what do you mean by not survive first 24 hours?
i'm soon to submit my first ever design and this could scare me.

as for advertising, are you now speaking in general or in the threadless community?

By advertising, I mean sending out notices to people you know in any internet community. What sparked my original question was something a friend of mine said. He said submitting a design and just hoping that people liked it is no way to win. He suggested building up a circle of friends, family and fans on livejournal or myspace or something like that, people you could count on voting favorably on your designs. He thought that advertising was really necessary; I was wondering what other people think.

As to your question, mike bautista, if a design does not get an average vote of 1.5 or better in the first 24 hours, it is withdrawn early from the voting (as I discovered to my dismay).

Yes, a design can get a lot of notoriety without "advertising", like this one by Mathiole

Hey Alex, voting (and the results) have little to do with whether a design gets printed. For that matter the 'quality' of the work is subjective too.

Go ahead and submit your design, keep your fingers crossed and yeah, mention it to anyone you know but don't take it personally if it 'goes away' in a day.

wut i think happened is u submitted the design for approval and threadless denied it

Nope, he means what he said. It was approved and posted for voting but "completed early" for low scores -- which also seems to be a random figure.

But hey kids, this is fun, not science.

really.. i didnt know they did that..

thank you.
that was informative, and quite scary.
but now i know, and knowing is half the battle.

as for advertising. before i joined up i told all my friends of my threadless ambitions and that when i submit something i'd love their support. i didn't want them to jump in and throw me some fives, but to give them what they believe i deserve when the time came. if i advertised in the online community of people i know on the internet then i'd treat the matter the same way i suppose. it feels right for me that way.
and the cynic in me says asking for support to everyone and anyone likens the chances of some douche to come and, as holden caulfield says, scratch "f you" somewhere in your space.

but a healthy network is always a plus in a business such as this.

I did about the same, mike. I told some of my family and friends that I was submitting things to threadless, and asked them to go check them out, if only just to see what I have been spending my free time on these last few weeks.

And I am mostly just making threadless designs because it's fun, and I enjoy doing it. I'm not expecting to win, but that certainly would be cool...

Thanks for the comments, everyone.