Use Email Templates

Many email providers let you create and save email templates for those emails you send over and over again.

Why?

• It saves time!
• They are excellent for query letters and interview requests, for example. Whenever you find yourself writing the same email over and over, consider creating a template.
• You can always customize it before you send it.
• It raises the professionalism of your emails by reducing the number of typos and other mistakes that sneak into them. Eliminate the need to re-read and edit every time.
• You don’t have to “rethink” what you’ll say every time. This lowers the risk that you’ll leave out a critical or clever element by mistake.

Gmail

To set up templates in Gmail, you have to first turn them on, then create and save one. Then, you can use it as often as you need.

• Gmail has done an excellent job with their template instructions, so I’m not going to repeat all that here. Plus, if they change, Google will keep it updated.

Outlook

Microsoft also does an excellent job of explaining how to create an Outlook email template and how to use an Outlook email template.

Tips & Best Practices

• You will always have the opportunity to edit your email before you send it, so don’t be afraid that it just goes. It doesn’t.
• You can save templates to create modular content and add more than one to your email (in Gmail / untested in Outlook——comment below if you know this is also possible in Outlook?). You could have a template for each of the following or whatever you can imagine:
• Salutation
• Body-ThankYou
• Body-NoThankYou
• Body-Yes
• Body-InterviewQuery
• Body-AgentQuery
• Body-ArtistQuery
• Body-PublisherQuery
• Body-MyBio
• Body-MyContactInformation
• Body-ShortStorySubmissionIntro
• Signature-Friend
• Signature-Pro
• Signature-Thanks
• Name your template well so you can recognize it immediately as the one you need.
• You can edit your template at any time and update it whenever your information changes.
• If you don’t use Gmail or Outlook, do a search on your email provider’s site for “Email Templates” to find out whether they offer them or not.
• I like to use capital letters to call out where I might want to insert a word. For example: “Dear NAME”. This makes it less likely that I will leave the placeholder in when I send it.
• You can automate sending a template using Filters.