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    Cover Letters, Follow-Ups, Queries & Book Proposals: Samples with Templates
    Cover Letters, Follow-Ups, Queries & Book Proposals: Samples with Templates
    Cover Letters, Follow-Ups, Queries & Book Proposals: Samples with Templates
    Ebook356 pages4 hours

    Cover Letters, Follow-Ups, Queries & Book Proposals: Samples with Templates

    By Anne Hart

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    About this ebook

    Once your cover letter is positioned first to be noticed, then how do you position the letters to be noticed for the longest time in a number of situations? What kind of thank-you letters work best?

    How do you ask for help in finding a job from a letter to a stranger, acquaintance, or business networking contact? How do you write a cover letter that will never be misinterpreted as a sales pitch or autobiography?

    How do you plan, write, and format an outstanding book proposal that lets the reader see the bottom line-profit for the publisher?

    Positioning your goal or project first means going where no one has gone before. It's where the competition is missing. Go where no one else has gone before when you plan, write, and format great cover letters, follow-up letters, and book proposals.

    Cover and follow-up letters or proposals could be applied to book proposals, book proposal cover letters, written marriage proposals, pre-nuptials, and courting. Cover letters could apply to love letters, letters to friends and relatives, business contacts at trade shows, or literary agents.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisheriUniverse
    Release dateApr 22, 2004
    ISBN9781532000171
    Cover Letters, Follow-Ups, Queries & Book Proposals: Samples with Templates
    Author

    Anne Hart

    Popular author, writing educator, creativity enhancement specialist, and journalist, Anne Hart has written 82 published books (22 of them novels) including short stories, plays, and lyrics. She holds a graduate degree and is a member of the American Society of Journalists and Authors and Mensa.

    Read more from Anne Hart

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      Book preview

      Cover Letters, Follow-Ups, Queries & Book Proposals - Anne Hart

      All Rights Reserved © 2004 by Anne Hart

      No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher.

      ASJA Press

      an imprint of iUniverse, Inc.

      For information address:

      iUniverse, Inc.

      2021 Pine Lake Road, Suite 100

      Lincoln, NE 68512

      www.iuniverse.com

      ISBN: 0-595-31663-8

      ISBN: 978-1-5320-0017-1 (ebook)

      CONTENTS

      Image370.PNG

      Introduction

      Chapter 1: Be First to Go There

      Chapter 2: How to Write Book Proposals

      Chapter 3: How to Format a Salable Book Manuscript

      Chapter 4: Best Action Verbs for Communicators

      Chapter 5: To be a Leader on Paper Start a Public Relations Campaign.

      Chapter 6: Pop-Up Public Relations for Your Proposals

      Chapter 7: Pre-Sell Your Book

      Chapter 8: Write About Nourishment and Power

      Chapter 9: Launch Your Writing Fast

      Chapter 10: Writing, Publishing, and Promoting Your Own Small Booklets

      Chapter 11: How to Format Your Book Manuscript

      Chapter 12: Electronic Press Kits

      Chapter 13: Cover Letter Mistakes and Mystiques

      Chapter 14: 15 Steps To Marketing To The New Media

      APPENDICES: A THROUGH Q

      Appendix A: Web Links

      Appendix B: Media Directories

      Appendix C: Marketing For Writers and Job Hunters

      Appendix D: Associations for Writers & Editors

      Appendix E: Writing Help Resources with Links

      Appendix F: Marketing Associations Writers Use for Resources

      Appendix G: Informational Resources, Associations, Government Libraries, and Agencies

      Appendix H: Finding Writing Jobs Online

      Appendix I: Reference Books/Sites for Writers

      Appendix J: Writers’ Unions

      Appendix K: Articles on Training, the Markets, and Career Advancement for Writers, Editors, and Publishers

      Appendix L: Video-Related Associations of Interest to the Media

      Appendix M: The Alternative Video And Broadcast Media

      Appendix N: Directory Of Cable And National Broadcast Media

      Appendix O: Video Wholesalers and Distributors

      Appendix P: Federal Agencies Making Videos

      Appendix Q: Bibliography: Video and Digital Media

      Introduction

      How do you write cover and follow-up letters for resumes, book proposals, creative projects, or grants funding? Cover and follow-up letters and book proposals need to show that you know precisely the steps involved to increase a company’s profit, solve problems, obtain results, and widen its distribution.

      This book is directed to those interested in learning how to write winning book proposals, cover and follow-up letters for resumes, proposals, and publicity. If you are a new author, you don’t have to be a celebrity in order for the facts in your proposed book to be promoted by publications, broadcast media, or trade journals.

      Your biggest hurdle will be to obtain telephone interviews from individuals who feel they are too important to be interviewed by freelancers. These individuals seek reporters on assignment by national big-name media. The media must have high credibility.

