Writing Basics: File Formatting

This is a very small thing… and yet an important one.

When, as a freelancer, you turn your project over to the contact with the client (be that editor/developer/manager/producer/publisher), make sure you are giving it to them in the format they want.

If they have a style guide, READ AND FOLLOW IT.

If they DON’T have a style guide, ASK how they want it.

For many years, I VERY much preferred writing in WordPerfect, then exporting files as rtf or text, depending on what my client would take.

But over the years, more and more of them specifically wanted .doc, or .docx, or even styled Word documents using specific fonts and styles.

So, I had to give up my Beloved WordPerfect, more than a decade ago.

The vast majority of freelance work I do now is turned over in styled Word docs, as requested by the publisher.

BUT

Some publishers HATE styled Word docs. Some need things in google docs. I literally had one ask me to send the material in the body of an email… which would be anathema for everyone else I work for.

So the takeaway here is that it’s very little effort to ask, and it wins you a lot of goodwill to give publishers materials the way they want them.