Email is a very intimate kind of a medium. And it’s perfectly acceptable to be personable and chatty. Try to take a formal business letter and put it into an email is nonsensical at this point. Emailed pitch letters are a new medium, you need a new approach to it.

Because what you want a pitch letter to accomplish is to make the journalist feel like they can talk to you, want to talk to you. If you can talk to a journalist on the phone, you can pretty much get a placement. You want to get the journalist interested in finding out what you are talking about and what you have to offer. You want to do it really quickly. You don’t want to waste your time trying to get the journalist to talk.

For more tips on new approaches to this new and fascinating medium, check out Transcript—How To Write a Pitch Letter.