on The Write Life:

Unless you prefer your friends to be story nerds or those who lean toward obsessive-compulsive tendencies when it comes to grammar, you shouldn’t necessarily seek to befriend your editor.

However, you should seek to do everything in your power to be a professional friend of your editor. One of the simplest ways to do that — which too many authors fail to consider — is formatting.

I know. With the greatest of respect for book designers and internal formatters, formatting isn’t exactly the sexiest of topics for an author to consider. But, if you don’t know how to format a book it can cost you a reader. You’d much rather paint a new world on the canvas of your book than talk about unadorned, 12-point Times New Roman.

But that’s why we need to talk about it.

Continue reading HERE