Do We Need New Formatting Guidelines?

I'm sure you've seen them, on our website and other websites and in many publishing how-to books: formatting guidelines. Margins of 1 inch all around. Courier typeface, 12-point. Etc., etc.

But in the age when most editors and agents may be reading your manuscript on a Sony Reader or other electronic device, do we need new formatting guidelines?

In our office, I have a Sony Reader, which does a great job with Word documents. It reads them fine and resizes on the fly. But my intern's Kindle only reads PDF files and the type is tiny unless we reformat them carefully to be read in the Kindle. Obviously the best solution would be for Amazon to enable Word document reading on the Kindle, but I suspect they won't be doing that for a while.

So, should we start requesting that manuscripts be formatted differently so that we can more easily read them on the eBook readers? Or is it the job of the agent or editor to reformat and convert so that we can read them?

Z

Authors, Expand Your Horizons

Imagine my surprise when I ran into one of my favorite authors in the elevator at a recent writers' conference. Imagine my surprise when it was F. Paul Wilson, bestselling horror and action author, and the convention was a romance writers' convention.

I didn't really get the chance to chat with Paul that day, but I followed-up by email because I was curious to know why he was there. After all, the RT Booklovers Convention is a hardcore (no pun intended) romance writers convention, complete with plenty of "man candy" walking around (i.e., the models who are often featured on the covers of romance novels) and a faery ball one night. And if you've ever read an F. Paul Wilson novel, you know these are fairly "manly" novels. I still remember reading THE KEEP years ago, as well as one of the earlier REPAIRMAN JACK novels.

I've often thought F. Paul Wilson was one of publishing's most underrated authors. He's a rock-solid writer and entertaining as hell. I wouldn't hesitate to pick up one of his books if I actually had the time for recreational read. But I was still stumped as to why he was at a romance writers' convention. So I asked him the question in an email, and here's his response:

I realized on tour that half the people at the stops were female.

Heather Graham convinced me to go to RT. I arrived 3-4 years ago with 500 copies of an RJ book to give away. To that time my website had been logging 1.8 million hits/month. After my 1st RT it jumped to 2.8 and hit 3.5 by the end of the year. My backlist soared and I've returned every year since. These are voracious readers.

So what's the lesson here for authors? Expand your horizons, if not in the type of book you write (Paul's not writing bodice rippers just because he's found an audience among romance readers), then in the way you market your books yourself. Perhaps join RWA and attend a few conferences. Consider playing up the romantic subplot in your book a bit more. Add a few tasteful sex scenes (an art for sure!). In the end, as always, give the reader—especially the romance reader—what she or he wants and you will be rewarded.

Z

Keeping It Real

I recently attended the RT Booklovers Convention in LA. This was my first time at this particular convention and it was an eye-opener in many ways.

For starters, let me admit that I'm not as steeped in the romance-writing and reading world as many in publishing are. Even though romance accounts for at least half of all the books published in the US, my areas of concentration have leaned more toward "boy" books.

That said, a good book is a good book and as a Consulting Editor for Forge Books, an imprint of Tom Doherty Associates, I worked on a few titles that fell into the romance category. As an agent, I've represented a few titles that also fell into romance. My take on romance is pretty simple, actually. I look for well written books that happen to have romance plotlines. Because, in the end, it's all about the writing.

Working with Author Coach clients, I've found that many authors seem to get the need for a good romance, but sometimes they fail to make their romance believable, and I think that's a pretty big error. Even the broadest plots (e.g., US Navy SEAL saves woman from terrorists and carries her off into the sunset) need to have enough reality thrown in to allow the average reader to "buy in" or have a willing suspension of disbelief.

So when writing your romance, ask yourself if your story has enough realistic elements to make it work for readers. Because if it's just about a forty-five-year-old woman running off to the islands with her twenty-year-old boy-toy, my guess it may not.

Z