Help me write a professional short story cover letter.

September 8, 2009 8:34 AM

Short story cover letters: How do I indicate I have actually read the journal I am submitting to , or do I do so, at all? I am a Canadian who wants to publish short fiction in the far larger market in the U.S. Every literary journal’s submission guidelines urge you to read at least one copy of their magazine before submitting.

But even *if* I did buy a copy of every single interesting literary magazine out there—a very unlikely prospect-- what are the editors looking for in my cover letter that indicates that I have indeed read at least one edition of “Fiction Forever”? I feel that saying “my story has the same kind of ‘theme/realism/tension’ I enjoyed in Volume 1000 of Fiction Forever” sounds ….not right. The advice in Writer’s Market also feels somehow….not right. Do I really say “I think my writing has the ‘vitality/deep characterization/youthful daring’ you asked for in your description of yourself in Writer’s Market?” This certainly does not indicate I have actually read the journal, anyway. It only shows I've read Writer's Market.

posted by uans to Writing & Language (16 answers total)

In most cases I think decent literary journals will have a sample issue available to read. I help edit a very small literary journal--it's very much at the bottom of the food chain for this kind of thing, but we still try to look for some thematic consistency and, I guess, consistency of tone, especially when it comes to submissions from people we don't know personally. If your submission itself doesn't match up to the kind of thing we look for, there's no way you can bamboozle us into thinking it does with your cover letter. I usually never even read them.
posted by nasreddin at 8:42 AM on September 8, 2009

I've written cover letters to both short fiction and poetry markets. My philosophy is "short and sweet--no explanation necessary." Don't try to explain your stories, and don't try to guess blindly at the type of writing they want--you very well might be wrong! Here's my basic template for a work of short fiction:

Dear (Name of Editor--yes, you want the actual editor's name, if at all possible; check mastheads):

I'm writing to submit my story, "Name", to (Name of Magazine). It is approximately xxxx words long, and is attached to this email/enclosed as per your submission guidelines.

(Insert a BRIEF bio here--mine is something like: "I am a 2009 graduate of the University of Florida's MFA program in poetry. My writing has appeared in magazines x, y, and z and I currently proofread for Magazine A. I live in Gainesville, Florida, with my cat.")

Thank you for your time and consideration!

Yours,
Pho B. WanKenobi


Yeah, but if at all possible, try reading their writing first. Most magazines have at least samples available online these days.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 8:48 AM on September 8, 2009

(The cover letters, I mean.) As an example, we typically try to occupy a kind of aestheticist/conceptualist creative space, so we won't publish work that is too overtly political or that is going primarily for humor. Journals that get more submissions will obviously be more specific and discriminating.
posted by nasreddin at 8:48 AM on September 8, 2009

It's just like writing a cover letter for a job, where you explain directly why you think your story is a fit for their editorial style.

"I'm an admirer of Fiction Forever's commitment to publishing stories by first-time authors developing deep characterizations, and especially respected the pieces by Joe Schmo and Mary Christmas in the Fall 2008 issue. In my work, I aim for a similar authenticity and intimacy in character portraits, as I hope you'll see in my enclosed submission."

Don't overplay it. It's not that they need you to mention that you've read one issue, it's that they're trying to weed out random submissions by people who are unfamiliar with the tone or thrust or focus of their magazine. Too many writers take a birdshot approach and send stories to magazines for which they're totally inappropriate. You're reading the issues to make sure your story fits their aesthetic and their editorial guidelines before you go to the trouble of submitting something wholly inappropriate.
posted by Miko at 8:49 AM on September 8, 2009

Oh, and just a note: the purpose of the bio is to mention briefly any relevant writing experience. If you mention things like your cat, don't make it the centerpiece of your cover letter.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 8:50 AM on September 8, 2009

It's less about you indicating in your cover letter that you've read and loved every single issue of AwesomeLitMag and more about you being familiar enough with AwesomeLitMag to know that

* they don't publish avant-garde fiction
* they don't publish science fiction
* they don't publish epic poems
* they don't publish memoirs
etc.

Do the underpaid and overworked eds at AwesomeLitMag a favor and be familiar enough with what it publishes to send them pieces they are more likely to really look at rather than immediately roundfile.
posted by rtha at 8:50 AM on September 8, 2009

Every literary journal’s submission guidelines urge you to read at least one copy of their magazine before submitting.

I had just assumed that (as rtha said) they are hoping you will realise that they publish historical fiction and not send them your futuristic space opera.
posted by jacalata at 8:57 AM on September 8, 2009

If your submission itself doesn't match up to the kind of thing we look for, there's no way you can bamboozle us into thinking it does with your cover letter. I usually never even read them.

