Oops! I did it again: mistakes in submissions
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Posted by Cynthea on June 6th, 2006 filed in agents, editors, submissions | 2 Comments »
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Say you’ve just realized you made a bunch of typos in your manuscript or you forgot to enclose an SASE AFTER you sent the whole thing off. Should you try to contact the editor or agent and correct your mistake? Um….no.
Why? Mistakes will happen no matter how hard you try to make it perfect. RESIST THE URGE TO MAKE IT RIGHT. Trying to apologize will only point out your error and demonstrate to the editor/agent how neurotic you are. So if you mess up, don’t say anything by clogging the recipient’s mailbox/inbox with more messages from you. Instead, hope he doesn’t notice or care. Or maybe….he’ll even understand you’re only human. Oooohhhh!
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Very good point. When I was querying agents, I hit send too soon. Or at least I think I did. Since I wasn’t saving my sent emails at the time, I couldn’t go back and check. So I sent another query that included an apology for the possibly muffed first attempt. I never did hear back from that agent.
Also, another lesson in my tale is not to send queries when you’re tired. You’re more likely to make mistakes.
Yet another reason to proofread, let it sit and proofread again *before* you hit send.