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a guide to
writing cover
letters & bios &
submitting your
work to smaller
publications
joseph parker okay

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introduction .................................. 4

writing a cover letter ..................... 6

writing a bio ................................ 10

your submission ......................... 12

a note from the author ................ 17

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 introduction

in my experience, writing cover letters can be the

most intimidating part of the submission process.
when i first started submitting my work for publication,
there were many times when i backed out on hitting
send because i couldn’t think of what to say in my
cover letter. i remember searching for articles online
for some sort of guide to writing them and barely
being able to find any. the ones i did seemed to
produce cover letters that felt overly formal and
impersonal.

one of the things that made me most excited about

starting a literary journal was the chance to see how
other people approached writing cover letters, but
after the first couple weeks we opened for sub-
missions it was clear most people were either just as
confused by them as me, or had also found those
same unhelpful articles.

when i first thought of this project, i posted a tweet

asking people what questions they had on these
subjects. the questions i received from that along with
other things i think might be helpful are what this
guide is composed of.

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in the following pages is an FAQ-style guide on my
personal approach to writing cover letters, author
bios, and submitting work for publication in general. i
tried setting it up in a way that makes it easy to skim
through, answering the question right away and then
going into a longer explanation of why it’s preferred. at
the end of the first two sections i’ve included ex-
amples of exactly what i use for my own cover letters
and bios, respectively. feel free to copy/paste exactly
what i’ve written and replace it with your own info.

this guide is for you, the writer, to feel more confident

about submitting your work and to encourage you to
submit more. i hope everyone can get at least a little
something out of this.

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 writing a cover letter

how formal should my cover letter be?

my favorite cover letters to read are ones that are in-

formal and polite. think of it as you’re meeting some-
one who you have mutual friends with for the first time
at a small get together. you want to be yourself while
also making a good impression.

how should i start my cover letter?

i start mine with just “hi there”, usually followed by an

exclamation point. i want editors to know i’m excited
about submitting to them, to know i’m excited about
them taking the time to read my work. i used to start
off with “dear editor” but that’s grown to sound kind of
cold to me.

should i mention the editor by name?

if you know the editor’s name go ahead and use it in

your greeting, especially if you know them personally
or have talked to them before.

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what do i do if i can’t find the editor’s name?

it’s truly no big deal if you don’t know the editor’s

name, the simple “hi there”, “dear editor”, etc. is
sufficient enough.

don’t worry about starting off with something specific

like “dear poetry editor”, because if you’re using sub-
mittable then your submission will be filtered by the
category you submit under, and if you’re submitting
through email then your subject line should clearly
state what category you’re submitting to.

should i include my address and phone number?

no, truly there’s no reason a publication would need

that information. if you’re submitting to a print pub-
lication who gives contributor copies then they will ask
for your address when it’s necessary.

should i mention if i haven’t been published

before?

i actually really enjoy the opportunity to be the first to

publish someone. i remember how great it felt when i
got my first publication acceptance and i love being

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able to give someone else that feeling. if someone
says in their cover letter that they’ve never been
published before or this is their first time submitting
their work anywhere, it makes me want to like their
work. if their submission doesn’t end up being acc-
epted by us then i at least like to give them some sort
of feedback and encouragement on it.

do i need to include the name of each piece i’m

submitting?

if you’re only submitting one piece then it’s usually

nice to see the title in the cover letter, but with multiple
pieces there’s really no need to. for fiction sub-
missions it’s a good idea to include the word count for
each piece just to let the editor know how long they
can expect to spend reading it.

here are some examples of how i phrase the

beginning of cover letters for different types of sub-
missions:

- attached is my short story “[story name]” (1,500

words) which i would love to find a home for in
[name of publication]
- attached are 3 poems which i ….
- attached are 3 flash pieces (498, 731, 666 words

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 respectively) which i ….

should i mention if my submission is simul-

taneous or not?

i’d suggest that you don’t. by submitting work it’s clear

that you’re wishing to get it publish, so it’s assumed
you’ll be sending it out to as many places as you can
in order to fulfill that wish. if you mention it’s a non-
simultaneous submission then the publisher might not
make it a priority to consider since it’s not in danger of
being accepted elsewhere.

what exactly do you say in your cover letter?

my cover letters can sometimes vary, but 90% of the

time i copy/paste this in the email and just replace the
brackets with the appropriate info:

hi there!

attached are [# of poems] poems which i would

love to find a home for in [publication name].
thank you for taking the time to consider them
for publication.

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 writing a bio

how long should my bio be?

i prefer reading bios that are 1 to 4 sentences long.

you want to give the reader an idea of who you are
and where else they can find your work/connect with
you.

if you’re being published in print then i suggest the

shorter the better. page space is valuable for print
publications and the shorter their “author bios” section
is the cheaper they can print their zine/journal/mag
and the cheaper they can sell it for. a smaller bios
section is good for everyone.

what should be in it?

this is perhaps the biggest question in this guide and

one i already know i won’t be able to cover compre-
hensively enough. this is the formula i use for writing
my own: in the first sentence give your name and
current place you live. in the second mention if you’re
the author of anything notable, like a chapbook, full
collection, novella, etc. and/or if you’re involved in

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another publication in some capacity. in the third
mention 3 places you’ve been published in the past (if
you’ve been published in less than 3 places then i’d
recommend skipping this part, if you’ve been
published in more than 3 then just list the 3 places
you’re most proud of being published by and end this
sentence with something like “and elsewhere”). in the
fourth sentence mention links where people will be
able to see more of your work and/or interact with you
(personal website/twitter/tumblr/etc.).

some things i’ve seen other people mention in their

bios are things like country/date of birth, current place
of study, degrees earned, and literature awards won.

what do you say in your own bio?

the bio i use in publications follows the above formula:


Joseph Parker Okay lives in Tucson, AZ. He’s

a founding editor of Spy Kids Review and
2Fast2House. His work has previously
appeared in Hobart, Queen Mob’s Teahouse,
Alien Mouth, and elsewhere. He tweets
@verysoftlake.

