Welcome to the mad, bad world of publishers who are dangerous to know. Mad? Let me count the ways.

First, why do agents and publishers demand that manuscripts be submitted double (or 1½) spaced? That would make sense only if the ms was intended for a copy editor to work on. Certainly, that happy slave needs space between the lines to scribble corrections - before striking them all out and writing ‘stet’ (ignore my corrections) in the margin.

However, the initial task of the ms is to ...
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