      Your job is to reach the credible national media by launching your book with that type of press before it is published. This book will help you link to that kind of media through professional associations, networking, and your news clips.

      Your first step is to publish news clips you have written on your own Web site. Offer material for national syndication such as weekly 400-word columns. The second step is to send out your material to print media while keeping your publishing rights on your columns for your proposed book.

      Cover letters and proposals work better with publishers than resumes. Often resumes are viewed as autobiographies and belong in the author’s biography brief paragraph at the end of a book proposal. Query letters are more informal than cover letters, but both need to be limited to one page. The cover letter below, for a book proposal, is a winner because it emphasizes information that is in high demand. Facts come from experts and primary sources.

      The cover letter below may also be sent in lieu of a query letter to the acquisitions editor of a book publishing house. You also may use it as your template for your own cover letters. The emphasis is on what information you have that is unique and fresh.

      If you adapt the cover letter template to a cover letter for your resume rather than for a book proposal, you can use the same principles. Show the reader what unique information, attitude, or skills you have that will attract new customers while keeping existing clients.

      That’s the bottom line to land any type of assignment, job, or book contract. Employers want to know what it will cost them to hire you. They will hire the person who costs them the least expense unless they are buying special experience that’s difficult to locate.

      Offer the reader the benefits and advantages in detail of what you can provide. If you have no experience, offer your attitude and information gathered from those with insight, foresight, and hindsight. Attitude is another way of providing information gathered from experts.

      Book Proposal Cover Letter Template and Sample:

      Name of Applicant

      Street Address

      City, State, Zip

      Phone

      Date__Month, Day, Year

      Name of Person

      Acquisitions Editor

      Company

      Street Address

      City, State, Zip

      Dear (Name of Person):

      Entrepreneurs showed me one hundred ways to bring clients back. After interviewing one hundred local and national businesses on how they attract new customers while keeping existing clients, my weekly 500-word news column communicates their solutions and strategies. Put 100 weeks’ worth of columns together, and a 50,000-word book results. Enclosed is my book proposal and resume with sample electronic news clips from the Keeping Customers Web site I created last year online to offer my column for national newspaper, trade journal, and magazine syndication.

      The information provides 100 fresh angles on techniques, tips, and strategies that entrepreneurs use to think outside the box. The insight includes what pitfalls to avoid. Each entrepreneur had a unique solution that works successfully to bring back existing customers, attract new consumers, or open new markets. What all business owners have in common is that they customize and tailor their services or products to the customers’ needs. They listen to questions and change horses in midstream with consumer demand. They jump through hoops.

      Interviewing business owners for success stories and pitfalls to avoid provides unusual anecdotes and experience with insight, foresight, and hindsight. The techniques show the reader how entrepreneurs deal with people, assess needs, and address them by customizing and tailoring through feedback. Details include how the feedback is applied in ten steps.

      The enclosed book proposal emphasizes how a variety of entrepreneurs have used ten strategic techniques to promote customer satisfaction. The techniques will make up the ten chapters of this book. One favorable result is that while promoting customer satisfaction, each business also has launched its credibility in the media.

      Thank you for considering my book proposal. I will call you next week at noon, if this is convenient. Feel free to telephone me at (area code) (your phone number) so that we can talk.

      Cordially,

      (Your Name)

      Enclosure: Book Proposal: Keeping Customers.

      CHAPTER 1

      Image370.PNG

      BE FIRST TO GO THERE

      Positioning your goal or project first means going where no one has gone before. It’s where the competition is missing. Go where no one else has gone before when you plan, write, and format great cover letters, follow-up letters, and proposals. The cover letters or proposals could be for work, business, publishing, marketing/ sales, publicity, or relationships of all kinds.

      Cover and follow-up letters or proposals could be applied to book proposals, book proposal cover letters, written marriage proposals, pre-nuptials, and courting. Cover letters could apply to love letters, letters to friends and relatives, business contacts at trade shows, or literary agents. Use the cover letters for your resume or apply them to any type of proposal or creative work.

      How do you use cover and follow-up letters to position first your resumes, proposals, relationship communications, marketing or sales connections and connections? Once your cover letter is positioned first to be noticed, then how do you position the letters to be noticed for the longest time in a number of situations? What kind of thank-you letters work best?

      How do you ask for help in finding a job from a letter to a stranger, acquaintance, or business networking contact? How do you write a cover letter that will never be misinterpreted as spam? What kind of letter won’t be viewed as another sales pitch for yourself or your service? How do you plan, write, and format an outstanding book proposal that lets the reader see the bottom line—profit for the publisher?

