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Jun
15
2011

Submission Tracking Numbers

Wouldn’t it be nice if submissions had tracking numbers?

Could you imagine how much fun it would be for the stalker in all of us to find a nice little eighteen digit number with every “Your submission has been received” email? Then instead of checking our inboxes, voicemail, and spam folder—’cause, hey, you never know what’ll end up in there!—we could go to a universal submissions website. I imagine it as a MLS database for submissions instead of houses. Then we’d painstakingly enter in each of our eighteen digits, checking them twice for accuracy and hit search.

“555-438-992-123-666—Yikes! Couldn’t they have given me a luckier number?—013 Oh, come on! That’s just being mean.” <grumble, grumble, send>

Then we’d say a little pray as the search bar would move across the middle of our screen at an annoyingly slow pace.

“Hurry up, search bar!”

A new screen would then pop up, proudly displaying your submission tracking number at the top with an arrival date just beneath it.

“Um, yes, that sounds correct.” You check back into your own tracking sheet just to make sure the date matches what you have. Good.

Below arrival date would be the one thing we’d all gone there to look for…Status Update.

“Ahhhhhhhhhh.” <hear the heavens open up and angels singing gloriously>

Now, Status Update could say plenty of things. Hopefully, if it’s working the way I imagine, it would answer the questions that are always on our minds. Always. On. Our. Minds. Who has my submission? Has my query been read by the person I sent it to? Are they considering the query? Are they going to request pages, but just haven’t hit the send button yet? If they have pages, have they read the pages already? Have they given it to someone else to look at? Holy Hannah, is it going to the acquisitions meeting???

“Ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod!”

In reality it would probably mock us like this:

Status Update: Still being considered. Please check back again later. And by later I mean in a few weeks. Not five seconds. Go on. Go write something new while you wait for me to make my decision about whether or not I love your baby. Did I mention your baby is cute? No? Oh, well forget I said that then. Go on. Skedaddle…I’ll see ya back here in five. Bring me a coffee this time.

<sigh>

Still, wouldn’t it be nice if submissions came with tracking numbers? I think yes.

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About the author

Heather

8 comments

  1. Marie Andreas says:

    LOL!!! I love it! Although, we’d still stress ;)- it’s what we do 🙂

    great post!

    1. Heather says:

      Of course we’d still stress, but at least we’d have a central location to do it in! Thanks for stopping by my blog!

  2. JoAnne Kenrick says:

    LMAO I was just saying this the other day, and I bet we’re not the only ones who have wished for this sort of system to be a reality. Maybe one day….maybe. Meanwhile, I guess we’ll have to make do with the good old fashioned way of emails. Ha! Isn’t that funny? It probably wasn’t too long ago that authors were hoping for an electronic submission system, rather than using all that paper and postage!

    1. Heather says:

      So I’m NOT the only one who things there’s a market for this! Yeah! Now who do we have to talk to make it happen? And you’re totally right, we should be happy we don’t have to use snail mail anymore and not complain about a little wait!

  3. Jeff Salter says:

    Great idea. In my case, an agent has had one of my full manuscripts for about 51 weeks. I’d love to know how far up the reading pile it is.
    Maybe something like this status:
    “Your ms. is ‘on-deck’ and will be read right after the time-shifing vampire-mermaid story.”

    1. Heather says:

      OMG, Jeff! 51 WEEKS!!??? I don’t know how you’re surviving! An agent has had my full for only 2.5 weeks and I’ve been refreshing my inbox since the second I hit send to her. 51 weeks seems like a long time. Have you followed up with the agent or is that within their given timeframe still? Good luck to you! After all your patience in waiting, I sincerely hope you hear wonderful news!

  4. Sharla Rae says:

    Some morning cheer. Loved it!

  5. Heather says:

    Yeah! Thanks, Sharla!! Your comment was my cheer today! Thanks for coming by my blog! Be sure to stop by again to say hi!

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