The first thing you could write in your first letter is your self introduction. Here are some tips for how to write a self-introduction that attracts your potential pen pal:

Tell your pen pal what your name is, around how old you are, and if you are a man or woman.

Though these tips may seem obvious, I have received many mails (especially e-mails) that include none of these kinds of information in the past. First, don’t you have a very strange feeling when you have to write back to someone and you have no idea how to call him? It’s the same thing for your future pen pal. Also, many pen-pallers care about if you are a man or woman. Finally, people often figure out what kind of things to write their pen pals based on their gender and age group (for example, if you are a young woman, you would not write about what kind of cute clothes you have bought to your pen pal who is an elderly man, unless he says he is interested in listening to that kind of story).

Tell your pen pal where you get your pen pal’s information.

Some people put their profiles on different sites, and they may be publishing different type of self-introduction based on what kind of people will visit each site etc. That is, your pen pal can figure out what kind of information you know from your profile if she knows where you saw her profile. Also, your pen pal will be reassured if you tell her that you found her profile from a pen pal site that she did sign up by herself.

Write about your hobbies and interests.

This is similar to the reason you may want to write about your hobbies and interestes when you submit your profile to a pen pal site. If you write to your potential pen pal because you have similar interests, he can start writing about it, therefore the correspondence will be enjoyable for both of you from the beginning. Even if you decided to write to him only based on his country, age etc. and you don’t have many things in common, you can write about your interests; he may know something about them and can figure out what to write you back more easily.

Use neutral words for closing, such as “Yours”, “Your new friend”.

People often do not write such words at the end of the e-mails, but for letters, you do write those words by convention. The words described above are quite neutral and are not overly formal or informal. The use of “Love” for your first letter is questionable, especially if it is between different sex and/or the culture of your pen pal’s country is not open to such an affectionate word.

Never force your pen pal to write you back.

Specifically, do not say something like “Be sure to write to me as soon as possible.” “I will be really sad if you don’t reply me”. The more you force your pen pal to write you back, the more relactant she will be to do so; no one likes to hear from someone who gives her some obligation, especially if it’s from someone she doesn’t know before! Your pen pal will write you back if you write an attractive mail, even if you don’t tell her to do so.

Pay attention to the difference in reply rate between e-mails and letters.

To speak from my experience, I got around 80-90% good replies from my pen pals when I wrote to profiles for snail mails, whereas I got only 60-70% when I wrote to people looking for e-mail pals. My self introduction was almost the same.
Probably this is because of the nature of e-mails - they are more anonymous, and they are a bit “volatile” because they are not written on something tangible like paper. If you really want to start e-mail palling write away, you could write to several people at once. But before doing that, think about the case that all of them replied you back and make sure that you can still write back to all of them - remember, your pen pals are not easily disposable!

Do not do mass-mailing.

I once received a mail that has a lot of mail addresses in the “From:” and “cc:” section other than mine. Did I write him back? No. First, I thought that the sender of this mail would be satisfied if any one of the people in this address list would reply him - it didn’t have to be me. Also, I felt that perhaps somebody in this list would write him back, since there were so many people in the list. The result? If most of the people on the list thought like me, then he must have received very few mails.

Ask questions.

Though it is not a good idea to interrogate your new pen pal with too many questions, it is a good idea to ask a few general, non-too-personal questions to your potential pen pal. This will give her the opportunity to start up her mail with ease and spread the conversation.

“Personalize” your mail.

Personalize” means to show your pen pal that your mail was written specially for him. It is quite the opposite of the mass-mailing problem above, but even if you are mailing to only one person, what if the content of the mail is such that the receiver thinks you are mailing out exactly the same mail to many other people? He is not as likely to reply it as a personalized mail. The easiest way to personalize your mail is to write about your common interest and show that that’s why you want to be a pen pal with him. For example, you can quote that your potential pen pal likes playing sports an say, “I read in your profile that you like playing sports. I like it, too, especially tennis and badminton. What kind of sports is your favorite?”. At least you can’t write this kind of mail with a one-click copy and paste, unless everyone you write to has exactly the same set of interests, therefore your mail will be more personalized.

Though it may sound basic, be honest.

If you lie about yourself and start corresponding with someone who was attracted to your false profile, would you be able to enjoy pen-palling in a different persona than your true one for many years? What if she knows the truth? Be honest about yourself from the beginning, if you want true friendship.

GOOD EXAMPLE

Hi Rachel,
My name is Diego. I am writing to you because I found your profile at the penpal site “PenpalsJPG.com” and it caught my attention because I was looking for a pen pal from an English speaking country, especially Canada.
I am from Argentina and I am currently in the 9th grade of a high school. I am living in Buenos Aires with my parents and my younger brother. I like learning about English and different cultures, listening to all kinds of music and playing sports. I belong to a tennis club at school. I am also interested in studying abroad in the future.
I hope that we can be good friends… If you are interested, please write me back and we can share more about ourselves and our cultures in the following mails.

Your new friend,
Diego

BAD EXAMPLE

Hi!
I am Diego from Argentina. I am interested in talking with people from all over the world. Please mail me and I’ll let you know more about myself.
Bye.