Cover Letters

Rachel Swirsky has perfectly good ideas here, but...what kind of cover letter should you include with your submissions when it comes to something I'm editing? (We'll restrict it to that, because I can't speak for anyone else, although I think Ann would generally agree.)I recommend any or all of the following approaches:(1) You are a pointless pink boil on the backside of the world. Do not respond unless you publish my story. Publish my story or die. That is all.(2) I am Hambone O'Mallet III and I have published in Stringbean Rivet Review, Givenup Quarterly, Starry Tales of Hairy Men, Bored Off My Ass Biannual, and The Vegetarian Shoemakers' Annual Census Report. My story "Thermonucleus of the Brain Pan from Hell" has 5,000 words in it and is about a thermonucleus that escapes from a brain pan. In Hell.(3) I am a member of SFWA and [rest redacted due to National Boredom Security Standards].(4) Good morning! May the Lord bless you! I am a psychic currently living in a small house in New Hampshire who has had the most amazing experience with an alien life force. No one would believe me if I wrote it as nonfiction, so I have made you a short story, which I have attached to this email. I am looking forward to your thoughts about my experience.(5) I have been having the ribbon dreams again, and this is what the ribbon dreams produce--this story, about my ribbon dreams. I think a lot of people will want to pay good money to read about my ribbon dreams, so I hope you can offer enough cash to make it worth my while to choose your anthology as the final home for my story.All five of these work equally well. Do you know why? Because I won't read your cover letter, and if I do, it won't make any difference. Cranks have written great literature and pros have written turds.I'll sample your story, and if I like that sample, I'll keep reading. And if I don't, I won't.(And: If I know your name, I know your name. If I don't, I don't. As far as influence of that nature goes.)Jeff