Superstitious Submissions

Undercover

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So I know it sounds crazy, but I've noticed over the course of my submissions, if I submit on a significant date or time, these certain submissions I get a better reaction with. It's mainly if I send on someone's birthday, or I submit on the exact birthday date. It's weird, I know. But it seems to happen to me a lot.

Does this happen to you? Do you have some superstitious thing going on with your submission process? I've noticed too, that when I'm revising near someone's birthday, I save the file and put that person's birthdate in the header of the file and that seems to be the one that's the best revised version. But then again I always do more writing, get more responses and things just work better for my writing between my son's birthday to my daughter's birthday, with my husband's in between that. But this is also fall/winter so it just might be the time of the season and just a coincidence for me.
 

katsincommand

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Writing and sports are both filled with all kinds of superstitious behavior. I've never experienced this phenomena myself, but if you notice a pattern, *shrug* work with it if it makes you feel better. So long as it's not preventing you from submitting or completing things, there's no harm.
 

WildScribe

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What Kat said. I personally have found a direct correlation between submitting and acceptances. As in, the more I submit, the more I sell. ;) YMMV of course. :D
 

Batspan

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You're probably not alone in that. People into numerology tend to gravitate toward certain numbers and dates and find correlations.

My only policy about submission timing is to avoid running close to deadlines if at all possible, because many editors fill anthologies as they go.

It did seem odd to receive three rejection on Friday the 13th this month.

When I'm doing the final work on a story before submission, I enjoy arriving at a good word-count number. I'm not obsessed about it, yet I will often take one more pass through a mss to come up with a more pleasing number.
 

Undercover

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You're probably not alone in that. People into numerology tend to gravitate toward certain numbers and dates and find correlations.

My only policy about submission timing is to avoid running close to deadlines if at all possible, because many editors fill anthologies as they go.

It did seem odd to receive three rejection on Friday the 13th this month.

When I'm doing the final work on a story before submission, I enjoy arriving at a good word-count number. I'm not obsessed about it, yet I will often take one more pass through a mss to come up with a more pleasing number.

Yeah, I didn't think I was into the number thing, but I guess I am from the way you're describing it. I too have a certain word count number that I tend to follow. For the last three numbers I'd like it to fall on "831" "894" "129" or "922" Or if I can get two that would be good too.

I submit all year around, so the dates and months don't deter me. But like I said, I've noticed some of my favorable responses have important numbers (whether date or time or something else.)

Yeah, 3 rejections on Friday the 13th is odd, especially if you don't normally get responses, than yeah, I would agree.
 
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J.W. Alden

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I'm generally not superstitious at all, but I'll admit that for a while I was going out to dinner and lunch more often because all of the acceptance emails for my first four sales came while I was out of the house for something. If someone had accused me of acting superstitiously, I wouldn't have denied it.

But my most recent sale came while I was at home, so I guess my superstitious streak is broken. :tongue
 
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Undercover

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I'm generally not superstitious at all, but I'll admit that for a while I was going out to dinner and lunch more often because all of the acceptance emails for my first four sales came while I was out of the house for something. If someone had accused me of acting superstitiously, I wouldn't have denied it.

But my most recent sale came while I was at home, so I guess my superstitious streak is broken. :tongue

Haha...glad it broke for the better! Thanks for sharing that.
 

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I always wonder how much thought superstitious people put into their superstitions. I mean the thought of doing something and causing some unrelated event to occur sounds to me like some type of black magic. I have no doubt that submitting on specific days may be better or worse for yourself (as the agent is only human and is prone to good/bad days), but it isn't because its your friend's birthday.

I'm generally not superstitious at all, but I'll admit that for a while I was going out to dinner and lunch more often because all of the acceptance emails for my first four sales came while I was out of the house for something. If someone had accused me of acting superstitiously, I wouldn't have denied it.

But my most recent sale came while I was at home, so I guess my superstitious streak is broken. :tongue

If you going out to lunch or dinner actually had an effect on the sales numbers, I would be scared as all hell. Would we really have control of ourselves if things like this happened?

That said, congratulations on selling the books!
 

Batspan

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Lisa -- Fun to know I'm not the only one with a thing about the word-count numbers. Yeah, the 3 Rs on Friday the 13th was weird. I rarely have more than one on the same day, and two of those were from places I'd been waiting to hear from for months.

I do like to send things out when I'm in a good mood -- If I'm tired or out of sorts I wait. That may be a bit superstitious. Maybe sending things out on birthdays gives them an extra-positive charge.

J.W. -- That's a good one. I can relate, although I'd be in big trouble if I had to eat out to make a sale.

I like Wildscribe's take. My main numbers game right now is keeping out as many subs as possible -- six at the moment, working my way back up to 12.
 

WildScribe

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I'm generally not superstitious at all, but I'll admit that for a while I was going out to dinner and lunch more often because all of the acceptance emails for my first four sales came while I was out of the house for something. If someone had accused me of acting superstitiously, I wouldn't have denied it.

But my most recent sale came while I was at home, so I guess my superstitious streak is broken. :tongue

It has nothing to do with SALES, per se, but my checks always seem to arrive in the mail on the days where I have to go in to town, and decide to do it BEFORE the mailman arrives. Get home, and oh, look, now I have to go back into town. But I don't think of it as superstitious so much as Murphy's Law in action. :)