Very nice post. As you have had extensive experience with publishers, I wonder what your advice is in regarding preparing your manuscripts to send to a publisher. I'm thinking more of the first-time writer here, I guess.

On the internet, there seems to be so much confusion about how one should go about this. Should it be double-spaced? Which font is best? Some people say no-one will read anything if the text has been fully-justified, never use proportional fonts etc.

The whole thing seems like a minefield to me.