Have a Professional Email Address for Your Submissions

Professionalism. You want to be taken seriously when you submit your work (even if it’s humorous!) You are a professional asking another professional to consider working with you. One simple piece of the professionalism puzzle is your email address.

What sounds more professional: puppypants@woof.com or HeatherBurnell@gmail.com?

While I do get a good chuckle out of a funny email address, and maybe an agent or editor will too, that’s not what we should be going for when we choose the email address we’re using to submit our work. Publishing is a business. We need to put our best business face forward.

Don’t use something cutesy, a nickname, numbers, the title of your book (you’re writing more than one aren’t you?), or any of the bazillion other things you could use for an email address. Name recognition is a good thing.

Agents and editors get tons of emails. Your name is part of your submission package. It’s in your query letter sign off. It’s on your manuscript. Your name is important! Make it easy on those overworked agents and editors if they are trying to find your email. Have you ever done a search for a name in your email? If you haven’t, give it a try and see how it works.

So, be silly with your personal email address all you want, but have a business-like email address for sending out those submissions!