Advice for Editors

Increasing Submissions, Subscriptions, and Visibility for Your Journal

One of the most important facets of a journal is ensuring that there is a continual flow of quality manuscript submissions submitted to the double-blind peer review process. To ensure that this is happening, authors and scholars in the academic community need to submit their research to your journal. By disseminating information about your journal and posting information related to the journal, you can increase the discoverability of your journal, which in turn will lead to more manuscript submissions to your journal.

While IGI Global can disseminate your journal’s call for papers through our extensive mailing list, it’s imperative that you, as Editor-in-Chief, are doing your due diligence as well. Members of IGI Global’s development and marketing divisions will certainly help in any way that he/she can, but certain actions must be performed by the Editor-in-Chief, as noted in the signed contract. As the expert and respected academician in the field, a personal invitation from you will carry more impact, compared to a broad call from your development editor. In our decades of experience, we find that efforts to recruit manuscript submissions are typically much more well-received by the research community when coming from the leadership of the journal, the Editor-in-Chief.

Here is the excerpt from your signed contract which outlines your role in promoting the discoverability of your journal:

1. Editor in Chief is requested to encourage the members of his editorial board to recommend the journal to their libraries.
2. Editor in Chief must understand that in order for the journal to be a strong influence in its area, the process of manuscript recruitment should be a continuing task for the editor.

Increasing the submission number for your journal will allow you to be more selective in garnering high quality content and will also expand the network of contributors who can support with the promotion and usage of your journal. Ideally, also leading to a higher number of subscriptions, which will increase the visibility of your journal, thus increasing citation impact and indexing potential.

Increasing manuscript submissions and library subscriptions to the journal work in tandem, and it’s very difficult to have one without the other. In IGI Global’s 30+ years of publishing experience, we have noticed that the journals with higher subscription numbers also receive higher submission numbers. The two are correlated, and it’s imperative that we, IGI Global, and you, the Editor-in-Chief, work individually and collaboratively to increase submissions and subscriptions for your journal.

This guide will provide an in-depth description of how to increase the submissions, and subscriptions in turn, to your journal through various methods.

Call for Papers

The Call for Papers may be, simply put, the most important communication used in your promotional efforts in an attempt to recruit more submissions. This document includes all the pertinent information to an author, including the mission/description of the journal, a point of contact, submission link, topics covered, etc.

Here are a few places where you can distribute your Call for Papers:

Listservs

Posting on Listservs is an efficient way to quickly and easily post relevant information about your journal, including the call for papers, to individuals with a devout interest in the field of study related to your journal. Please consult the table below for listservs, categorized by subject, to which you can subscribe.

Please keep in mind that IGI Global cannot post anything on Listservs on your behalf.

For more information on distributing your call for papers, please view IGI Global's "Distributing Your Call for Content" page.

Social Media

Social Media has become a powerful outlet for networking and communicating in a timely manner, regardless of location in the world. Sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Google+ allows for groups of like-minded individuals to come together and hand-craft their feeds with information that relates to them. By increasing your social media following, and creating groups of researchers in academia, you can post relevant information about your journal on your social media accounts, including the journal’s brochure, cover image, discount form, and call for papers.

University/Personal Website

Posting the call on your university and/or personal webpage is a way for your colleagues or anyone perusing the webpage to submit a manuscript to your journal.

Conferences

If you are attending an upcoming conference, take numerous copies of the call for papers to distribute to attendees.

Associations and Societies

If you are currently a part of a society or association, find out if you are able to post the Call for Papers for your journal on their website, on various online forums, and/or in any related publications. Also, consider making the journal an “official publication” of the society or association.

Consider Revamping the Call for Papers

Feel free to work with your Development Editor and/or co-Editor to look to revamp the overall coverage of the journal. Adding relevant topics that the journal covers is an effective tactic to broaden the overall scope of the journal and attract more submissions and interest.

Collaboration with IGI Global Book Authors/Editors

Groupthink and brainstorming can be an effective manner to increasing submissions to your journal, especially if others have had great success in promoting his/her journal, book, etc. You could also talk to your Development Editor at IGI Global and inquire about transferring non-published chapters to your journal for potential review. Furthermore, including a book review is an easy way to add some extra substance to the issue.

Associations, Societies, & Research Groups

As mentioned earlier, if you belong to any associations, societies, and/or research groups and haven’t reached out to individuals here about publishing in your journal, you have missed on a prime opportunity! However, it’s not too late to invite your colleagues to submit to your journal.

