Ever addressed your submission to the wrong editor or journal?

I've made mistakes like this enough times. Now I obsessively check that all names are correct, go back to reread things, check addresses, at least six times before sending every. single. email. It's tiring. Every (professional email gives me a mild case of anxiety.

I'm definitely an obsessive submission email checker. Never have I spent as long on an email as I did on my very first query email.

Tips for us paranoid obsessive types:

When you start a new email usually the first thing you do is put in the recipient, right? Trouble with that is, if that send button gets hit prematurely, by you, someone else, the cat or whoever, that person you are trying to impress is going to get an email you haven't spell checked yet, or added your attachments to, or is only half done. Then you have to email again and try to not look like an idiot as you explain. Solution: leave the recipient field blank until you are definitely ready to send. Then you or your toddler or the cat can hit send all you like, it's going nowhere.

Attachments. So easy to forget to include them after you've typed the mail! Either get into the habit of adding them first, or as soon as you find yourself typing "I've attached" stop typing and go add the attachments. Then continue. I do this for all emails now, not just submission ones. And Gmail has an add on that sees the word "attachments" in your email and if there are no attachments, pops up with "did you forget to add attachments?" Handy!

Right /derail Just thought I'd pass those on.

Don't try this at home:

I forgot the salutation on the cover letter once. The editor liked the piece though (creative non-fiction), and it got published and I was paid.

Other than that--I had a glaring misspelled word in a hard-copy query that the editor circled in red pen and sent back to me. Just a little embarrassing.

Becky Black said:

Solution: leave the recipient field blank until you are definitely ready to send. Then you or your toddler or the cat can hit send all you like, it's going nowhere.

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Had to quote this. Excellent advice.

I made that mistake twice.

On the other hand, I've received rejections that were addressed to people who were not me. In one case one began with "Dear William"

I am a female.

My name does not start with a W.

Wish I'd read this before my cat sat her butt on my laptop and sent my submission to Carina Press.

... addressed an agent as Ms when they were Mr and vice versa.
(Ambiguous first names.)
Nowadays I play in safe and write, 'Dear Mr/Ms Agent.'

annetookeen said:

Was that a reason for you to get angry? When that happened to me I became hopeful, that they rejected the wrong person

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I didn't get angry. I laughed and I tweeted something like "Received a rejection letter that started with Dear William. Can think of at least 3 things wrong with that."

But it didn't matter since they rejected me and/or William based off our geographic location.

Ken said:

... addressed an agent as Ms when they were Mr and vice versa.
(Ambiguous first names.)
Nowadays I play in safe and write, 'Dear Mr/Ms Agent.'

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Or "Dear (first and last name):"