How to Prepare Your Manuscript for Editors and Beta Readers: Complete Checklist

Preparing your manuscript for readers other than yourself is quite a simple process, however in all fairness, you may not have to do all of these steps for a beta reader or writing partner, though it’s also fair to say that they will likely appreciate it nonetheless, as it makes for easier reading for anyone other than yourself.

Why Manuscript Preparation Matters

When a manuscript is uniform and neat, the editor, beta reader, or writing partner can focus on the content rather than the format. Therefore, the third party in question (whether an editor, beta reader, or writing partner) can focus on giving quality feedback. When sending to an editor particularly, this step is particularly important, because the manuscript will have to be formatted before editing takes place. By sending a prepared manuscript to an editor, it signals that you are committed to the partnership and value the editor's time. If it's not formatted in advance, the editor will have to take the time to do it themselves, which delays the start of the actual editing.

Basic Manuscript Formatting Guidelines

Font and Spacing Requirements

Times New Roman is font that I request manuscripts use. It's tried and true, easy to read, and there's a reason it's one of the most popular fonts in history. 12-point font is the standard for manuscripts, though you can make chapter numbers/titles a little larger. The manuscript should also be double-spaced. This makes it a lot easier to read, and I find that it reduces eye-fatigue.

Margins and Page Setup

Personally, I’m not too picky about margins. The default in Google Docs or Word (one inch) is fine. Making margins too large or small has no purpose for editing (i.e. we’re not looking at page count either way, so it doesn’t matter) and altering the margins too much can make your manuscript a harder read with no benefit. The text should be left-aligned, with indents for each new paragraph. There is a “right” way to indent, but again, the default is just fine for my use case.

Header and Page Numbers

It’s more important to have a header with your name and manuscript title in it if you’re printing it out to send it somewhere. I personally do not need a header with your name/manuscript title—some other editors might request this. I do need page numbers and please use the page number function in either Google Docs or Word. It’s more efficient and there’s less errors that way.

Chapter Formatting

As I mentioned before, the font size of your chapter number/titles can be larger than the standard 12-point font. They can also be centered if you like, though that really doesn’t matter. As a bonus, it is nice to have each chapter number/titles as a heading so it shows up in the sidebar for easy navigation, though this is easy enough to do as an editor so I’m not too stringent on it. All of the other formatting guidance is much more important.

Scene Breaks

The most important function of a scene break is to signal the change from one scene to another. For me, it’s not so much about how they look like in your manuscript, but that they are consistent every time and it’s clear what they are. The only exception is an extra blank like—these are fine in published novels, but in manuscripts it might be confusing on if it’s a formatting error or not, so I’d err on the side of caution and use some sort of symbol, like:

• Pound sign

• Asterisk

• Em-dash

What to Include Beyond the Manuscript

Context Document

For editors, it’s likely that they have their own onboarding process (I know I do!), but for beta readers or critique partners it’s always nice to send a document with important information that’s easy for them to reference throughout the reading. Think of this as your manuscript’s cover letter. Include your manuscript’s log-line, synopsis, ideal audience, and maybe even a few comp. titles. This information helps your beta readers or critique partner contextualize your manuscript, hence why I call it a context document.

Character List

This is also a nice to have for anyone reading your manuscript. A character list (even if it’s not comprehensive) can inspire incredibly detailed feedback, especially if you list intended traits or roles that you want each character to have, which can then be compared to what is actually included in the manuscript.

Content Warnings

I know that there’s a lot of discourse about content warnings in books, I’m not here to reignite that discussion. What I will say is that your content warnings don’t need to be so detailed as to be considered a spoiler (if that’s your concern), but you should include warnings for sensitive content (animal harm/death, child harm/death, SA, etc) for the people reading your manuscript because if you don’t and they’re caught off guard by the content, they might not give you the best feedback. So it’s in your best interest to include content warnings at the beginning of your manuscript if you want to get the most out of the revision process.

Worldbuilding Reference Documents

If you have detailed worldbuilding documentation, by all means, please send it over! Not only can this help with understanding the worldbuilding, but just like the character list, it can help understand if what was designed in the documentation comes across as such in the manuscript.

Timeline or Map

Similarly if you have a timeline or a map, include those as well! The timeline could be for the events in the novel, or the events that make up your worldbuilding, either way, it’s nice to have them, but don’t worry if you don’t have reference documents available—they’re not required if you want to receive actionable feedback, just remember the more context that you can give, the more detailed the feedback will likely get as the people reading your manuscript will be able to understand your intentions and if they were fruitful.

Preparing for Developmental Editors Specifically

What Developmental Editors Need

Personally, I guide my clients through exactly what I need from them with intake forms and onboarding, so I don’t need anything more than what my process provides. However, it truly depends on each developmental editor—this article functions as a general guide for preparing your manuscript, but a DE may have specific needs. Always make sure you ask to get clarification if you’re confused about what to send them. At the most basic level, the editor needs the manuscript. If it’s formatted correctly, you’ll get brownie points and the edit will start earlier than if the editor had to format it themselves, which means that you’ll get it back sooner.

Questions to Consider Before Pursuing Editing

We all aim to get the most value out of the goods and services we purchase, right? That’s why I always suggest some internal interrogation before pursuing editing, as it will help you to get the aforementioned “most value” out of the service. Ask questions like:

• Have you worked on revising your manuscript yourself?

  • This helps to identify if there’s still work that can be done yourself. If you’ve revised, worked with beta readers or critique partners, and you’re on your third, fourth, fifth, etc. draft and you still can’t figure out what the problem in your manuscript is, yet it feels off—it could be time to consult a DE. If you’ve just finished your first draft and haven’t done any self-revision, there could be some glaring issues that you (or a beta readers or a manuscript partner) don’t need a DE to identify and fix—you can work through those yourself, create a stronger draft, and pursue editing at a later date after you’ve worked through all of your revision options.

