How to write a great manuscript cover letter

Writing a compelling cover letter to submit with your manuscript is more important than most authors realize. After all, publishing, at its core, is still a business built on relationships. Tailoring your cover letter to the interests of the acquisition editor makes a good first impression. This is especially important if you have not had the opportunity to meet the editor at a conference or in some other venue.

Ironically, part of the power of a brief cover letter also relates to its short length. In this age of information overload, short pieces of writing have an impact disproportionate to their size. Their very brevity makes it more likely they will be read. To get the most out of this potentially powerful little document, consider the following tips shared by Amy Benson Brown, a writing coach with Academic Coaching & Writing and contributor to the ACW Academic Writing Blog.

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What motivates you to write?

What is the one thing you need when you sit down to write? I don’t mean the obvious pen and paper or computer, but that one other thing that you always have when you write? Maybe it’s a tall-soy-caramel-macchiato and a corner booth at the local coffee shop. Maybe it’s a stack of papers with all of your research, or an expanding file folder packed full, yet obsessively organized, with research material. Maybe it’s not even a physical thing or place. Maybe it’s nothing more than a seed of an idea or a spark of inspiration.

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Creating balance through writing and nature

As a writing coach who works with academics, one of the stumbling blocks my clients come up against at a certain point in their career is what I call “path block.” This usually happens, ironically, after a big success: finishing the dissertation, getting a new job, or having a book published.

I understand this block and I have experienced it myself. Nature even gave me a literal experience of this block one day many years ago when I was walking in the woods behind my house and the briars and brambles around me stopped me in my tracks. I thought to myself, “It would be so much easier if I had a path.” I looked down and there on the ground was a hawk feather. I picked it up and realized I must make my own path.

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