Friday 10 October 2014

Always check before you submit!

Luckily, I did check... but what I almost did was submit a novel without making the final changes. I still had all the 'track changes' mark-ups intact. Oops.

In February, I sent my novel out to three wonderful ladies, who said my novel was great and made several very good suggestions for improvement. I incorporated the changes, using 'track changes' so I could un-change them later if I thought of an even better idea. Then I put the doc to one side and got on with lots of other stuff.

And completely forgot about it until this week when I decided I should submit it. At first I thought it was a few easy 'accept change' issues, but then I got to a part where a character arc needed to be clarified - going right back to his introduction, I think. So now I'm heavily into revision mode.

(You'll note I'm finally using the word novel... It's 50,600 words - which is very, very long for me. I just hope I don't revise too much and bring the word count down too far.)

I did manage to submit another piece though, which came back a day later saying 'D'oh, check our guidelines, we don't do this!' - which would have been fair enough, if I hadn't tweeted them to check the very thing they complained I hadn't checked. I was a little bit annoyed, so I immediately sent it out again - at about 11pm last night. I'm not entirely sure I do my best work at 11pm, so I'll just have to see what happens.

Have you ever made/almost made silly submission errors?


23 comments:

  1. Hi Annalisa - it's so easy to get carried away writing and forgetting to check things out .. I'm sure we all do it - I only blog ... but I can imagine with a novel it'd be daunting ... good luck with the submission though ..cheers Hilary

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    1. Thanks Hilary. I can make errors in a comment, a Facebook post or a tweet too :-)

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  2. Glad you caught that! I'm bold - I pull up the original file and make the suggested changes there while going through the one that's marked up.

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    1. I haven't quite worked out the best way to make the changes yet - but I imagine actually completing them is important :-)

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  3. oh yeah - double triple check before pressing send. I'm even careful on blog comments. Too easy to make mistakes. Good luck on what you've sent!

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    1. I do check, but I was sure this novel was complete and I'd just not got round to submitting it anywhere!

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  4. Well. Once, when I was still querying, I had the terrible luck of pressing the wrong button on Goodreads, which ended up spamming every single one of over 100 agents with friend requests...

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  5. I once sent out a query letter in which I had misspelled the editor's surname and the thing is I had doubled checked it twice. Needless to say, I never heard back from that editor ever again.

    Congratulations on the progress with your novel and good-luck with your submissions.

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    1. Ah, yes, I can see spelling the editor's name wrong wouldn't bode well. Annoying when you've checked it though.

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  6. When querying an agent who required a 1 page synopsis, I spent HOURS trimming my 2 page synopsis down to one page. Then I sent the query and forgot to paste the synopsis in. Had to follow up with a second "Ooops" query.

    Yeah, I never got a response from that agent. :P

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    1. Oh no, after all that work! I often have to send 'oops' follow up emails, but so far - touch wood - not when it's been important. I did reply to a blogger who was interviewing me without attaching the interview.

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  7. That's not fair they said they weren't looking for that when you'd already confirmed they were. Obviously not everyone at that place got the memo.

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    1. They said they hadn't so far... which to me sounded as though they wouldn't be adverse to a submission. I will be generous and say that I obviously misunderstood.

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  8. I once entered a query giveaway then realized I was completely unprepared when I won. Was able to get the query done and fixed up but it came close. Got some good feedback. Always be careful before you submit or enter anything.

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  9. I'm glad you submitted your piece right away again - someone will be very lucky to get it. :)

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  10. It always pays to double check, but yes...I have made silly mistakes when I was rushing. That's how I learned to always double check my emails. Good luck, Annalisa!!

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    1. I sometimes cringe when I re-read emails that I've sent out already!

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  11. Best of luck with your submissions and it never hurts to double (or triple) check :)

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    1. Triple, quadruple and - er, whatever comes after that :-) Thanks Mark!

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  12. Hi Annalisa!! best of luck with the submission and I am wishing you a wonderful Monday :)

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