OrbitalYolk

Do you have to type your book if you want to get a contract or something to get it published? What if you are a really bad slow typer, can you just send them your freehand?

sully474

I believe that we have a thread on this in the non writing board. (Lounge)

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Spudley

I don't think there's a publisher out there who will give you the time of day if you send a handwritten manuscript.

If you're really not comfortable with typing it up yourself, I think your best bet would be to take your work to a typing agency: get them to type it up and give you the finished document on computer disk, then you can check it, print it, and send it to the publisher. It might cost a bit if you've written a long book, but it will only be a one-off cost (assuming you got the finished product on disk), after that you can just keep printing new copies if you need them.

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Emma LB

Or just teach yourself how to type. I used some crap software Mavisbeacon or something like that. It was so rubbish, I mean the only keyboard layout option it came with was English, but I have a German keyboard. Despite that I was able to learn how to type with it, so just search google for something like that and you'll be able to type in no time if you just spend a few days practicing. Then just start typing up your book and in no time you'll be typing at 30 words per minute or faster (that is if you can read 30 words of your handwriting in one minute of course ). Otherwise, as already suggested, pay someone else to do it, because typing it up will be a lot of work. But after typing up a whole book you should be really good at typing and that'll help you with the editing process, because you'll probably find bit you want to change while your typing it up. So you can just mark those bits in red for example and later edit them with your new typing skills.

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gabriella

I started off pecking like anyine else (even though I was a really really FAST pecker) and now I write 100WPM at least, take a few so my words will be spelled right.

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Alys R.

When I was in eighth grade we had a tech class (w/ Mavis, too, Emma- small world) and I was typing 170 wpm. Small words, like the and it. Really pretty straightforward, though, and I think it's definitely worth learning how to type -- faster and somewhat easier to edit.

Emma LB

Lol, I didn't know that Mavis was such a well-known programme.
I just wish I could get my head round symbols, I could just about manage with things like z and y and other letters being in different places of my keyboard and some letters not existing at all , but I just couldn't get over the fact that the symbols were all in different places .
I really wonder how fast my typing is nowadays, but after many hard drive crashes ... Mavis is no longer installed on my PC it seems...

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gabriella

Set a buzzer for 1min, go to word, and type whatever sentence you have in mind. Stop at the buzzer, and go to word count.

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Emma LB

Lol, good idea

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OrbitalYolk

meh, maybe Ill just get one of those word recognition things.