pasting in body of email

[Alisha Marie Klapheke]

When I paste my first three chapters into an email as requested by an agent, it looks so bad. Is there any way to fix this or is it a waste of time since everyone's email has a different set up? The agent won't, of course, accept it as an attachment.

[DianeL]

I try to keep formatting to a minimum, and use Arial for my query letter and Times New Roman for the pasted material so it's visually distinct, but very little other than that. As long as it looks relatively neat and you've paid attention to your content, that's most important I think! Agents probably don't want anything too fancy anyway, so just look at it for spacing and the funky formatting stuff cut-and-paste sometimes tricks you with, and don't worry much beyond that.

[Alisha Marie Klapheke]

Thanks, DianeL. It is just the spacing that looks awful. I wasn't doing anything fancy...I guess my question is, if I go into the email on my hotmail account and fix the spacing, will it look right on someone else's email account that is not hotmail? My husband's bellsouth account has a totally different width so when I send stuff to him that looks perfect on my hotmail, it looks a mess. Urgh.

[DianeL]

AlishaMarie, I realized later on that I was talking from the standpoint of HTML and using a client (Outlook) rather than internet email. In the case of going straight out of Hotmail (or Earthlink or whatever internet account), maybe it's easier to go plain text, and edit the way that looks so you don't have the funky formatting stuff that sneaks in? Not sure if plain text might affect your actual content, but it's all I can think of off the top of my head. Also, take anything I say with a grain of salt, as I am a (tech) moron! :)

[Alisha Marie Klapheke]

Thanks. I will attempt the plain text and try it out on a friend's email. I am weak in tech (obviously) as well. I'm good once I get my hands on the programs but I have trouble just talking about tech stuff. I just have to see it and experience it. Anyway, thanks again.

[Alisha Marie Klapheke]

It worked pretty well. The spacing is bigger between paragraphs on the bellsouth account but it looks okay. Thanks again! You are so kind to take time to help me.