Nathan Bransford - The Forums

This may be the stupidest question ever, but I've just had a full manuscript request and the agent asked to specifically send it "so I can read it on my Kindle."

So, my question: do I have to change to standard formatting at all to make it viewable on a Kindle or other e-reader? Is there some sort of specific format I need to adhere too? Especially with regards to indents - I really don't want to MS to come out looking all blocky.

Besides MOBI and PRC, Kindle supports TXT, plain text files, and PDF. Adobe Acrobat's portable document format. Word, WordPerfect, and OpenOffice have export-save to PDF application plugins. They install with Word and WordPerfect. OpenOffice's PDF app is an addon.

The advantage PDF has over TXT is PDF preserves special formatting, italics, bold, selected typeface, special glyphs. TXT only supports standard keyboard glyphs and formatting. Tabbed indents are standard keyboard indents in any word processor application. Not supported in HTML, though.

I've read lots of PDF files on my Kindle and have also swapped PDF copies of my manuscript with critique partners to be read on each other's Kindles. If the agent asked for this I'm sure he/she knows how to put a PDF on his/her Kindle. Just to be safe I'd include a note in the email that says "If you would prefer a different format or have difficulty with this file, please let me know and I'll gladly resubmit." As long as the agent knows you're trying to be accommodating, you should be fine. And don't worry too much about formatting---lots of agents choose to read on their phones and are willing to forgo formatting for the convenience of reading on a portable device---it won't take "points" away from your manuscript.

Congrats on the full request! Good luck!

Thanks poly and cheeky! It's all sent off now, so no more worries.