Cover angst

[mrissa]

Does anybody else hate writing cover letters? Anyone else in the world? I can't decide if it's harder for a book you believe in desperately hard or a book you've lost hope for entirely along the way. I lean towards the former because that's what I'm doing right now; if I was doing the latter, that's how I'd lean. I mostly want to bounce and flap my hands and repeat the same key words: "Very early computer stuffs! And Finnish magic! And, oh, these British spies!" And then bounce again and move my hands in circles as if to say, "C'mon! What more do you want here! I told you about the computers!"

It is extremely difficult to look professional while bouncing, even leaving the flapping out entirely. Especially when you are not very old and not very big and very female. So you try not to go with the bouncing. On the other hand you don't want to sound like that monotone guy in the St. Olaf Physics Department who singlehandedly convinced you never ever ever to go to St. Olaf, no matter how the scholarships came out, because if you had to spend a semester with That Guy, somebody would end up dead and your money was on him. Umm. Perhaps the second person is not the appropriate person for this last sentence.

I especially hate the bit where you have to put what the book is about in a short paragraph. The only thing I hate as much as that bit is where you have to say in what ways you do not suck entirely and how Stan Schmidt and Sheila Williams and The Jer and at least one somebody or another over at Ideo and lo these other people as well think you do not suck entirely. So that's the whole letter, really, except for the bit where you say, "May I send you the whole shebang?" I like that bit all right. I just put it in to make me feel better about the rest. So now the file in its entirety reads:

"Dear [editor's name here]:


May I send you the full manuscript?

Sincerely,


Marissa K. Lingen (Gritter)"

Oh, wailie woe. Cover letters. Despair.

Comments

[gaaneden.livejournal.com]

I really hate cover letters.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

patpatpat

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

*snug*

you don't suck.

love, me.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I will put this in my cover letter: "2005 Campbell Award Nominee Elizabeth Bear says, '*snug* you don't suck. love, me.' About my book she is not an authority, I regret to say."

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

But I can speak to some of your short fiction!

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

That is indeed a comfort.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

I really like your succinct letter.

Why not? Refreshing!

It will have a heart drawn on it and be pinned to a bulletin board.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

But see, what I want is for it to sell my book.

Not that I'm unfond of hearts, mind.

[palinade.livejournal.com]

I hate cover letters, too.

And writing cover copy.

And marketing copy.

And anything that synopsiseszess the novel into sound-bitey bits.

But it must be done. I tend to think of the middle part as whetting the appetite. If it captures their attention here, they will move right along to the ms. Hopefully. Although I must admit that for the most part, I skipped letters entirely and just started to read the first paragraph of the partial submission.

I'm not sure that was useful information...

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

[sigh]

But my first paragraph is really good, just ask me! So it'd really be okay.

[merriehaskell.livejournal.com]

Not that I was under any illusions that a book cover letter would be easier than a short story one, but that sort of just sucked my will to live.

In a good way, though, since I laughed at the end. Laughter and despair. Sounds like every day...

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I sucked your will to live in a good way.

Well, hurrah for me, I guess.

Seriously, short story cover letters are easy. You can use the same one every time. "Here's the story, X thousand words, here are three or four places where I've sold before, here's my name but legally it's this instead, SASE enclosed, thanks for your etc., hogs and quiches, me." Novel cover letters suck.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Cover letter or query letter?

A cover letter accompanying a sub is easy--all you include is word count, genre, and if you have any sales or special knowledge. If not, just say you're including a SASe, thank 'em for their time, and the thing is done.

A good query letter, though....well, I consider that in the same category as writing poetry. Super difficult, nother words.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

S&3, query letter.

My knowledge is extremely special. Just ask me.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

*snort*

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

That makes some sense to me. It might be easier to tell them what a book was about when I hadn't actually had to write it yet. "Omonna do this and this and this and it'll be COOL!" Sign me up.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Umm. Well, rhubarb has pinkish and less pink bits. And can be acidic or sweet as circumstances merit? That's as far as I can get that one to go, I'm afraid.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Luckily, I'm allowed to say very little about myself in a novel cover letter. But I have to talk about my writing, which is in some ways worse.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I can imagine the slush reader going, "St. Olaf? The hell?"

My brain keeps channeling "The Critic": "Buy my book! Buy my book! Buy my book!...."

[greykev.livejournal.com]

While not for a book, the last coverletter I wrote felt like I was channeling a used car salesman. 'course I did get the job.. :/

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I didn't know you were driven once a week by an old lady getting her groceries!

[greykev.livejournal.com]

um, okay. Totally not getting the allusion.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

This is a standard fictional sleazy used car salesman line: "Hardly been used! The previous owner was an old lady who only drove it once a week to get groceries!"