When posting or sending a communication to individuals in the association, it’s important to include the following information:

• Your role/longevity within the association/research group.
• Key information about the journal (indices, accolades, mission, topics covered, etc.).
• Direct link to submit his/her manuscript in the eEditorial Discovery® submission system. (https://www.igi-global.com/submission/submit-manuscript/)
• Call for Papers

Personal Invitations

Sending out personal invitations to submit to your journal is critical to the success of any journal. These personalized invitations establish a connection with the researchers, potentially increasing the likelihood that he/she will submit to your journal. These personal communications from you, the Editor-in-Chief, carry far greater weight and impact than any communication your Development Editor at IGI Global could send.

Here are some groups you can send personal invitations to:

Past Contributors

Reaching out to those who have already published in the journal is an effective tactic in increasing submissions, as you can already verify there is an interest in the journal to this particular individual. This particular researcher likely had a positive experience with you and the journal, further increasing the likelihood that he/she will consider submitting again. The message that goes to a past contributor is slightly different than someone who has never submitted before. Here is the key information to include in this specific communication:

• Statement of gratitude for publishing before. Also, recognize the contribution (include the article title if you are able to).
• Seeking another manuscript, based on their pedigree and reputation within the field.
• You can even mention how the journal has grown, changed, and/or developed since their last experience with the journal.
• Call for Papers

Review Board Members

Within the eEditorial Discovery® online submission system, you are able to download an excel spreadsheet that contains pertinent information about each reviewer, including their name, affiliation, email, role, and detailed statistics about his/her reviewing history. With this report, you can quickly send a mail merge to all of your reviewers, thanking them for their reviewing work and seeing if they would like to submit a paper for consideration within the journal. To get to this report, you just need to log into the eEditorial Discovery^® submission system, click on “Admin” in the top header, and then click “journal reviewers”. From there, click on your journal in the drop-down menu and then the button on the left-hand side that says, “Download Reviewer Listing.”

In this communication, please provide the following information:

• A thankful statement for their reviewing activity.
• Gauge their interest in publishing within the journal.
• Clearly outline the fact that just because they are a reviewer for the journal does not guarantee publication. Make sure that they also understand that the paper will undergo a formal double-blind peer review process.
• Call for Papers

Additionally, informing your review board that part of their responsibility is to promote the journal and be active in recruiting submissions as well. These integral members of the journal should promote the journal in a similar manner as the Editor-in-Chief.

Add Topics Covered to Broaden Journal’s Scope

Journals are consistently evolving and don’t include manuscripts on just a few different topics. On a semi-annual or annual basis, it is viable to evaluate the topics covered for the journal and add any topics that the journal has seen an influx of submissions for in the recent past. Eventually, as topics are phased out or become less interesting to the academic community, these topics can be removed from the journal’s coverage.

Add a Co-Editor and/or Managing Editor

Adding a Co-Editor and/or Managing Editor to the leadership of your journal is an incredibly effective effort to further expand the reach of your journal and will greatly increase submissions and subscriptions. By adding another distinguished individual to the journal, the journal is opening itself up to another network of potential contributors, and depending on the individual’s reputation in the field, he/she could add significant notoriety to the journal.

Additionally, he/she can help with work in the submission system, allowing for more promotional efforts, as time will be freed up for sending out communications, posting on Listservs and social media, etc.

Communicate with Your IGI Global Development Editor

This step is imperative, as your IGI Global Development Editor can help with numerous items, including sending a call for papers to our mailing list, provide you with additional ideas, contact sheets for members of your journal and past contributors, etc. At the very least, attempt to maintain a weekly dialogue with your Development Editor. This is important to ensuring that your Development Editor is up to date on all facets of the journal at any juncture.

Timeliness with Incoming Submissions

Acting on submissions in a prompt manner and efficiently placing papers into and through the review process is important to increasing submissions, as it leaves contributing authors with a positive thought about the journal. Letting manuscripts sit too long and/or not swiftly processing papers into/through the review process lessens the likelihood of that author submitting a future manuscript to your journal. Furthermore, those authors could encourage others in his/her network to submit their manuscripts elsewhere.

While this guide is by no means the full gamut of promotional activities, it is a rather extensive list with a variety of methods to garner more submissions to your journal. As always, please reach out to your Development Editor or the Marketing Department (marketing@igi-global.com) with any promotional inquiries you may have.

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