How to Write A Cover Letter to A Publisher
- Hook the editor with a question, a provocative statement, a statistic, or even a short excerpt from the book. This will comprise the first paragraph of your cover letter. Immediately following your hook, identify the title of your book and its genre.
- Summarize the plot of your book in the second paragraph. Brevity is paramount since the total length of your cover letter should not exceed one page. The synopsis should identify your key characters, the core conflict, the setting, the timeframe, and the resoution. A lot of writers are reluctant to give away their endings because they assume that a prospective editor will then have no need to read the entire thing if they know how it comes out. It’s actually the opposite that is true. If it’s a well told story, an editor will want to read it and see how the author handles all of the elements therein including the development of character, the handling of dialogue, the pacing, the structure and the originality of the premise. If your book project is nonfiction (for instance, a how-to or self-help title), the second paragraph should briefly describe what the target reader will learn how to accomplish. This can be described in narrative format or as a short list of bullet points.
- Explain your personal or professional qualifications to write this particular book in the third paragraph. This paragraph should also include who you believe the target audience to be for this title, how it compares to similar titles the publishing house has already released, and how you plan to help market the book. This last element is something that more and more publishing houses are looking at since they want authors to take an active role in the book’s promotion. If, for example, you have written a how-to text and just happen to teach workshops across the country on this very subject, there is a defintiive tie-in. Likewise, if you are a zealous blogger, write a weekly/monthly newspaper or magazine column, or have visibility in a particular industry, an editor is going to look more favorably on you than if you simply expect the publisher to do all of the legwork in promoting your new release.
- Conclude with a very short fourth paragraph that identifies the estimated word count of the book and whether the book is completed. For new fiction authors, publishers will have the expectation that the book is already finished. In nonfiction, however, a credible expert can pitch a concept along with an estimated date of completion without having actually finished it. The receptivity to the latter, of course, has a lot to do with the uniqueness of the proposal and whether the writer’s reputation is well known. Beneath your closing paragraph, be sure to include your full contact information. This means address, phone number and email. If you have a website, it’s permissible to include that as well.
(via eHow.com)
