Hi Pals,

I wish to contact a fairly well known author to ask a couple of questions about one of his books. I really enjoyed the book and hoped for a little clarification on a couple of points.

Is there a "best way" of doing so? I was thinking of writing a cover letter to the publishers with a request to forward my correspondence. Is it even the done thing to ask for such things?

Jim (thinking it should have sent this to "Miss Manners")

Jim, sounds fine to me just include a statement telling the author you enjoyed the book, before tearing it to shreds. Gareth

Hello, Jim,

Contacting an author via the publisher is a perfectly acceptable thing to do. I'm sure that no-one would object to that.

Tom

Jim,
My own experience is that sending your correspondence to an author via his publisher with a covering letter is exactly the way to go about things. The covering letter means that you can seal the enclosed correspondence to the author if you wish.

Ciao,
GAC

But perhaps better not to - so the publisher can see you are not issuing death threats or demands for money or whatever. In my experience (twice), writers are well chuffed to get "interesting" mail from readers (I found a certain author known for a book about 1/7/16 to be extremely helpful)

John

Contact through publisher (open letter ) is fine. Before you do it, have you checked if the author has a website? Lots of them do and you can contact directly through that.
Marina

Thank you all for your replies, letter will be written to the publishers tommorrow.

Jim

PS John I think we may be thinking of the same author, although different book.

If you are giving a person a letter about themselves to pass on, the letter should be handed over unsealed and delivered sealed.

That probably applies here too. It sounds right to me anyway

zoo

I also collect Soviet militaria and a well known author put his email address on the back cover of one of his books and told me that he had been inundated with correspondance as well as roles advising on films and documentaries. It seems the logical thing to do in this day and age of the interweb thingybob.