Want to get published this year? How to write a cover letter which publishers are excited about

...as a poet! Because a cover letter isn't just for a querying novelist.

Good morning Scribblers,

On May 1st, we will be open for manuscript submissions and I wanted to give you some top tips today, useful for all genres, but today especially for poets! (You’ll notice that our exact guidelines are not yet on this page to deter early submissions, but I’d be very happy to offer advance feedback on your work - we offer a quick paid service which can be found at the bottom of this page.)

I’ve had the pleasure of reading thousands of submission emails over the years, and I’ve found there is always a stark difference between the way in which a fiction writer approaches a submissions email, and the way in which a poet might approach it.

This may be because of the structure introduced to the fiction writer from the route of approaching an agent: we are asked to write a synopsis of the plot (preferably one page), a cover letter which features a ‘hook line’ and a bit about us as a writer, and we are asked to attach the opening three chapters of our manuscript.

Fiction writers are therefore finding ways to describe their work in a succinct way, and they are looking at their work as though it was a product about to be launched onto the market.

Poets, on the other hand, are usually just asked to attach their manuscript and include a third person biography in the email.

But here’s the secret: every poet Fly on the Wall has published has first communicated the personality of their book and their writing via a cover letter.

So let’s look at what a great cover letter could look like as a poet.