Writing Cover Letters

Video Transcript

"You've got your book proposal all prepared, all the parts of it. You have put it on a heavier bond paper. I always suggest that you get a higher bond paper that's a little thicker. It gives it more substance. You might want to go and get a binding put on it where they have a, you know, kind of a hard back here and then a clear cover here. That makes it easier for them to send off because you want to get something that if the publisher gets it, they'd say, boy, I don't have time to look at this, but I'm going to put it in my briefcase and take it with me, and they might be on an airplane trip and they're looking at it, and they can rifle through it real fast. Now, you say why not just e-mail it? Because it's very easy to delete an e-mail. It's sometimes vital that you throw away a whole manuscript because you just can't assimilate that. But this, this can stick around a while. Now that doesn't mean you can't also e-mail it, but make sure you send out a hard cover with it, and then I always like to put a cover letter on it. It's something real fast, and if this is all they could see, this gives them all you want for them to see what's on the next page. Write something that's really riveting and fun and exciting. One final thing, how do you find the publishers to send them out to? Here's what I did for my first book. I just went to a bookstore and I got into the area that had the genre of book I wanted to write, and I just went through and I got all these different books by different publishers and on the inside, on the back page of the cover of the cover title, is all the information on the publisher, their address, the editors, all that stuff, it's always right there. And I just wrote down ten publishers that publish the kinds of book I like, and then I sent my first proposal out to all of them. Now get this, the very first letter I got back was one like, "don't ever send us anything again." That could have been discouraging. But the next two bit the hook and the third one swallowed it, and we had a contract. It was very exciting, and then from there, once you get published it's a lot easier to get published. So, you're going to have a great time. You have a lot to offer. Don't be afraid, but just write you a great book proposal, send it on out there and watch what happens. You could be out there changing people's lives. You could be out there getting your message out and having a lot of fun along the way."