[paul-roberts Posts: 1 Status: Offline I love kids' books!]

One agent has asked.........
'Paste the first ten pages of your book in the body of your email.'
Can anybody recommend the standard page size and font used in the UK for a middle-grade book?
Many thanks  Paul

[Mindy Alyse Weiss Posts: 3,641 Status: Offline A long journey - but I'm determined to get there!]

Hi Paul,

I'm not sure about the UK--but I think it would be the same as in the US. A typical page is 8 1/2 x 11 with 1" margins using Times New Roman size 12 font. For pasting 10 pages into an e-mail for an agent query, I used to start at the top of the page vs. leaving room on top for the beginning of the novel and the start of each chapter (I'd put it in a new file so I could see how long it was).

Find a great place to stop. If page 10 is the beginning of a new chapter, consider sending 9 pages. 

Here's helpful info from SCBWI on formatting a manuscript: https://www.scbwi.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/From-Keyboard_2014.pdf

Good luck!

[RebeccaL-G Posts: 1,497 Status: Offline RA SCBWI Cen-Cal WWW]

As a member of SCBWI, you have free access to The Book, the Essential Guide to Publishing which lists all kinds of helpful information such as this--check out the section called "From Keyboard to Printed Page".  You can find it here   https://www.scbwi.org/online-resources/the-book/   Make sure you are logged in to SCBWI first.

[David Wright Posts: 1,012 Status: Offline Tell me that again.]

When the text is in the body of an email (rather than an attached file), agents often want only basic formatting -- with no indents, single spaced paragraphs and double spaces between paragraphs.

You may want to research the agent a bit and see their preferences. They may list their "pet peeves" someplace.