Cover Letters and Synopses: Advice For Children’s Writers

Claire Hennessy | originally published at writing.ie

The first thing I want to say is this: I feel your pain. You have a wonderful idea for a book. You start working on it. You get stuck, and you keep going – because you’re persistent, and you know that if you don’t keep at it, you won’t finish your project. Then you set it aside for a bit before returning to it with a view to making it as good as it can be – polishing it up to the very best of your ability.

And then you’re faced with the prospect of condensing all that work, all those ideas, all that magic, into two short documents – the cover letter and the synopsis. It feels unfair. It feels like those two short documents can’t possibly do your wonderful manuscript justice.

Well. They can’t. There you go. They’re not supposed to. The cover letter is supposed to tell a reader – editor or agent – something cool to get them interested. It’s supposed to give them a general sense of what a manuscript is like, and also to do some box-checking – is this manuscript broadly within the parameters of what we expect for this genre or, in the case of children’s fiction, age group? (For example, 10,000 words is way too short for YA, and way too long for a picture book text.) The synopsis is a tool to refer to if needed, to get a sense of the overall plot of the book. Neither is a substitute for reading the first few pages. The writing itself still matters, and that’s still what will draw in a reader.

But! It obviously helps if these supporting documents are doing their best for you too, so here are a few bits of advice. Some of them will, I hope, be general enough to be relevant to everyone; others are very much coming from a kidlit perspective.

DO keep it short for both cover letters and synopses. It’s okay for a cover letter to be half a page – really. A synopsis of one page is a beautiful thing.

DON’T use your synopsis to share every tiny thing that happens in the book – accept that it will not be entirely representative of the complexity of your work, and include the key plot points only.

DO start off a synopsis by telling us something unique about the world or the main character, and then something that HAPPENS.

DON’T make a big fuss over keeping the ending mysterious in your synopsis – it’s a document that sometimes feels a bit like a blurb but should reveal more secrets than the back of a published book ever would, including any Big Reveals (so an editor or agent can see if they actually work!). 

DO mention any relevant biographical information in your cover letter – for example, work experience in a publishers’ or literary agency, working at a literary festival, working in bookselling or in libraries – as well as your writing experience (published work or courses taken).

DON’T say that your children, grandchildren or students loved the story. I’m sure they did, but that might be your own delivery of it as much as the text itself, and it doesn’t necessarily mean that the story will appeal to a wider audience.

DO make sure to include the word count, intended age range and genre of your book, ideally in the first paragraph.

DON’T say that it’s ‘a book for all ages’. It may well have potential to cross over into different readerships but you should still have a sense of where its one natural home would be in a bookshop.

DO make your work as good as it can be before submitting it. Writing is rewriting, and while it’s very tempting to hit ‘send’ as soon as you’ve finished a first draft, it’s absolutely crucial to take the time to revise, rework and edit. It’ll make your work stronger and increase your chances no end. 

DON’T apologise for your work. This is a tricky one, particularly if you are Irish and well trained in the art of ‘ah sure it’s no good really, it’s probably rubbish, sorry for taking up your time, sorry for breathing, I’ll just sit over here in the dark’, but be strict with yourself and ensure that you’ve removed all self-deprecatory remarks from your cover letter before you submit. You’re asking someone to take the time to read your work and consider it for publication – so make sure it’s work that you’re confident in and are sure you’ve done the best job you can with.

DO be persistent – getting a ‘no’ from one place doesn’t mean that it’s not right for somewhere else. Really. Really. REALLY.

DON’T be a stalker – if you get a ‘no’ from somewhere, don’t demand to know why if they haven’t already given you a reason (related note: it is sometimes useful to avoid opening up responses from publishers after alcohol has been consumed), and don’t resubmit to them unless it’s a new project or you’ve completely and utterly reworked the manuscript.

DO start work on something new (not a sequel to the project on submission) while you’re waiting to hear back from editors or agents. It is good for your soul and for your writing career to have another project on the go – it keeps you sane as you wait for responses and it ensures you’re moving forward with the part of publishing you have the most control over, the actual writing.