Submitting Your Story: The Cover Letter

By Steve Weddle

From my LitReactor class lecture on writing a cover letter when submitting your short story:

If you’re writing a sci-fi story, you probably don’t want to submit to Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. That’s a fairly easy call for you, I hope. Don’t send your private eye noir to Analog, either. But what about Hudson Review? What do they want? What tone do their stories hit? What’s the feel of the magazine? How are stories in the Georgia Review different from those in the Kenyon Review? From Carve?

Some magazines post sample stories online. Check these out, but don’t let them substitute for reading the magazine itself. Of course, if you’re talking about an e-zine, you’re in better shape.

I’m still surprised at how many people submit to magazines without ever looking at them. If you’re serious about your writing – and you are or you wouldn’t be here -- you’re going to want to find the best home for it. You don’t want to have a story you’ve been working on until midnight for three months straight going to an eight-page, saddle-stitched rag with an MS Paint cover.

What if you can’t afford to subscribe to fifteen magazines? Well, then you’re a normal person, because, damn, that gets pricey.

One thing you can do is sample issues, which are usually a little less expensive than the current issue. A word of warning. Don’t get a sample issue from five years back, because editors might have changed, tastes might have shifted.

If you’re near a university library, you’re in good shape as most of those still subscribe to literary magazines. If you’re relying on a public county or town library, you may be less fortunate.
Another option, which I’ve done, is to go in with friends, subscribing to different magazines, then trading once you’re done. A handful of people swapping five or six subscriptions can help build your understanding of the industry.

The Writer’s Market books are valuable resources, too. Check out the short story market books. Often, last year’s edition will go on sale at a steep discount when the new one gets close. I’ve found that a year-old short story marketplace book is usually fairly up-to-date, though you should always check everything – names of editors, reading periods – against the magazine’s website or current issue.

You can also enter writing contests at a literary magazine. I think that’s how I ended up with a two-year subscription to the Iowa Review years ago. You pay your ten bucks to enter the contest and they consider your work and send you their issues. Works great for everyone, as long as you watch the money. Some contests charge $25 to enter and offer a $500 prize. I avoid these as the ratio of fee to reward seems too high to me.

At Needle: A Magazine of Noir, we got wonderful stories about spies in Argentina, famine in Thailand, and once, so help me, unicorns on Planthar. I kid you not. The stories, with the exception of the famine story, were well done. The problem is that they weren’t for us.

Roughly twenty percent of the stories we get at Needle are about private dicks and squirrely dames, falling deeper into some mystery while Peter Lorre waits just off-stage. We’re not specifically looking for period pieces. We’re not a historical magazine any more than Georgia Review is the home for your story set in Georgia. While the Georgia Review might publish a story set in Georgia, that isn’t what the magazine is going for. You have to read the magazine. You have to get a feel for the tone. You have to do your homework.

Sending your short story to a list of magazines without doing your homework is like walking into a bar and offering to do “anything” for five bucks. Or applying to a hundred colleges.

You want to be associated with a good magazine, because you’ve worked hard on your story. You want your story to find the right home. Let’s be honest about it – you’ve probably worked your butt off if you’re ready to send it out. So when your story is ready, make sure you’ve done your homework.

When you’re ready, you need to think about what magazine you want to walk to the mailbox for and open and see your name right there on the table of contents. What link you want to send around to people to say, “Hey, thought you’d like to know about my story at this site.”

And, when you’ve picked the right spot, you’ll need to write that cover letter. A couple thoughts on that ->

You’ll want to address the letter to the editor and offer a quick sentence about why you picked this magazine and why you think your story is a good fit.

“I have enjoyed your last few issues and thought you might find my 2,500-word Elizabethan romance a good fit.”

Of course, you’ve worked months on the story. The last thing you want to do is mess up your bio, right? How silly would that be?

If this is the first real story you’re sending off, then I'd encourage you NOT to say "This is my first real story" or "I've only been writing for eleven days." You've been reading and writing for years.
Sometimes at Needle, we’d get a cover letter that will say something like "This is my first attempt at writing a story. I hope you like it." Please, don't do that. The editor doesn't want to look at your first story. It would be like opening a restaurant and saying "I've never baked a pie before. Won't you try my first attempt?"

In my experience, the writers with the least confidence tend to send in the biggest bios.

If you’re Stephen King or Janet Evanovich, you’re not going to list every publication you’ve ever been in. If you’re John Ryan Stumblebuns, you probably will.

GOOD: Jessica Smith is a short story writer and the recipient of the J. Henry Albert Award for Short Fiction. Her work has recently appeared in Cathode Quarterly and The Imagist. She lives in Chicago.
BAD: Jessica Smith has been writing since she was seven years old. Her first story, “The Trouble with Ruff-Ruff” was published in her family’s Christmas newsletter. She attended Holy Oak College and received a BA in History with a minor in French. During her time at Holy Oak, she was also editor of the literary magazine, Holy Oak Leaves Review, and volunteered at a local pet clinic. Her work has appeared at more than 100 websites, including NightShamblesEvil.blogspot.com, DolphinLove.wordpress.com, and NewStoryEveryHour.weebly.com. She lives in a small, teal bungalow outside Las Vegas, with her husband, two dogs, three fish, and a troublesome cat called Mr. Whiskers.