      After cover letters, how to you plan, write, and position first your follow-up letters? What types of letters bring people together? Act as a catalyst? Get you an interview? Position you first for inclusion in a job, business, or relationship? What type of letters position first, attract, and sell what you can do without looking like sales letters? What types of cover and follow-up letters are best sent with a resume?

      The Cover Letter

      Your cover letter shouldn’t look like a sales letter. Instead, it should detail with concrete facts how well you fit into a company or family. Sales letters get tossed as spam, especially online. What your cover letter is supposed to do is position you first. The first step in positioning you first in the reader’s mind is to show with active verbs how well you fit into the company or family. How do you show with active verbs instead of telling in a cover letter? You create an action verbs resource sheet in alphabetical order and draw on those verbs to show what you can do or what you did that brought profit into the company or harmony into a relationship.

      Everyone knows that cover letters really are sales pitches. No one is fooled. The best way to deal with the sales stigma of a cover letter without sounding as if you’re selling the ordinary is to point out that you know exactly how to attract new customers while keep existing clients. Using facts and short sentences, your cover letter clearly is going to show how you do it.

      Use words in a cover letter for a resume or a book proposal such as "detailed, activated, accomplished, adapted, advised, demonstrated, designed, detailed, encouraged, entertained, established, edited, enhanced, fixed, generated, identified, inspired, maintained, motivated, operated, persuaded, orchestrated, organized, produced, protected, provided, streamlined, succeeded, supervised, systematized, tested, troubleshot, upgraded, used, validated, visualized, won, or wrote. A list of active verbs appears in one of the appendices at the back of this book.

      Select the active verbs that apply to your situation. The point is the active verb needs to show results—the bottom line of how you will bring profit to the company or relationship. Be very concrete and detailed in explaining how you will do this. A cover letter, a book proposal, or a marriage proposal all use active verbs to show how you will bring in something the other part is seeking—either profit for a company, harmony for a relationship, love for a marriage, and solid explanations of how you will bring in what you promise.

      The cover letter personalizes your resume for each company. Before you sit down to organize your resume, first write your cover letter. Your mind will be focused on the position as you begin to sort the many details that will form your resume.

      Your cover letter is really a sales pitch letter. Only to position yourself first, you have to work the words like you would work a room at a convention or party, without letting the letter appear like a sales pitch. Think of your cover letter as a springboard or letter of introduction that brings people together. Without a cover letter on a resume, an employer will have to wade through your entire resume to find out how you will fit into the company. Your one-page cover letter introduces your resume and communicates a specific message about your value to a company.

      A great one-page cover letter begins by pitching (in the first sentence) exactly what position you want in a company. Define yourself as a specialist; today’s job market belongs to the specialist rather than a generalist. A cover letter also serves as a powerful introduction to (or umbrella for) anything else included in the envelope and is a sample of your communication skills.

      Magnet Questions in Your Cover Letter

      The first paragraph of your cover letter determines whether the reader will finish the letter. For your springboard, don’t let it sound like a spam-filled sales pitch. In the first brief sentence you need a positive magnet. Introduce who you are, your skills, or services. Describe specifically how your skills will be used in the company. Draw the employer toward you by stating how timely your services or skills are to the company. Or use a magnet question such as, What’s the most profitable and powerful resource you have? You are going to have to position yourself first as the company’s most powerful and profitable resource.

      Figure out how you can do it on the scale you are able to do. Then detail this kind of magnet question because it acts as a hook to capture your audience. Use this kind of catalyst magnet for employers, publishers, or clients. It goes beyond the sales pitch letter even if what you are selling are your skills. The other side sees your skills or services as a potential gauge of profit, results, troubleshooting, solving problems, or increase in production. That’s what a cover letter is about: making your proposal irresistible. Your proposal can be your resume or an actual proposal.

      You have a cover letter as your springboard. Your proposal or resume is your treatment. The offer made by the other side for you to negotiate is your contract. So what’s your pitch? It’s your first sentence and it should summarize everything you want to say in one sentence. For example, Star Trek is Wagon Train in space.

      Your pitch is not to be viewed as a sales pitch. It’s explaining what you are offering in your first sentence. Define and compare what you are offering to something familiar and universal. If the employer, client, or relative can recognize what you mean, you’ve explained yourself. That’s what a cover letter pitches in the first sentence: summarizing and explaining what you’re there to do for the person who reads your first sentence. That first few seconds seals the first impression. So pitch in the first sentence of your cover letter without letting the words hint of a sales letter.

      Next, convince the employer to hire you. The simplest way is to give employers an observation they can verify themselves. The observation can be about their needs, or your skills. Computer companies are always searching for new ideas to plug holes or fill needs in the industry. Position your cover letter and resume as a plug to fill a need.

