Magazine, databases, etc.
Today we sent out the first rejections for the new year. One of those early signs of spring? The editors return to Capistrano?
Submission volume seems to have, at least for the moment, leveled off at roughly pre-November levels; I'm hoping that means that the flood is being distributed through the month, rather than that we're going to get a huge mass of subs next week or the week after. We'll see.
I'm half-tempted to put up a submission-volume report, kinda like a weather report, that would let people see when volume waxes and wanes, with the goal of evening out the fluctuations. But that presupposes that authors are sitting around with stories that they're refraining from sending us, waiting for a good moment, and that's probably not true. (And probably not a good thing to encourage anyway; authors generally have plenty of ways to convince themselves not to send out stories without our pushing.) Also, if it worked, it would have to be updated pretty much in realtime to prevent small dips being followed by big floods. So, like trying to time investments to take advantage of swings in the stock market, this is probably just a bad idea all around.