If you have a moment I wonder if you’d consider my puzzlement

As indicated in Writer’s Market many listings still require a printed MS, while literary agents charge the client for "photocopying" a MS for submission to a prospective publisher

While I could well understand this requirement 30 years ago, today the largest MS imaginable can be transmitted free via the Internet to anybody anywhere in a few seconds. Where the sender’s or receiver’s server won’t accept large files, I would suppose as a last resort it might be snail-mailed by CD, entailing an expenditure of only 8 cents for the disk and less than a dollar for the postage...

...compared to when I was a kid and you might have to pay somebody $400 to type your MS, which then had to be mailed to the pub along with return postage...

As my journ credentials were established ‘way back in the ‘50’s and I’m an old non-geek mystified by computer technology, it’s possible that I’m ‘way off track and that the requirement for a printed (formerly "typed") MS is nonetheless still valid. So if anyone could clear me up on this point I would be very much indebted . Thank you for reading my inquiry

Dale, what is an MS? I know of too many other things with the same abbreviation to try and search for it.

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Dale, what is an MS? I know of too many other things with the same abbreviation to try and search for it.

In the literary world it means "manuscript" - an author's submission to an agent or publisher.

I have to say that I have never used a literary agent but the stated requirement seems to me to be no more nor less than a scam. By playing on the supposed ignorance of their customers, agents are getting extra money for something that's is not needed and, I suggest, is rarely ever done. Photocopies are rarely needed these days except as paper backup file copies; those people who don't have email and computers are just not in the publishing business and won't need paper copies.

This kind of scam is very common amongst professionals who try to charge for all the extras they can along with the fess for their true professional services. In the UK, solicitors (lawyers) are past masters at this and their bills are full of charges for "telephone calls", "postage" and "sundry disbursements" - most of which are figments of their fertile imaginations. Because it's very difficult undertake legal matters without using a solicitor and very difficult to sue one for incompetence (the Law Society exists to protect their interests, not those of their customers) they get away with it.

Fortunately, in the case of literary agents, their customers have a choice; they can go direct to publishers, they can seek another agent or, in these days of simple self-publishing, do the whole job themselves. Professionals who do not add value are not deserving of their fees. It is as simple as that.

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Originally posted by Seanahan:
Dale, what is an MS? I know of too many other things with the same abbreviation to try and search for it.

Thanks for adding another example to justify my general distaste for acronyms, 'though they have their uses.
Incidentally, MS is the singular abbreviation, and MSS is the plural.

Pearce: Sorry

Rich: Thank you for the rundown. If you should have some experience in this realm, please explain how a MS is submitted these days--Is it by email attachment, snailmailed CD, or what

The former would seem quickest and cheapest but Norton notwithstanding, practically nobody these days will accept an attachment for fear of virus...

...while a large MS cannot be emailed directly because almost all email stations limit the permissible size of a received file

I suspect it might be because it is not so easy to read a long document on a computer screen as on paper. If a putative publisher receives a manuscript in electronic form they would have to print it out, with all the attendant costs of the paper, ink/toner, etc being paid by the recipient. In the case of unsolicited MSS, particularly, they may not want to pay this as they have to wade through thousands of pages of dross before coming across a possible gem.

In a similar way manufacturers of hardware and software often no longer supply printed manuals; instead they supply PDFs or similar which you have to print out at your own expense, not theirs.

If you're speaking of unsolicited documents then I can understand why publishers are reluctant to accept them by email. After all, why should they spend money to save someone else's expense? But for agreed documents there's no problem; I sned very large files as attachments without problems.

But once they have accepted a commission then they should expect to have the MS as a file and can then themselves forward it by email or however they wish..

arnie: I had long suspected that's the case. Yet it only seems logical that either a pub or an angent should be able to evaluate my attachment in a matter of minutes, then if unsatisfied simply delete it. On the other hand, if it proves acceptable, only then I could be asked for a CD or a printed copy. So I still can't understand why they all seem to be operating in a 19th-century mindset

Rich: for much the same reasons I cannot understand how digital submission or transmission can be construed as an additional expense on the part of either the pub or agent
Unless, as Rich says, it's all a big scam

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I cannot understand how digital submission or transmission can be construed as an additional expense on the part of either the pub or agent

As arnie said, it's because they need to print the item out at their own expense. It's not easy to read works intended for print on a standard computer screen.

As Richard says, if the submission is commissioned you might expect the publisher or agent to accept an electronic file. However, with unsolicited material, you cannot expect them to pay out for the dubious pleasure of receiving something that may well be utter drivel.

arnie forgive me but I'm still puzzled. Immediately upon receiving it the pub will know whether it's drivel and if so can simply delete it. How is any expense involved in doing so

Dale,

I am sure no publisher can tell at a glance whether a MS is good or bad, apart from the most obvious of (bad) cases.

