Don't Rush The Process

Stop rushing people!

I do honestly believe there are a lot of great writers out there. The problem though, is we will likely never see their work simply because they are rushing things and making, what I call, stupid mistakes. The end result is a rejection letter for a project that might have been good. It might also mean you are getting "one more rejection letter" because  you sent it to the wrong person, or didn't read the submission guidelines.

Far too many authors rush through the submission process. It is almost as if they feel if they don't get submit their project to that editor or agent immediately, the editor or agent will disappear and will never be there again. This is far from the case. For the most part, we are all hear 24/7/365 thanks to digital submissions. Publishing IS NOT going to go away.

Yes, I know there are some of you who have bought into the myth that you have to get your book into the system while the trend is still there. That's fine. but that does not mean the moment you finish your book and type the words THE END, you start hitting send on all of your submissions.

It is interesting that just recently, I did an article from some online journal (can't remember which one right now but it doesn't matter for this point). I received my copy the same day as everyone else did and within hours of it hitting my "in box" I was bombarded by authors submitting projects to me. What was interesting is that many of these authors had in their query letters that they had been aware of my work for some time. Hmmm? I would doubt that because they also mentioned they were excited about the article in the journal. The odds are, these people had their "stock" query letter ready to go, saw the article and started submitting. The problem? They didn't research to see what I was accepting at that time. Every one of the submissions was turned away for the simple reason these were projects I did not acquire.

Sure, it is OK to get excited about submitting. It is also great to "discover" a new editor or agent who you didn't know about earlier and you want to submit your writing to that publisher or agency. But before you do any of that, take the time to research. Make sure you writing is ready. Make sure your writing is truthfully what the professional is looking for.