• What’s the biggest problem you’ve identified in your manuscript?

  • If you’re looking at your draft and you think all of the storytelling elements are good, but maybe the sentence structure is a bit awkward, line editing is the type of editing you should consider. Similarly, if you think that the storytelling elements are good, but that the grammar or style could be polished, copy editing is the type of editing you should consider.

  • Alternatively, developmental editing works with the big picture elements that make up your story, and how they’re executed in your manuscript. Understanding your manuscript’s biggest problem helps to identify what type of editing you should consider (and this isn’t a foolproof method—an author could need a DE when they think they need a copy editor—but it’s a good start).

• Why do you want to work with an editor?

  • Knowing what you want out of a service is a good way to identify what service you should pursue, but also what type of service provider you should be looking for. If you want a partnership where the editors come to you with data-driven analysis that is worked through together, then I could be a good option (free consultations available here!). If you want someone that does the editing and then offers a draft of how the revision could go, you’re looking for a developmental editor/ghostwriter combo. Just imagine you wanted a partnership, but the editor came back with drafts of what they’ve identified as needing to be reworked? That wouldn’t lend itself to a good editing experience, would it? That’s why it’s important to understand (really truly understand, even!) what you want out of the editing, because that can determine if you have a good experience or not.

Worldbuilding Documentation

Do you want to include worldbuilding documentation with your manuscript, but don’t know where to start? Are you still nailing down the ins-and-outs of your universe? Check out my free worldbuilding audit to get started on documenting and diagnosing your worldbuilding, and create the reference document of your dreams!

Preparing for Beta Readers Specifically

What Beta Readers Need vs. What Editors Need

Preparing to have your manuscript beta read is likely not as intensive as preparing for editing, but there are some key considerations you should take to get the most out of your beta read:

• Handing your manuscript over to them fully formatted reduces the friction between the beta reading and reading. It makes it easier to focus on the content with the manuscript rather than how the manuscript looks.

• The additional documentation (context doc., character list, content warnings, etc.) are all nice-to-haves, so you don’t need them (besides, of course, the content warnings—I strongly suggest you include those if you have content that should be warned for), but it enriches the reading process and as previously stated, can help with the quality of feedback, so I’d strongly consider putting something together.

• Ask yourself what kind of feedback you want. If you think you have characterization issues, or dialogue problems, or maybe the magic system doesn’t make sense—you can highlight those are key areas you want a reader’s input on. If the magic system confuses your beta reader, it could also confuse your audience, so on and so forth.

Possible Feedback Questions to Provide

• What did you think of the protagonist?

  • What are your thoughts on the protagonist’s choices in (x) scene?

  • Were you rooting for the protagonist?

• What did you think of the antagonist?

  • Did the antagonist work for the story?

• (If romance) Did the romance develop in a plausible way?

  • Were you rooting for the leads to get together?

• What did you think of the pacing of the story?

  • Did you get bored in some places? Where?

• Did the dialogue sound true to the setting or was it awkward to read?

• What didn’t make sense to you while reading?

• Could you tell the characters apart?

• Did you like the ending or did you feel like it was missing something?

• Did the story immediately grab your attention or was it a slow-build?

• Do you feel like this story is too similar to an existing book, movie, tv show, etc.?

• When compared to the comp. titles, do you think that readers who enjoyed those books would enjoy this story?

Beta Reader Template

If you’d like a more in-depth method of prompting beta reader feedback, tracking said feedback, and how to revise like a reader, I developed a beta reading template called the Built-In Beta that does all of those things in one.

Preparing for Critique Partners

How This Differs from Beta Readers

With beta readers, the expectation is that they are providing feedback as a reader—simulating what audiences might think or feel about the manuscript if it was published as is. It’s likely that a beta reader is a writer, but it’s not a given—their understanding of writing craft may begin and end at readership. That’s okay. That’s what you want from a beta reader. With a critique partner, it’s understood that you are open to receiving (and giving—see below) constructive criticism beyond reader feedback. This constructive criticism could delve into writing craft and the execution of your storytelling elements. More often than not, it will be a deeper dive than a beta read, which (to me) is what separates the two.

Reciprocity Expectations

With beta readers, you may offer to reciprocate a beta reading, but there’s often no explicit expectation. With critique partners, well—it’s in the name! It’s a partnership between two writers to provide quality feedback to one another that will help with revising future drafts. If you are too busy for reciprocity, a critique partners may not be for you.

Your Bare-Minimum Manuscript Preparation Checklist

• Manuscript in one file

• Font is Times New Roman

  • Font is 12-pt

• Text is double spaced and left-aligned

• Margins are one-inch

• Each page of the manuscript should be numbered (sans the title page, if you include one)

• Scene breaks should be uniform and easily identifiable

As I close out this article, I do recognize that the lines between beta readers and critique partners may be blurred or even non-existent. There’s no authority defining what each one is and isn’t. Therefore, you may find that what you’ve identified as beta reading over the years, I’ve defined as critique partnership—that’s fine. I separated the two for ease of understanding the different feedback you can get from (non-paid) third-parties, but the titles don’t actually matter all that much.

What matters is a common understanding of titles between yourself and the person who’s been chosen to read your manuscript—and that you’ve identified exactly what type of feedback you’d like to receive (reader vs. craft constructive criticism). I will also add that some editors may want your manuscript more formatted than what I've outlined above—always check with the editor that you're interested in working with on how they prefer to receive manuscripts.