I swear, when I’m sorting through the slush, I’ve started to develop something of a sixth sense for picking out the automatic passes for Shawna. Now in theory, I shouldn’t have to keep a watch out at all. In theory, the author will use the cover letter to inform me of his/her respective writing credits. I in turn will look at these credits and will be able to decide if I should automatically pass such a story along to Shawna.
Mind you, this is just in theory.
Now if you’ve published in RoF before, you’re an automatic pass to Shawna. Most (if not all) of the RoF authors are aware of this and after almost five years, a number of them are quite familiar with my process. So there are a few regulars with the magazine that don’t bother with cover letters, because they know that I know them well enough that I’ll recognize their names and pass their manuscripts along to Shawna. And some of them keep their cover letters very informal for the same reason. That’s very understandable.
But then there is another group of authors. These are authors have never published in the magazine. I don’t know them personally and have never heard of them in passing. Some of these authors should be automatic passes to Shawna based on their past writing credits. This is where the cover letter is rather invaluable. And for some reason, some of these authors just don’t provide their credits in the cover letter. Now if you’re George Martin, Neil Gaiman, or someone of this caliber (in terms of name recognition), I doubt it makes much of a difference. Basically everyone has heard of you. But unfortunately, most authors don’t fall into this category.
Hundreds of speculative novels are published every year. I know a lot of names and am becoming aware of new ones all the time (along with the movers and shakes on the short fiction scene, of course). But it’s impossible for me to know every single name of every single active author who should be an automatic pass to Shawna. That’s what cover letters are for. Now I’d imagine some of these authors are assuming that Shawna will be the first person to see their manuscripts and perhaps she knows them, so not listing your credits is no big deal. I can understand the assumption, but at the same time, once you mail off your manuscript, all bets are off. Unless you’re standing over the shoulders of the editors in the various editorial offices, you really don’t know for sure who is the first person that’s looking at your manuscript and whether that person has heard of you. So it’s really better to be safe than sorry in this instance.
That’s one scenario. Another scenario could be that these authors just expect that Shawna (or whoever) has heard of them, even if she (or whoever) doesn’t know them personally. That strikes me as a risk not worth taking. So again, better safe than sorry.
Now, I don’t know which category this current manuscript falls into. But in looking at the cover letter, it listed no credits whatsoever, and overall it was rather brief (one sentence). The name of the author meant nothing to me, and yet something about the phraseology in that one sentence made me think this might be someone who should be automatic pass. So I did the whole Google search thing. And sure enough, s/he (protecting the author’s identity here) had a speculative novel come out with one of major houses some years back. So all of the sudden s/he became an automatic pass.
So, to come back to the subject header to this post …I really think I’m developing a sixth sense for this sort of thing. I doubt I would’ve picked up on something like this three or four years ago. But now …it’s like an itch, and I just can’t help but investigate. Glad I did … but I can’t help but wish more authors would opt for the better safe than sorry approach, not just for my benefit, but also theirs.
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Not sure how much a Writers of the Future win counts at ROF, but I am keeping my fingers crossed that it gets me somewhere. I don’t write a lot of fantasy, but when I do, this is my top place to send, as writer and subscriber.
I certainly recognize publication in WOTF as a professional writing credit. That said, I’ve never posted the exact system in determining what constitutes an automatic pass if one’s fiction credits fall strictly into the non-novel variety. The idea of doing that has never sat well with me, even when I was handling the slush back in my first year.
do you care about cover letters other than publishing credits?
I hesitate to give a blanket “no” to this question. There are other things in cover letters that might be worth mentioning. For example, if you’ve attended the Odyssey, Clarion, or one of the other fine speculative workshops out there, I know that you’ve had some very good writing teachers. I’ve pulled a number of writers from the slush who have attended workshops such as these. It doesn’t mean I’m automatically going to set aside, but it certainly doesn’t hurt to let an editor know this. Or if you’re writing a story that employs a lot of medieval weaponry and you happen to be a medieval weapons expert, hey, that’s good to know. Or if you’re writing a story set in Mozambique and you’ve actually visited Mozambique, well, it doesn’t hurt to tell me that. So there are exceptions besides just mentioning your publishing credits. But yes, publishing credits do tend to be the most important thing in a cover letter.