As with everything, THE STORY you write is the most important thing here. Editors will discount some silliness and unprofessionalism in a cover letter, but you want to give the editors fewer reasons to skip past you.

No editor ever has passed on a great story because the author’s bio was too brief. Many editors have skipped a decent story because the writer’s bio made the writer sound like an amateur.

Bonus Linkage:
Another take on Author Bios: No One Cares About Your Life Story: 9 Tips for a Better Author Bio
Stories this editor is tired of seeing: Things I’m tired of seeing in lit mag submissions 
Upcoming LitReactor Courses: https://litreactor.com/classes/upcoming

Dear [Unnamed Wannabe Author Who Thinks They Are God's Gift to Agents]

My husband recently alerted me to a generic letter to agents that was making the rounds on Twitter. I have no idea who actually wrote it, and he didn't either. I tried searching Twitter and didn't succeed in identifying the person.

However, the Internet is where your sins go to die a thousand deaths over and over again because nothing can be truly, permanently eliminated. Screen shots and archival services see to that.

This was the letter:

I am not an agent. However, on behalf of all the decent authors trying to get agents or editors who may be in a justifiably bad mood after getting a submission such as the one above and based on my experience as an editor reviewing submissions, I do have a response.

Dear [Unnamed Wannabe Author Who Thinks They Are God's Gift to Agents]

Please don't be offended that I haven't taken time to read your query letter to the point where you present your name because it's actually better that I forget who you are. NOW. Otherwise, I'd be likely to tell fellow agents and editors of the incredibly unprofessional submission you sent and you wouldn't just be banned from submitting work to me again in the future.

When I was a teenager applying for my first job I didn't photocopy my application form for McDonald's and drop that off at Burger King or Wendy's. I filled out each form. You know why? Despite the volume of applications I was putting out I understood that each place I hoped would hire me had specific application requirements.

A submission to an editor or agent is like an application. The employer has told you what they want to see to evaluate your application to advance to the next round in the publishing industry. You're either going to get a book deal or get one step closer to a book deal than you were before you submitted.

When you don't follow my submission guidelines it tells me several things. You don't respect my time enough to ensure that I have just what I've asked for.That doesn't suggest to me that we'll have a good working relationship.

I did you the courtesy of providing clear directions. You just showed me you can't follow them. That worries me because if I present your work to an editor I need to know you'll follow their directions for editorial revisions. I need to know you'll respect their time. I need to know you'll do your job like a professional. If you don't then the editor won't be happy with me and that can jeopardize my business and my reputation. Right now, you're begging me for my attention and you've given me several reasons to believe that representing you would be a headache and could cost me future business.

Remember how I said I didn't photocopy my McDonald's application and hand it in at Wendy's? I didn't want the managers to think I wasn't that serious in an opportunity at their business. You're sending in so many submissions you can't be bothered to properly format them or send the required material? Have you researched your subgenre and the agents who specialize in that type of content? Clearly you aren't very serious about having me represent you because any one of hundreds will do. I know you aren't concerned with my submission guidelines so I doubt you even know what type of writers I work with.

You clearly think you're too special for guidelines to apply to you but I'm the one who is a gainfully employed professional in this business. While having my ass kissed isn't something I expect I do appreciate being treated like a respected professional.

I'm not sure what you define as a reasonable sample and a reasonable synopsis. I'm also not going to find out. The reality is that on any given day I receive dozens of submissions. This is a very competitive industry and part of how people distinguish themselves is by showing they are ready to take their work as an author seriously. That means doing pesky little things like using punctuation and following submission guidelines.

In sending this response I've actually shown you more courtesy than you've shown me. I've explained why we have submission guidelines. In case you didn't connect the dots, part of what we're looking for is someone who knows how to read well enough to follow directions. How you present your material is an indication of your professionalism, or lack thereof.

For every hundred submissions I receive I may only seriously consider representing three writers. Out of those writers given serious consideration I will only represent a handful. Publishing is an industry that favors buyers rather than sellers. For every book that is traditionally published there are hundreds to thousands of writers who received a rejection letter. Consequently, I'm looking for reasons not to work with someone so that I can devote my time to the writers who have the potential to have a serious writing career.

And those writers are not the people who decided to make a bad first impression by presuming their time was more important than mine, that the rules don't apply to them and that they can do whatever they want and still get a publishing deal. That may be true if your name is Brad Pitt. It is not true if you are a nobody.

Sincerely,

The Agent You Didn't Bother To Identify

I've said it before and I'll say it again. If a writer doesn't follow our submission guidelines their work may be deleted without further correspondence or consideration. In some cases, they may find themselves on our shitlist and be barred from consideration for publication in the future.

And as much as I want to discover great new writers and give people a chance I sleep perfectly fine at night with that policy. I've been sworn at too many times by people who were rude, I've given up time with my family dealing with someone who didn't think they should put in the work on their own writing.

No more. No respect for me means you can take your sub and shove it.