A manuscript submitted to a Canadian literary agent or independent press arrives in a market with specific expectations — some shared with the broader English-language publishing world, others shaped by Canadian editorial conventions, style guides, and institutional practices. Getting those details right before submission does not guarantee acceptance, but getting them wrong can result in an immediate pass.
Standard Formatting Requirements
The baseline formatting standard used across most Canadian literary agencies and independent presses aligns closely with the industry-wide norm: 12-point Times New Roman or Courier, double-spaced, with one-inch margins on all sides. Page numbers appear in the upper right or lower centre. The author's name and a short title appear in the header of every page after the title page.
The title page carries the full title, the author's legal name, contact information, and a word count rounded to the nearest thousand. Canadian agents typically expect that word count to reflect the manuscript's actual length rather than a target. Genre expectations shape acceptable length ranges: literary fiction from Canadian presses has historically run between 70,000 and 100,000 words; narrative non-fiction is more variable but rarely exceeds 110,000 words for a debut.
Style Guide Choices
Canada has no single dominant editorial style guide. The Canadian Press Stylebook governs journalism; trade book publishers in English Canada often follow The Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS) for most decisions while deferring to the Canadian Oxford Dictionary for spelling. Oxford Canadian spellings — "colour," "neighbour," "centre," "travelling" — are standard in Canadian trade publishing and should appear consistently throughout a submission.
Quebec-based publishers working in English may apply a hybrid approach. Authors writing for audiences in both Canada and the United States sometimes flag the spelling convention they've used in a cover letter, which saves editorial confusion during early assessment.
Structural Elements of a Book Manuscript
A complete manuscript for submission includes more than chapters. Front matter and, for non-fiction, back matter are often absent in early drafts but matter when a manuscript is under serious consideration.
Front Matter
- Half title page — title only, no author name
- Full title page — title, subtitle if applicable, author name
- Copyright page — left to the publisher to finalize, but authors sometimes include a draft with year and rights claim
- Dedication — optional, kept brief
- Table of contents — required for non-fiction and collections; optional but useful for literary fiction with part divisions
- Author's note or preface — where context about the book's origins or methodology belongs
Back Matter
Non-fiction manuscripts benefit from including a bibliography or notes section, even in draft form. Literary essays and narrative non-fiction in Canada increasingly include source notes, influenced by the documentation norms of long-form journalism. Fiction rarely requires back matter at the submission stage, though a glossary can accompany work that draws heavily on a specialized vocabulary or a particular language community.
Chapter and Scene Structure
Each chapter begins on a new page. Chapter titles or numbers appear roughly one-third of the way down the page, not at the very top margin. Scene breaks within chapters are indicated by a centred # or three asterisks (***) — never by extra blank lines, which can be lost during file conversion.
Scene-level structure — how chapters open, where tension is placed, how point of view is managed — is beyond the scope of manuscript formatting, but submission materials should reflect that these decisions have been made deliberately. An inconsistent point of view that appears accidental signals an unfinished draft, regardless of how neatly the pages are formatted.
Digital File Formats
Most Canadian agents and presses accept Microsoft Word (.docx) files. Some smaller literary presses have moved to accepting PDF submissions for queries, though Word remains the standard for full manuscript requests. RTF files are universally readable but increasingly uncommon.
File naming follows a simple convention: AuthorLastName_Title_Manuscript.docx. Avoid version numbers, dates, or "FINAL" in the file name — these signal to a reader that the file may not be the actual final version.
Query Letters and Submission Packages
Canadian literary agencies typically request a query letter, a synopsis, and a sample (usually the first 10 to 50 pages, depending on the agency's guidelines). The query letter summarizes the book in one to two paragraphs, identifies the genre and word count, and mentions any relevant author credentials — publication credits, professional background directly relevant to the book's subject matter, or recognition such as a writing residency or prize shortlist.
The synopsis, generally one to three pages, covers the full arc of the story including the ending. Canadian agents — like agents elsewhere — read the synopsis to confirm that the narrative structure works, not to evaluate prose style. It should be written in the third person, present tense, and focus on plot and character development rather than thematic interpretation.
Canadian-Specific Considerations
Authors submitting to Canadian publishers should be aware that the Association of Canadian Publishers and the Writers' Union of Canada maintain resources covering standard contract terms, fair compensation minimums, and author rights. Familiarity with these documents helps authors evaluate offers on terms beyond the advance figure.
First Nations, Métis, and Inuit authors may additionally engage with the First Nations University of Canada and other Indigenous literary organizations that have developed specific publishing protocols and author support structures outside the mainstream Canadian publishing infrastructure.
Revision Before Submission
The revision process that precedes submission is rarely linear. Canadian developmental editors working as freelancers often distinguish between structural revision (addressing narrative arc, pacing, and character logic), line editing (prose-level clarity and voice consistency), and copy editing (grammar, spelling, and style guide adherence). Authors submitting to agents or publishers are responsible for completing at least the structural and major prose-level work before submission. Copy editing typically falls to the publisher's in-house team after an offer is made.
Some authors engage a freelance structural editor or manuscript assessor before querying. The Editors' Association of Canada maintains a directory of professional editors with listed specializations, which makes identifying an appropriate match for a specific manuscript type more straightforward than a general web search.
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