give you directions. Follow them.

One tip I did see when I was querying was if you have to copy and paste the sample pages or the synopsis into a form, that agents understand that the formatting may be stripped out. They’ll be seeing that on all their queries.

For submission, when my agent and I got close to “okay, final proofreading” she added a header that would show on every page with my last name and the title of the book. She also added at the top of the title page her name and contact information as well as the word count. She did that. She did advise me on, Times New Roman for the text. For any text messages or emails we had that in Arial text so it looks different.

If you are submitting without an agent, I would expect that the publisher would have specific directions on what they want and how they want it.

But once you have a publisher they do the final make the book pretty for print and eBook for you.

I hope this is helpful. Best of luck querying and being on submission!