      Try using exclamatory magnets like Velcro’ in the second paragraph of your cover letter. There are three types:

      1.  a fear magnet—where you list a series of corporate or business fears and then tell how you’ll solve the problems.

      2.  a story magnet—where you briefly explain how you will provide benefits to the company, using professional expertise or media contacts.

      3.  an exclamatory magnet or surprising statistics—where you mention surprising numbers or statistics associated with your career that startle the employer in a positive way. Use statistics to grab attention and motivate the reader to think about you.

      Finally, a persuasive cover letter closes by making you stand out from the crowd and get hired. (A resume doesn’t reflect the more action-oriented parts of your personality—it only states facts.) End the letter on a positive point. Show the employer how hiring you to apply your skills to the company’s needs will bring positive results. What are positive results for an employer?

      Positive results include more profit, increased production, problem solving, less employee turnover, lower costs of hiring employees, improvement of reputation, credibility, and image in the media, and bottom-line results—increased revenues. Positive results for you include happiness and security with the results you obtain from a cover letter, resume, or proposal.

      Does your fate really depend upon positioning yourself first on a pile of resumes and cover letters or proposals? It does in the mind of a reader with the authority to bring you in as part of a team. For further information on positioning yourself, read Al Ries and Jack Trout’s book, Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind, Warner Books, NY, 1986. It provides advice about how to stand out from the crowd and win.

      Cover Letter Tips

      •  Each time your resume goes to an employer, it should be topped by a cover letter. The courtesy of a cover letter is held in such high esteem by employers that resumes coming in without them frequently are discarded.

      •  As your computer skills and experience expand, you will have to work hard to condense them in a one-page resume or cover letter. Think of the entire computer industry as niches or areas of specialty. Your cover letter must be brief, but detailed enough to show your specialty or your unique qualities.

      •  Use your cover letter to personalize your communication and to establish a rapport with potential employers. Your goal is to build a relationship with someone who has the authority to hire you. A resume without a cover letter is too impersonal.

      •  The cover letter should express your enthusiasm and energy. It’s your unique style, strength, and personality type that should shine through and move an employer to think of ways in which you could benefit the company.

      Junk Mail or an Attention Grabber?

      In the computer industry, thousands of resumes a year may pile up on someone’s desk. These resumes begin to overwhelm an employer, and some may begin to see them as junk mail. These piles are given derogatory names like the slush pile in electronic publishing, the stable in information processing and technical communications firms, and portfolio puss in the corporate animation industry. How can you stand out? Only an action-oriented cover letter saves a resume from the heap.

      Your cover letter can emphasize that you’re an award-winning freelance writer, Web designer, or teacher or have recently completed an internship in journalism, counseling, new media, healthcare, design, marketing, genetics, government service, customer service, public relations, or programming. Maybe your volunteer work has won you recognition, or your sales record is outstanding.

      If nothing outstanding has happened to you in your work or educational life, or you are a re-entry parent who had spent the past decade or two rearing children at home and volunteering for projects or causes, then join an occupational, special interest, professional, training, national association, or trade association and learn all about the newest products of several companies. Join projects or libraries and museums as friends of or members.

      Volunteer to be on various boards or teams that focus on projects linking community and business. Genealogists can work with DNA-driven genealogy projects and surname groups. Act as a volunteer contributor to a local computer industry publication, or volunteer to do research or help out on a professional association’s special task force or speakers’ panel in your area of interest at the next convention.

      Most employers who place classified newspaper advertisements request cover letters to accompany resumes. Most jobs come from information given through friends and contacts at work or through courses and special interest groups, associations, and projects. The format of your letter is important. Your first step is to find out when to use cover letters in what kind of situations.

      Focusing on resumes only at first, or when seeking work, a job, or more customers and clients if you’re an independent contractor, you send a cover letter with a resume on ten different types of occasions. Notice that a cover letter is a noun, an object, sent in response to an active verb. The cover letter is active rather than passive. It accompanies the action taking place—the sending of a resume or proposal of any kind. The proposal can be for almost anything—a book proposal for a publisher or agent or a marriage proposal. The cover letter acts as a link to seal a relationship or ask for a contract.

      A cover letter also can be turned into a greeting card, and you’ll find in this book, samples of greeting card cover letters. So the cover letter is a kind of ‘seal’ or request for a legal contract. When accompanied by a resume, book proposal, or other springboard, the cover letter in one page tells the reader at a glance what will be in the resume or book proposal or even a marriage proposal. It works with almost any kind of proposal, resume, treatment, or report accompanying it. When you send a cover letter, you also send a follow-up letter.

      Ten Kinds Of Cover Letters

      You send a resume and cover letter when:

      1.  answering an advertisement.

      2.  writing to a specific employer—the

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