I agreee. It takes quite a lot of reading to assess a work. To expect someone to assess a 250-oage item without prining it out is not realistic.

Thank you for your tips on publishing. I have come to the conclusion that it is easier to win the lottery than to find an honest agent. John Grisham may be able to send his stuff directly to the publisher but mere mortals must go through an agent, except perhaps for small articles to magazines, etc.

I can understand why agents or editors don't want electronic submission. I know how I feel if I have to wade through unwanted e-mails. Also, if I were evaluating an MS, I would want to be able to make notes in the margin.

This is off-subject, a bit, I know. However, today someone alerted me that an article that I had published is being sold online for continuing education units. I alerted my co-author who said our publisher probably has a contract with them. Still, I emailed the publisher to make sure. What a racket though! We write the article, for no pay of course (it looks good on the CV ), and then we sign a copyright waiver so they own it. Then they sell it for continuing education units!

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What a racket though! We write the article, for no pay of course (it looks good on the CV Roll Eyes), and then we sign a copyright waiver so they own it. Then they sell it for continuing education units! Mad

A racket, yes, but a racket you yourselves have allowed to happen. If I assign copyright of my work then I make a charge for that assignation in my fee for the job. No fee, no assignation.

My CdRom programme on public speaking is being sold on a royalties basis and I get paid only when the product sells and I have kept my copyright. The publishers can use the work as they wish - but so can I. Thus I could produce it as a printed work if I wanted to.

The real evil of what has happened is that the company didn't point this out to you. I reckon you should contact them and suggest that they pay you royalties on their sales; if they wish to preserve their reputation, and get further work from you, they will probably agree to do so.

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A racket, yes, but a racket you yourselves have allowed to happen. If I assign copyright of my work then I make a charge for that assignation in my fee for the job. No fee, no assignation.

No...that's not the way it works here in academia, at least with the mere mortals. I suppose the big muckamucks could insist on royalties for journal articles, but most of us can't. There is a lot of competition for getting your articles published, and this is the way it must be done. Of course, we could refuse to publish for them, but they would just get someone else.

Our lawyer did, in fact, work with them on the copyright waiver and changed it a fair amount. Normally that is unheard of, but the publisher gave in because they wanted our material. They will not budge another inch, I can assure you. The original waiver said that they would have access to using any of the data we publish, and of course we weren't going to accept that.

You are a professional writer, and that is a different category than an academic writer, at least here in the U.S.

MS and MSS are medieval abbreviations.

For what it's worth, as the country's most resoundingly unpublished writer, I have had some experience with rejection. And regardless of the quality of your work, it is much more difficult to peddle your stuff than when I was a kid

I estimate that with the advent of digital means, it is now 25 times as easy to compose potentially saleable material. Thus the typical writer is capable of turning out 25 times as much

And furtermore because it is so much easier, there are 25 times as many of us

If I remember correctly, even back then Ann Rynd had submitted Atlas Shrugged to 12 different pubs before it got accepted. Today this equates to 25 x 25 x 12 or 7500 tries

So if your story even holds a candle to that classic and if you're required to submit a printed copy each time at, say, conservatively $3 a pop, then postage alone will set you back $22,500

Didn't JK Rowling submit her first Harry Potter book to umpteen publishers before getting it accepted by Bloomsbury?

ETA: according to Wikipedia it was eight. I thought it was more.

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You are a professional writer, and that is a different category than an academic writer, at least here in the U.S.

All journals will accept work for no payment if they can get away with it. I do have an agreement with one journal that I will give them three free articles a year on the basis that they will commission a similar number and pay me.

I reckon that if your writing's worth reading then it's worth being paid for. If that publisher wanted the material as much as you imply, they'd have paid for it. I'd ask them for royalties on the sales if I were you. Why should they use your intellectual property for nothing? They'd soon be onto you if you tried to use theirs!

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I reckon that if your writing's worth reading then it's worth being paid for.

Yes, but it's the university that employs her that is paying her for it.

If the work is being done in one's employer's time and at one's employer's behest, then yes. It is work for which one is being paid a salary.

In such a case it is the employer who should be taking the matter up with the publisher.

If not then my previous remarks apply.

I still maintain that a competent publisher shoold be able to judge whether a MS is worth reading by a mere glance at the first few pages and that therefore the necessity for printed copy represents nothing more than the reluctance of the Idustry to enter the 21st century