How Successful Writers E-Mail

One of the most surprising things I’ve learned over the past few years of running this blog and entering the world of food and writing is this: when e-mailing a famous writer–food writer or not–the best strategy is to keep your e-mails short short short.

Eight paragraphs about your life, love and devotion to this writer’s writing will not win you much favor. Instead, pare it down to just a few sentences. You’d be shocked at what writers, when e-mailing one another, sacrifice to keep their e-mails short. The bloody corpses of punctuation, syntax, grammar and logic are strewn across countless e-mails in my inbox. And yet when I re-read e-mail exchanges I’ve had with successful writers, the e-mails are always pointed, smart, and incredibly succinct.

Same is true, actually, for agents and editors as well as producers, publicists, and directors. Keep it brief, keep it smart, and you’ll be rewarded. Just a tip from your old friend, The A.G.

Tags: tips, writing

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