McKinley: Re: cover letter

a couple places I would try for the publisher/query cover letter:

SCBWI (online) The Society of Children's Books Writer's and Illustrators
Maybe the CBC (Children's Book Council) also.

If not there, you could probably find one in any number of "How to Write for
Children" type books in your local bookstore reference section.

It may not be be worth it though...here's what I think they'll probably tell
you:

Keep it short, to the facts and provide the following info:
Your name
Name of your story
intended audience(?)
one-two sentence description of your story/subject
SASE

What NOT to include:
gushing praise for their books/work/etc.
your life story/dream of becoming a writer
extensive description of the story
comparisons to published work

Keep it simple, neat, and clean basically.

Also, most important...do your homework on the publishers. The CBC and
SCBWI publish extensive, detailed listings, available for a very modest
charge, of which houses accept unsolicited manuscripts, query letters, how
they want to be approached, genres that want to see, etc. It's solid info,
I would recommend using it extensively.

Good luck, the odds are high for writers.

John Clapp
john@johnclapp.com
www.johnclapp.com

-----Original Message-----
From: cslynn@mail.wm.edu <cslynn@mail.wm.edu>
To: mckinley@cco.caltech.edu <mckinley@cco.caltech.edu>
Date: Thursday, January 07, 1999 3:35 PM
Subject: McKinley: wings of a falcon/cover letter/video

>completely unrelated question: does anyone know where i can find an example
of a cover letter, that is, the query letter you send to a publisher/agent
to see if they would be interested in your manuscript?

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Received on Thu Jan 7 18:30:49 1999