Uncovering the Cover Letter

by Mandira Pattnaik

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Five minutes’ walk from the Waterloo Tube Station, London, is Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road, where the shortlisted Booker Prize authors and translators had assembled on May 22, before the official announcement of results. I gathered from reports that writers were expected to share an opinion about the themes their work addressed. Olga Tokarczuk (author of The Books of Jacob) declared her fiction was about “everyday metaphysics” of everything, which was received with hushed murmurs. On their turn, Geetanjali Shree and Daisy Rockwell (eventual winners for Tomb of Sand) read a passage instead, about crows and crow council meetings, about caw, caw. “The assembled crows cawed approvingly, or shall we say that it would have sounded simple like caw caw to humans had they been listening, the way every language does to an unfamiliar ear.” I think it was an intensely thought-provoking excerpt that was read, given that translation and language was being celebrated, and it was the occasion of ‘International’ Booker Prize.

By reading an excerpt so unique, the author and translator cleverly managed to ignite imagination and curiosity about the novel.

The same is the case, I understand, with cover letters, or what cover letters ideally should be: Carefully thought-through letters that give a striking first impression to the editor. It merits to decide what is that you want ‘covered’ in your cover letter.

If you are looking to be published in the big commercial magazines with very large circulations, your cover letter makes the difference between whether the rest of your submission (excerpt(s), or full manuscript) will be opened and read, or not. And therefore, begs the attention it requires. There are dedicated courses and writing seminars on writing synopses, pitches and the like, and maybe I will probe those at another time. For this column, let’s focus on literary magazines you and I regularly submit to.

Now, some editors prefer no cover letters at all, just the basic contact information, and I’d imagine that it’s a lucky break for writers sweating it out over cover letters.

Most literary magazines, on the other hand, do not prefer elaborate cover letters. In fact, some explicitly let you know that the cover letter would not be read until the submission has moved up the queue to possible publication. Still, it is important to know what to include and what not to, and deserves some fussing over it.

One thing that’s largely a no-no at the editor’s table is the writer ‘explaining’ their work in their cover letter: Maybe teasing with a cliffhanger abridgement, or inserting a quick plot/character highlight. That’d, in general, mean that you are unaware about the magazine’s ethics, not respectful towards their work and time, doubtful about the editor’s commitment levels, and worse, unsure about your own work.

Similarly, for author bios, too much ‘explaining’ (by way of certificates received, prizes won, previous publications) may give the impression you’re trying to convince the editor about your merits as a writer, and you’re not too confident about the particular work under consideration.

Broadly, the requisite elements of a good cover letter should be contact information, basics about the submitted work like word count, page count etc., a proper salutation, author bio, and an appreciation of the editor’s time in the end. A useful tip is to find out about the magazine’s masthead and address the particular editor. It says a lot about your commitment, and your enthusiasm for the journal you’re submitting to. Also, it pays for you to have taken the time to read a few back issues and only submit work that matches the journal’s tastes, and is similar to the kind of work they have published before. Another tip is to say something interesting about a piece you’ve genuinely enjoyed, or that past contributor or the writer in the last issue who encouraged you to submit to them. Little personal touches like these, I believe, go a long way.

It therefore boils down to keeping the cover letter unique, like Geetanjali and Rockwell. By writing dozens of variations of my cover letters over the years, I have found out that, in fact, I’ve uncovered what’s essential to myself and my work.