Once you’re ready to take the plunge, make sure your manuscript is as error-free as you can make it. Don’t rely on Word to find all the spelling errors—the program can’t find homonyms (words that sound the same but mean something different, such as they’re, their, and there) and common misuses of words that might occur when typing (like were and where).
No matter how many people have beta-read and proof-read your story, give it one final once-over yourself. Make sure your punctuation is in order (believe me, this is something many writers don’t really pay attention to, but it’s a red flag to a publisher when you don’t know how to punctuate dialogue). Your full manuscript should be as clean as you can possibly make it on your own before you send it to a publisher for consideration.
But th
