Thursday 6 November 2008

Do you bother in December?

I was reading somewhere the other day an article about a freelance writer who said that they never submit in December. Their theory was that work submitted in December was more likely to be "misplaced" than at any other time of year. They also indicated that fewer stories/articles are accepted in December.
I've only been submitting for two years so I don't have a lot of experience to base it on but I did wonder what those of you with more experience thought.

6 comments:

Annie Wicking said...

My guess is, GBW that at this time of the year everyone's mind is on getting ready for the Christmas holiday so I guess agents and publishing companies are the same as the rest of us and they are winding down too.

All Christmas short stories would be published by now as the magazines are one month ahead and the New Year stories are already in the pipeline. Publishers would be pushing their top/ bestselling authors' books in the shops aimed at the Xmas gift market to earn as much money as they can for themselves and their writers.

Its not until after Christmas that they start thinking about the summer sale of holiday books, but you have to remember book festival then start of the beginning of the new year too.

Best wishes,

Annie

Colette McCormick said...

It makes sense I suppose. i guess that I'll spend the next six weeks polishing and preparing and then come the New Year it'll be submit submit submit.

Jean said...

I wonder if that makes January a bad month for submitting, too. Perhaps publishers are inundated in January with writers who waited until after December. Maybe also more in January because of those of us who make a new year's resolution to get our stuff submitted.

Anonymous said...

The idealistic side of me really hopes that this is not true. It would indicate a distinct lack of professionalism on a publisher's part, if they were less careful with submissions. By all means go slower because of the Xmas period, but don't other wise drop quality standards.

Realistically, the Xmas (pronounced "commercial") period is responsible, in my opinion, for a great many cock-ups across many businesses. Just try buying anything "normal" in the shops from now until January!

Karen said...

That's interesting - I've only been submitting this year so I didn't know that, but I might give it a miss to be on the safe side :o)

Colette McCormick said...

I looked back on my submission list and the magazine that lost a couple of my stories received one of them in December and the other in January. Maybe there is something in it. Like Jean said maybe January is a bad month too because of everyone's New Years resolutions. I want to think that if something is good enough it will still be accepted no matter what time of year but that's assuming that it's not lost. I'm with the captain in hoping that this sort of thing doesn't happen but it happens in almost every other industry so why not publishing.
BTW Good to see you here Jean. Please come again.