7 Tips How to Write a Letter to a Favorite Author and get a Response
There are many stories about fans writing authors and receiving letters back. There are probably just as many where the author didn’t write a letter back.
But there are certain things you can do in order to better your chances of receiving a letter hand signed by your favorite author, and you’re not getting any younger so you might as well try now.
1. Hand Written
In my opinion, this is one of the most powerful tools in your arsenal. We live on social media now. It’s all too easy to tweet your favorite author or find them on Facebook, but that isn’t nearly as special as receiving a handwritten note.
Authors are humans and as humans we feel emotional towards gestures.
If a stranger writes me on Facebook and says kind words I’m pretty ecstatic. It feels good. But depending on the day, I may or may not respond. I think you would feel the same.
If a stranger wrote something nice about you, it’s fairly common to feel great about that and maybe or maybe not write back.
But if someone sent you a letter in the mail that was handwritten, how would you feel?
Personally, I love handwritten notes. Even in college when I received them I kept pretty much every single one. There’s something about handwritten notes that is fun and special.
So the point is if you want to give your favorite author a boost in their day and leave an impression go with a handwritten letter if you can.
2. Be Sincere
When I receive an email from the CEO of a company and it says thanks to me for something and that they are working hard for me and it says from the desk of the so-and-so signed CEO, they would have saved time not writing it at all. It might as well have said “Blah, blah, thanks for buying from us.”
That probably would have gotten more kudos from me because it was more sincere than the junk they come up with and send out in mass.
Of course, as a fan you’re not going to be mass emailing your list of authors, but you can still botch up a letter by not being sincere.
And it’s not that you’re trying to be insincere; it’s more to do with communicating your feelings in a way that helps the other person (in this case the author) understand where you’re coming from better.
It might come across as insincere if you say “Your my favorite author and your book saved my life. Thank you so much, love Jeremy”
But why?
Well for one, if my book saved someone’s life, I’d want to know the story, not just that it happened. And you can’t just tell someone they are your favorite whatever, you have to give it more explanation to make it believable, otherwise it might come off insincere.
3. Give Specific Details
If you want your favorite author to reply to your letter, give them details that they can appreciate and relish for years to come.
C. S. Lewis is one of my favorite authors. If I wrote him a letter today it would have a statement like this in it,
“I have read and listened to many of your books. Currently my favorite is The Horse and His Boy. I can’t put my finger on why, but I imagine it has to do with Shasta and his intimate interactions with Aslan.
One of my favorite moments, and I’ll paraphrase, it’s when Shasta is upset about his friend’s story compared to his own and Aslan tells him it’s not his task to know about our handle other people’s stories he only gets to know about his own.
It’s moments like this that I search for and wait for where Aslan says something so profound that it feels like it changes me as a person and changes the way I see life…”
Note of course I would polish it up and go bam to the books and make sure I share the deals correctly, but You would want to tell them something that has become important to you about their writing.
4. Share a Story that Includes a Change in You
As I mentioned in my little note to Lewis his writing has helped me change and grow as a person.
You’ll want to try to find something like this to include in your letter.
It’s extremely meaningful to an author to know that their work impacted your life for the better, and if you’re truly grateful about it you should include it in the letter.
5. Include a quick question
When I say quick, what I mean is something that won’t take the author an hour to answer.
It should be a question that they can easily answer in 5 minutes or less.
It should also be thoughtful though. Nothing like, “What’s the weather like in England?”
More like, “when you wrote The Horse and His Boy, did you know how it was going to end when you started it?”
This would be easy to answer. It’s interesting and thought provoking, and honestly I’m super curious to know.
By including a thoughtful question it gives the author more reason to write back instead of just to say thank you.
And who knows maybe they’ll ask you something and you’ll gain a pen pal or a friend.
Authors need friends too.
7 Tips How to Write a Letter to a Favorite Author and get a Response
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6. Authors Writing Back
There are several stories out there about authors writing back.
It does happen and here are some of those moments to inspire you writing your favorite authors.
One gentleman has been writing letters to authors he appreciates for years and has received many replies.
He wrote Clive Cussler, Jeffrey Deaver, Cynthia Voigt, T. Jefferson Parker, and Bruce Coville. All of these responded to him.
He even wrote one author he wouldn’t name that eventually ended meeting up with him and they have become casual friends.
Make a habit out of something and who knows where it will go?
Someone wrote about doing a book report on Isaac Asimov in highschool. They wrote him to ask him a question and he sent them a typed answer with his signature.
Dean Koontz wrote back a fan in the 90’s.
This is not an exhaustive list of the stories that are out there about authors writing back to fans, but just some to hopefully inspire you to give it a shot.
If you’ve been reading a certain author for a while and been thinking about writing them, just go for it.
7. Finding Authors Online
Here we suggest a handwritten letter, but there is still merit in finding an author online.
Authors have been known to respond to tweets, emails, and even Facebook.
Jane Kirkpatrick emailed back and forth with a fan over a heartfelt thank you email and afterward sent them something signed in the mail.
Some authors even want a lot of fan feedback and manage Facebook fan groups so fans can easily find them and share their thoughts.
It’s worth googling and looking on Facebook and Twitter to see if your favorite made a place for you to reach them.
Final Thoughts…
When you take the time to write your favorite authors, you’re doing them a service to appreciate them and their work.
Don’t be bothered if they don’t have time to write back.
But if you want to up your chances make your letter unique from others by being heartfelt and emotion provoking.
Be detailed and give them a moment that changed your life because of their work.
Be vulnerable and ask them a good question at the end that gives them more reason to write you back than just a simple thank you.
They may not write back but at least you did your best to make someone else feel good about themselves and their work in life.
Hope this helps!
Happy writing!
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