I've been writing some short stories, which I hope to send to some magazines to see if I can get them published. I'd love to be in a position where I have some backing when it comes to trying to publish my Fantasy novel, so I thought it might be helpful if I start building a portfolio.

So my question is, when you send off a letter with your work, what does your cover letter say? What points should you make sure are included? Are you be 'introducing yourself' to the publisher, or should the cover letter be quite short and to the point?

I'm going to do some researching online as well, but I thought I'd ask here as I know some of you guys have already gone through this process.

Many thanks!

Cover letters should definitely be short and to the point.

Other than that, there are things that are up to the submission details of the particular place you're sending your story to. It's worst when they want a cover letter, but they don't tell you what they want in it. * shudders * I hate that.

I've actually had difficulty trying to work out exactly what is to be on a cover letter a lot... it's been the most worrisome thing about story submissions for me so far. I like it best when they don't ask for one and just have a submissions manager, or instructions for sending via email without any cover letter. So far, though, I've read dozens of online articles about how to write them, guessed where I couldn't get a good answer, and been as brief (a necessity) and neat as possible – and I haven't made any horrible mistakes yet, nothing any editors felt worth mentioning or ignoring me for. So I guess that's my advice on the subject.

Thanks for the helpful advice, Juliet! Work got busy so I haven't had time to re-write my story yet. I have a very quiet week this week (at present), so I am hoping to do it this week and maybe work on a cover letter.