ANSWER: Getting your letter in print often has more to do with chance and luck than controllable factors, but there are still a few things you can do to boost your odds. First, keep it short. Each newspaper has guidelines on length, but if you can stay well under the suggested word count, your letter becomes a more flexible tool for editors with finite space. Secondly, be pithy-to the point-and don't ramble. Like a Muhammad Ali jab, strike quickly, then get out. Third, make sure you leave multiple ways the paper can contact you to verify you are the author. In a hectic office, it may be the writer who is immediately available who gets printed-and the one who returns a message hours later that gets bumped. Finally, don't send the same letter to multiple papers. It's lazy, and it also ticks off editors who will blacklist you if they end up running the same letter that other papers run.

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