Dear Katie…

If you’re itching to get your submission off your plate so you can focus on holiday fun, send it to publishers now. But don’t expect anything more than stacking on a desk to happen to it before mid-January. Between now and then, editors will be dealing with urgent in-house production deadlines and tying up loose ends on projects already in development before vacationing. Acquisition meetings are pretty rare with everyone coming and going. Even agents reduce their submissions to editors after Thanksgiving . . . which makes this a good time for you to submit to agents. They vacation, too, but their reduced dealings with editors means they have more time to catch up on submissions.

Happy writing!
The Editor