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 your submission

what font should i use in my submission?

really anything reasonable goes, unless otherwise

stated in the publication’s submission guidelines.
personally i submit all my work in helvetica because
it’s the font i write in and it’s what i’m most com-
fortable with. i’ve noticed the most popular fonts used
in submissions we receive are ariel and times new
roman (in that order).

most likely the font you submit in will be changed

upon publication anyway, so just go with whatever
you’re comfortable with, unless otherwise stated in
the publication’s submission guidelines. (publishers
asking for a specific font has actually deterred me
from submitting to them before, seems kind of
suspicious for them to want to control such a small
aspect of a submission. asking for a specific font
comes across to me as a power move.)

what file type should i submit my work in?

word docs, whenever possible (unless, again,

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otherwise stated in the publisher’s guidelines).

before starting spy kids, it frustrated me when a

publisher’s submission guidelines specified they only
accepted word documents. i write primarily in pages
(word isn’t even installed on my computer) and
disliked that i needed to take the extra steps of
converting the file to .doc(x). now though i under-
stand there’s a good reason for this—in gmail (and
presumably other email servers) it won’t allow you to
preview .pages file types, so you need to download
the file in order to view it. if there are a lot of people
submitting that file type at the same time, more than
likely you’ll need to change each file’s name before
downloading them to be able to tell whose submission
is whose (usually people don’t name their documents
the most helpful things). these small things add up
quickly, and when you’re already taking so much time
to go through submissions the last thing you want is
something that’s easily avoidable to take up even
more of it.

PDFs cause trouble for different reasons. although

they are viewable in gmail previews, 99% of the time
line breaks don’t translate when copy/pasted,
meaning the editor has to go through and add the
breaks in appropriate places, which ends up being
extremely time consuming.

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how familiar do i have to be with a publication
before submitting to them?

honestly, not very. if it’s an online publication then

skimming through a few of their most recent published
pieces should give you an overall idea if your writing
will be a good fit for them or not.

if it’s in print and you don’t want to buy an issue, then

odds are you know of the publication because another
writer who you’re friends with or a fan of has been
featured in it before. use what you know of that
writer’s work to give you an idea of what the editors
are looking for.

do i have to read the submission guidelines for

every publication i submit to or will they all
generally be the same?

okay this one can be a pain but yes, absolutely

always read the guidelines. sure there will be a lot of
repeated info in each one, but they’re there for a
reason. the publication took time to explain their
preferences and you should know what those are
before submitting. if they’re taking the time to read
your work then the least you can do is take a minute
or two to read their guidelines.

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reading the guidelines benefits you in a large way.
there are some publications who will instantly reject
any work that doesn’t meet their criteria. file type,
submission limits, and reading period windows are all
very important guidelines to follow.

how long should i wait after submitting before i

email the publisher to check in on it?

if a publication hasn’t gotten back to you within a

reasonable amount of time (~8 weeks) then it should
be assumed that they’ve silently rejected you. it’s
really shitty but it happens. your email most likely
didn’t get sent to spam, and it probably wasn’t
accidentally overlooked. if they were excited about
your submission then they would email you back
within a reasonable amount of time.

if the editors are the type of people who silently

rejected submissions then they’re not the kind of
people who you want to be giving your work to
anyway. keep submitting it or keep editing it and
eventually you’ll find the right place for your piece.

well i got rejected, is it a good time to reply back

and tell the editors they’re fucking idiots?

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we all know how hard it can be to receive a rejection
email, but blaming the editors for your work not being
up to their standards isn’t going to make your writing
any better. there have been many times when i’ve felt
upset about having pieces rejected, but i went back
and rewrote and edited those pieces and made them
much better than they were before, something i
wouldn’t have put in the effort to do if they hadn’t been
rejected. most of the time, after rewriting a piece, i’m
thankful that it was rejected, because it gave me a
chance to make my work much stronger, and i would
have been embarrassed to have the version i
originally submitted to be published.

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 ––––––––––––––––––––

i really hope you’ve been able to get at least a little

something out of reading this guide. if there are any
questions you have that haven’t been answered here,
or if you’d like more of an explanation to any of the
questions that have been, please send them to me at
josephparkerokay@gmail.com and i will do my best to
answer them for you. also, if there’s anything i’ve said
in this guide that you disagree with, please feel free to
email and correct me.

i’m viewing this guide as a an ongoing project. i will be

periodically uploading new versions of it to include the
questions/corrections i receive in order to make this
guide as comprehensive as i can. it will always be
available for free/pay-what-you-want.

thank you for reading, thank you for caring. i’ll see you
all on the timeline.

joseph parker okay

tucson, az
july 2016

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