IELTS task1: Your friend has had his/her first book published

Letter to a friend

Question:
Your friend has had his/her first book published a few days ago. He/she has recently sent you a copy of that book.
Write a letter to this friend. In your letter,

congratulate him/her for having his/her first book published
thank your friend for sending you a copy of the book
say what do you think about the book

My Answer:
Dear James,

It has been a while since we exchanged our text. But I am glad to see your first publication and I was overwhelmed with happiness after receiving it through a courier.

You appear inspiring for my eyes while I recall your hard work and effort you took to achieve your first book published. Definitely, it is not so easy though, however, my hearty wishes for your first level of achievement.

Besides, thanks mate, It means a lot for me to thinking about I am one of your important person to be considered to send a copy of the book. The moment I have received the book, I have started reading it. It is not only exciting but also very interesting. I have completed reading almost four chapters until now.

I think it is a good start for you to go ahead to publishing more books on various topics and awareness. Therefore, you would be considered as an talented local author.

Once again, thanks for sending me a copy of the book and I am so proud of you. My best wishes for upcoming publications.

Yours sincerely,
Yusa

Kind note: Please give rate my letter scale of 1-10, to improvise

I must admit, I do not know the requirements for this task, but few things look out of place in this letter.

It has been a while since we exchanged our text. So it has been a while since you heard from him, ok. But in the next paragraph, you said: I recall your hard work and effort you took to achieve your first book published seems a little contradictory, how do you know about his efforts if you haven't talked?

The main issue I have with your phrase: , thanks mate, the letter is so warm, kind and respectful, but you tainted it with this informal phrase. I do not think mate, dude, etc is acceptable.

Thanks for your comments.

I recall your hard work and effort you took to achieve your first book published - recall represents earlier memories
mate- i have mentioned it because it is a letter to my friend so, i wanted to make it slightly informal

I would rate this a 4. It is lacking too many casual and cordial letter writing elements for it be considered passable. While people from the UK often use the term "mate" to indicate a friend, something not known to many people but definitely helped your letter, that was the only element of the letter that appeared to be casual and friendly. Your letter still sounds too serious. This is perhaps due to your writing the letter to an imaginary person instead of a real person. You did not need to use an English name to refer to as a friend in the letter. You could have used the name of your best friend. You are not being scored on what kind of friend name you use, just make sure to use a gender reference in the letter to indicate the sex of the person for example, you could have made a reference that:

In one of the scenes, you described a fishing trip the main character had with his father. It brought back memories for me. The dialogue "Yusaf, hold the worm tightly. It won't bite. Boys need to learn how to fish!" This was exactly what your father told you the first time we went fishing with him. Do you remember that? You fell out of the boat, exactly the way you described it in the book. The scene allowed me to relive our childhood. Thanks for that opportunity mate.

You cannot avoid using gender references in the letter. It was indicated as a useful scoring point in the instructions through the he/she references. You would have been scored on it. Please take note of the relaxed tone of the letter and the natural insertion of the word made in the writing. That is what you should be aiming for.

The letter is still too formal. It lacks the friendly and congratulatory tone that you would have had, if you were writing to an actual friend. When writing a letter to a friend, imagine you are actually writing the letter to a friend of yours. That way your letter will be more friendly and less formal in approach. You sound like you are writing to a stranger that you just met and are currently trying to befriend/ You need to be more relaxed when writing friendly letters.

Thanks for your review and comments