M The Manuscript Desk

Manuscript typing & formatting

Your book is handwritten, dictated, in notebooks, or typed but unformatted

I type handwritten, dictated and old typewritten books into clean, properly formatted manuscripts — and set already-typed ones into the layout literary agents and publishers expect.

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Which one is your book?

It isn't typed yet

Handwritten, dictated, or an old typescript

A book written longhand. A memoir in a stack of notebooks. A parent's war diary. A novel found in a drawer after a death, in a hand nobody in the family can read. I type it, mark anything genuinely illegible rather than guessing, and send back a properly formatted Word document with a full written report of every query.

From £14 per 1,000 words · formatting included

How the typing works

It's typed but not ready

Finished in Word, and now the guidelines have you stuck

You've written the whole book yourself, and every agent's website is asking for standard manuscript format without saying plainly what that is. Send me the file. Font, spacing, margins, indents, title page, running headers, chapter breaks — set out properly, with a quick turnaround.

£40, or £75 if the file needs tidying first

How formatting works

Two ways a finished book gets stuck

The first is obvious. It's still handwritten, and almost every agent, publisher and self-publishing platform will only look at an electronic file. Until it's typed, nobody can read it but you.

The second catches people out more. The book is typed, finished, done — and then the submission guidelines arrive, wanting a format nobody ever explains properly, and suddenly the last job before sending it off is a fiddly technical one you've no reason to know how to do.

Both are the same problem wearing different clothes: the writing is finished and the document isn't. That's the whole of what I do.

Why me and not a typing bureau

Three things most typists can't offer

I can read difficult hands

I'm a trained palaeographer — I transcribe seventeenth-century wills for a living. Faded ink, crossings-out, a shaky late hand, marginal insertions and pages written in pencil forty years ago are all ordinary work here.

Where a passage genuinely can't be read, I mark it and tell you, rather than guessing and hoping you won't notice.

I know what a manuscript should look like

I write novels myself, and I trained as a copy editor with the CIEP. I know standard manuscript format, how chapters break, how dialogue is set, what an agent expects to open.

Which is exactly why formatting is a service in its own right here rather than an afterthought.

Confidentiality is my day job

Thirty years as a legal secretary, document production technician and transcriber, including some of the top firms in London. Discretion isn't a promise on a website — it's the discipline I've worked under for my entire career.

Nothing is subcontracted. Nothing is sent offshore. I sign a confidentiality agreement before I start.

What I take on

Books, and only books

This is not a general typing service. I don't do invoices, minutes, dissertations or reports. I work on manuscripts — whole books, for the people who wrote them.

  • Novels and short story collections — handwritten across notebooks and loose sheets, or typed and needing setting out for submission.
  • Memoirs and life stories — the most common thing on this desk, and often the most rewarding.
  • Inherited manuscripts — a book left unfinished or unpublished by someone who has died, typed so it can be read, kept, or finished.
  • Poetry collections — where line breaks and spacing matter and must be preserved exactly.
  • Old typescripts — a book typed on a typewriter years ago, retyped into a file you can actually work with.
  • Dictated books — if you'd rather speak your book than write it out.

Before you commit

Nothing is charged before you've seen the work

Handing over a manuscript is not a small thing, particularly if it's the only copy or it belonged to someone you loved. You shouldn't have to take a stranger's word for the quality of their work.

For typing: send a few pages and I'll type the first thousand words and send them back at no charge, with no obligation whatsoever. If you like what you see, we go on. If you don't, you've lost nothing.

For formatting: send the file and I'll tell you which of the two prices applies and why, before anything is done. You pay on delivery, once you have the manuscript back and you're happy with it.

Get in touch

What it costs

Typing is priced per thousand words, so you know roughly what you're looking at before you get in touch — a typical eighty-thousand-word novel in clear handwriting comes to around £1,440, with formatting included. Formatting on its own is a flat fee.

Formatting an already-typed manuscript £40 – £75

£40 for a clean file, £75 if it needs tidying first. Whole manuscript, whatever its length.

Clear, modern handwriting £18 / 1,000 words

Legible, consistent, written in ink on ordinary paper.

Difficult handwriting £24 / 1,000 words

Cramped, hurried or shaky hands, heavy crossings-out, insertions up the margins, or pencil.

Retyping an old typescript £14 / 1,000 words

A book typed on a typewriter, or a carbon copy, turned back into an editable file.

Full price list

Tell me where your book is up to

Whether it's a stack of notebooks or a finished Word file, tell me roughly how long it is and what state it's in, and I'll come back with a price. Photographs or scans from a phone are perfectly good enough to start with, and the manuscript itself stays with you.

Get a free quote