[zellandyne.livejournal.com]

I hate it, too. As soon as it comes time to summarize what's good about the story (or about me as a potential job candidate) I get stuck in boring mode and can't think of anything. I could write a brilliant cover letter about something I didn't care about; but then, why bother?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

"I am...ummm...very punctual...and I bathe daily...."

I'm afraid my book may not be very reliable. I wouldn't trust it not to steal from the till, though only large amounts. I'm not even sure I'd want to go to parties where it was.

[pameladean]

I hate all that stuff passionately -- query letters, cover letters, book proposals. They are not proper writerly things. They are just hoops one has to jump through, for no really good reason except that people who buy fiction want to push as much work off on the hopeful author as they can manage, partly because they themselves haven't got the proper support they deserve for even publishing books in the first place.

Bleah.

P.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yah, from what I've heard about workloads and what I've seen of response times, it sounds like almost all editors could use another two or three editorial assistants apiece, well-trained and decently paid. Not to mention other marketing whatsits.

[mmerriam.livejournal.com]

I'm trying very hard not to think about the fact I will need to write a synopsis and cover letter for the novel in the very near future. Just the idea fills me with dread and makes me slightly nauseous, and I don't have any way to explain to them that I don't suck entirely. In fact, I fear I (or at least the novel) might well suck something awful. Hopefully I'll find out during the workshop phase just how much suck the novel suffers from.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

You don't have to have any way to explain to them that you don't suck entirely. Many people don't sell short stories at all or don't start until after they've done novels. It'll be fine on that front. And having critiquers is good: means you can fix more sucky bits before an editor sees them.

[zalena.livejournal.com]

I hate writing cover letters only slightly more than I hate reading them. Luckily, if you manage to sound polite and not totally insane, most editors will at least glimpse at the other stuff in the package. (The truly insane cover letters get passed around the office and laughted at. The regular ones, even the slightly bad ones, merit very little mention. We are, after all, interested in publishing your work, not the cover letter.)

[(Anonymous)]

I don't know if this is a big no-no or not, but is it considered poor to ask one of your early readers to sum up the book for you? I often have a hard time whittling down large ideas to the important parts, so I will ask someone from outside for their opinion, which often helps clarify things for me and points me in the direction I need to head. As I have no experience in this arena, this is definitely an uninformed idea.

Heathah

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Well, the thing is, the phrasing is important, not just the content. So in theory you can ask your early readers to help, but if they're not at least as good with words as you are, it's not going to be an asset.

[jry.livejournal.com]

I had the same thought. What if a beta reader wrote a rough draft for you and you refined it into your own particular idiom?

Speaking for myself, I wanted to read it as soon as the bouncing and flapping started. Get the dumb letter written so I can go buy the book. ;-)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I have the letter written as of 10:00 last night. Unfortunately, that doesn't mean you can go buy the book.

[jry.livejournal.com]

Sure it does! Just not right this minute. Cheers to you for dispatching the onerous task with such alacrity.

[ckd]

Now, that description (even without the bouncing and hand-flapping, though I would not denigrate the quality of such in any way) would make me want to buy the book.

This is probably why I am a sysadmin and not an acquisitions editor.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Err. For my sake, can we hope that's not why? At least until I have two or three rejections under my belt?

[ckd]

Err indeed. That wasn't how I meant it (which also explains why I'm not a writer either, I guess).

Hmm. Explanatory addendum: Because, if acquisitions editors thought they'd not only have to read slush but deal with bouncing, hand-waving authors included in every submission envelope, they'd all go do something else.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I suppose, but many writers are of the non-bouncing variety. Of course, snarling, surly authors in some of the submissions envelopes would probably not make anyone more keen on the job.

[raecarson.livejournal.com]

It would be nice to send query videos. You could include flapping and bouncing. Besides, how else would they get a good feel for the book's future film potential? Really, it would be doing them a service...

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I would like to say that I really hope no one would cast me in this film. Unfortunately, I probably look more like the characters than 90% of Hollywood does.

[kythiaranos.livejournal.com]

I loathe cover letters with an unholy loathing, so you have my sympathies. My feeling is, I'm a novelist, not a cover letter writer. I don't want a book of cover letters published, so why the heck would I want to be judged by how well I can write one. Sheesh. (Obviously, I have nolove for queries either, though I write those as well, teeth gritted.)

[oracne.livejournal.com]

I loathe query letters. Mine all suck.

[katharine-b.livejournal.com]

Things that are all about the same amount of fun to write:

Cover letters for novels
Synopses of novels
Cover letters for job applications
Statements of purpose for graduate school applications (the current bane of my existence)

Good luck with yours. I hope it works well!