When you send a manuscript to an editor, it's going on a job interview. If you were going in person, before you set out you would read the ad and job description carefully, look up the company on the Internet or check it out some other way, contact them to make an appointment, dress appropriately to make a good impression and make sure you have everything you need to get to the right place on time.

Why do anything less than that for the novel you have spent months, maybe even years writing?

An editor at a publishing house or on the Internet should be treated with the same attention and respect as that interviewer. Whether or not your manuscript is accepted for publication depends on the impression it makes. The better the impression, the better your chance of acceptance.

Here are five things you can do so your manuscript makes a good impression when an editor receives it:

1. Check the company to which you are submitting. Visit its website or research it in a market book. Make sure your work fits the type of novels they publish, and follow their rules for submission.
   
   
2. Use standard manuscript format. Don't use any of those fancy fonts you installed on your computer. Use Times New Roman 12. This is not a graphics project–- don't add any.
   
   
3. Put your name, address and email address on your query and title page. Put your name and the page number on every manuscript page.
   
   
4. Don't ask the editor to go to your website to read your book, which is posted therre. If you are giving it away, why would she want to buy it? Don't ask her to go to your site to read sample chapters. If you don't send them, she won't waste time searching them out.
   
   
5. Make sure your story has something different to offer. Editors reject more manuscripts because they don't offer anything new enough to set them apart from the rest. An editor's job is to choose books the company can sell to readers.