I'm not trying to bamboozle anybody. I'm asking how to say I have done so in a professional manner, without sounding like a boyscout who needs to prove how many old ladies he's taken across the street. Is it true that editors don't even read cover letters? Why write one?
posted by uans at 9:02 AM on September 8, 2009

Is it true that editors don't even read cover letters? Why write one?

Many editors don't, but they might glance at it to look for information about, say, previous publishing credits or education (not that these will make or break a submission, usually, but I've read slush and been curious about a writer's prior writing experience). They're important to include because they have your contact information on them, and they're polite. They provide the reader with a little bit of context. Not including a cover letter is sort of like leaving a stack of pages on someone's desk, without telling them who you are or what those papers are doing there.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 9:08 AM on September 8, 2009

As rtha said, this isn't about showing the editors that you are a fan. It is about not wasting their time and your postage. You should read the magazine to make sure it's a good fit before submitting something. If it's a good fit, go for it and submit. If you find that it's not a good fit, then don't bother to submit.

The point is that reading the entry in Writer's Market isn't really enough to decide if it's a good fit. That would be like taking the top twenty colleges from the US News and World Report ranking and applying to all of them without investigating further. It is far better to read more about each school, visit the ones you are truly interested in, etc.

Hence, read the magazines. Presumably you're interested in fiction, so this shouldn't be a trial. But don't feel like you have to prove it in your cover letter.
posted by alms at 9:24 AM on September 8, 2009

Back when I edited a small magazine (a book review journal, not a publisher of fiction or poetry), I used cover letters as a quick way to tell if the writer was familiar with the conventions of punctuation, standard grammar and spelling, and if they proofread (or asked a friend to do so) their work before sending it out.
posted by rtha at 9:31 AM on September 8, 2009

I'm not trying to bamboozle anybody. I'm asking how to say I have done so in a professional manner, without sounding like a boyscout who needs to prove how many old ladies he's taken across the street.

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that you were trying to bamboozle anyone. My point was that your submission is your submission, and there isn't much your cover letter can do either way.
posted by nasreddin at 9:43 AM on September 8, 2009

As others have said, the reason they ask you to read the journal in advance is so you don't submit something that is wildly out of keeping with what they publish. It's to save both you and the editors time--having worked at literary journals, I can tell you that they receive submissions that would be more appropriate for True Romance, UFO Times, and Penthouse Forum every single day.

There is absolutely no need to tell them that you read the journal in the cover letter, so don't stress about it. Here is what the cover letter is for: a) to sort out the serious writers from the people who don't know what they are doing (again, every literary journal receives submissions handwritten on notebook paper in pen several times a month, often with "PUBLISH THIS AND IT WILL MAKE US BOTH RICH" scrawled in the top margin); b) to provide basic information about the writer, including previous publications and relevant life experience, if any (a short story about trying to resuscitate infants with CPR is going to be of more interest if written by an EMT, for example).

The cover letter does not affect the likelihood of your submission being chosen--there are no "brownie points" to be earned in it. PhoBWanKenobi's template is spot on.
posted by Sidhedevil at 10:20 AM on September 8, 2009

On a related note, I strongly recommend Duotrope's Disgest as an alternative to Writer's Market.

Duotrope has search options galore (name, genre, pay rate, electronic or postal submission, etc.), has links to magazine web sites, and probably most importantly lists stats on how long it takes on average to get a response to a submission (which requires registered users to enter their response data).

They also survive on donations, so if you like it, give them money.
posted by ShooBoo at 11:39 AM on September 8, 2009

Don't tell them you read their magazine.

You can show it by:
-using the editor's properly-spelled name
-using the periodical's properly-spelled name
-submitting material that is suitable
-never mentioning the ass-magnet that is Writer's Market/Digest.

I am not saying that publications like Market aren't useful to the writer, but to the editor, they are like dropping your business card in a spambait fishbowl for the chance to win something. They mean someone with no publishing history can have your address without ever touching your magazine.
posted by Sallyfur at 4:12 PM on September 8, 2009

If you really want to show that you read the magazine, mention a recent story that you really liked (and very briefly, why). But don't do it unless you really mean it. As others have suggested, it's better to keep the letter short and to the point--your name and brief credentials, story title, correct editor's name, correct periodial name, and suitable material--unless you have a legitimate reason to mention other things.

Good luck!
posted by Ms. Informed at 12:42 PM on September 9, 2009