What Not To Name Your Document

May 10, 2009 in Advice, Agent, Queries | 1 comment

Here’s a quick consideration that may not matter to anyone else but that always manages to crack me up a little bit. When you send your manuscript to an agent, be super aware of what the file name is. That seems like common sense but you’d be surprised.

When I scroll down to the bottom of a query e-mail, I expect to see something mundane like, oh:

LastName_Title.doc

Title.doc

Name_First_50_pages.doc

Something nice and neutral. What I don’t really want to see is:

Title_Revision_37.doc

Title_TOTAL_OVERHAUL.doc

Or, worse yet:

LastName_First_Draft.doc

Keep it really simple, really professional. If you track your revisions with the document title, make sure to take the ten extra seconds and “Save As” a copy of your document with a nice, generic title.

In acting class, my teachers always said: “The audition doesn’t start when you begin your monologue. From the second you enter the building to the moment you leave, you’re auditioning.”

So watch the message you send with your document titles. The ones about “first draft” or “revision 37″ or “overhaul” can sometimes make me either dread what I’m going to find when I open the document or make me wonder what’s wrong with it. All those numbers and markers are part of your process… keep them behind the scenes.

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  1. Katie Bowden’s avatar

    Katie Bowden on October 19, 2009 at 3:00 pm

    This is hilarious. I hope it’s the sort of advice I will never need, but you never know!