Trigger warning: journal publishing.
A few years back, I pulled together a team of interdisciplinary researchers and a small amount of internal funding to run a survey that we turned into a paper. We got fewer survey respondents than we’d like, weakening but not undermining the point of the paper, and it still presented some interesting and novel findings in my opinion. So we submitted to one of the “big publishers” because that’s the only way Universities seem to acknowledge research outputs nowadays: interdisciplinary team, some funding, Q1 journal, and I was still labouring under the assumption any of that mattered to maintaining a career.
This publisher has a steep APC which on my reading should be covered by the blanket agreements struck by the Council of Australasian University Librarians with said big publisher, though realistically I wouldn’t be surprised if they pretend otherwise and send an invoice at the end.
The first reviews took over six months to return. Then revisions went in and a second lot of reviews also took six months to come back. Those returned just before I was made redundant and the publisher’s system allowed no way to change corresponding author after submission, so I emailed them advising of the situation and hoping for the best. I heard nothing before my email access was shut off.
Months later, I got my email back after becoming an adjunct and, low-and-behold, the publisher continues emailing me as if nothing had happened. I write again, asking again if they will switch the corresponding author since I am no longer being paid to write papers (and possibly/probably never will again). The confusion that has followed, with weeks between each email reply from the publisher, is absurd.
In the end, I have directly asked this publisher what exactly they do with the APC funds if it is not: (a) organising reviews efficiently, (b) paying reviewers, (c) having effective administrative systems, or (d) doing really anything at all to move publication processes forward. Of course, they have not yet responded.
Why are we throwing taxpayer money at these ghouls?