Are my expectations as first time editor unrealistic?

[profjackster]

Hello All,

I do not post much on here, but do have a rather pertinent question at this time.

An edited volume is out for review with a good university press. I had the privilege of gathering a variety of writers who contributed their respective chapters on changes in public policies toward the pandemic over time. However, as this is my first time serving as an editor on a volume with fourteen chapters (and even more authors/co-authors), I have some questions and would be grateful for whatever comments or tips will come this way (am a full professor in the social sciences and have published before--articles, monographs, chapters--but never served as a sole editor for a volume).

As for the reviewers: are there going to be a different group of reviewers for each of the fourteen chapters, or will a conventional small coterie of reviewers respond to the entire work?

Insofar as time management is concerned: does the acquisition editor set the deadline for us to work with after we get the reviewed comments back, or do I, as editor defer to our contributors' request for deadlines after consulting with them about their schedule (since our authors will know their writing rhythm and realities of lifeworld management), which I then convey back to the acquisitions editor? The reason why I think this discernment is important is because I did have one author that was late with our submission deadline that was generously scheduled with the press, and this person held up the camp as I could not submit the edited volume without this important chapter. Although the chapter was only a day late, I did have to expend an additional two-three weeks carefully going over its data (other writers had finished a few weeks before the deadline, the latest sent their chapter in two weeks before the deadline). This person remained unapologetic, even though I had sent the individual a polite reminder a week before the deadline. Aside from this, the entire experience was very smooth and enriching for all involved as I think I am able to smooth out the rougher edges of human interaction (I hope). But, to prevent the deadline issues from occurring again, I'm hoping to see how to time manage effectively in a manner that is mutually beneficial to everyone, including the good folks at the press.

I could have asked our press editor but also value the experience by those who have served as an editor/s on a volume. Thank you for reading and I am grateful for your suggestions.

profjackster

[Hegemony]

It's going to be the same reviewer or reviewers for all the chapters, in my experience. Sending the volume out to fourteen separate reviewers would take forever — finding fourteen people to agree to review, and then waiting for fourteen reviews to come in from overworked, people who are unpaid for the duty. (Sometimes people are paid to review a whole volume, but never a lone chapter-length piece.)

As for the deadlines, when you have been around academia and editing a while, you will understand what an unprecedented miracle it is to have thirteen chapters come in on time, and the last one only a day late. Academics are absolutely notorious for turning things in past the deadline. It is absolutely the norm. I have edited two volumes in the past two years. In one, only one out of ten chapters came in at or before the deadline. (I did not have  a chapter in that volume.) The other had 16 chapters and the only one that was on time was my own. In the second one, even my co-editor's chapter was months late. And the chapter that was latest was a year late. The others were all many months late, the most timely of them only two months late.

It's good to construct your book so that no chapter is indispensable. Then if you are running up against an inflexible deadline and the author is prevaricating, you can inform them that if their chapter isn't in by such-and-such a date, you're very sorry but press deadlines will mean you have to drop the chapter. Quite frequently this will be an enormous relief to the author. In one case, when an author was extremely late and failing to answer email, I dropped a crucial chapter and got someone to write a replacement double-quick. (That person was on time, too.)

So what canny editors do is to establish fake deadlines. Say the press is expecting the book on July 1. You tell your authors that the deadline is very strict and everything must be by May 1. Several people are late and beg for more time, so you tell them that you can give them till June 1. Then when they are still two weeks past June 1, you are still in time for the press deadline.

Don't ever ask authors what deadlines they would like. They will be all over the map and each ask for a different deadline and it will be a nightmare keeping track of them, and they will turn in their stuff late anyway. There are no "writing rhythms." There is only sitting down and getting the stuff done.

Your author didn't apologize because he knew that only one day over deadline was considered miraculously prompt. But even if it were a year late, most authors wouldn't apologize. We're all just doing the best we can.

Intially the press will most likely ask you to set a deadline, so be realistic on that. But then you announce the deadline to the authors. This is absolutely standard, and the authors will not blink at it. Of course you give them a fair amount of time to do it. It's usually a year or more.

But you're asking about the deadline for getting the revisions in.  The press might say, "We're going to need this by such-and-such a date to stay on schedule." Or they might just ask you to get them back as soon as possible. I would think six weeks would be an average amount of time, if the revisions to be made are moderate. If something requires a complete overhaul, then longer.

The tough part of editing volumes is not the formatting and all, but the cheerful wrangling of authors. Best of luck!

[profjackster]

Hi Hegemony,

Thanks for your rich comments. In all honestly, I think you touched upon all my concerns--and I do appreciate you not sugarcoating anything! Ok then, I shall take a more zen approach and let things fall into place. I appreciate the positive encouragement when they surfaced: we were able to get everyone to submit on time because we were all at home, experiencing culture shock with social distancing, and really felt motivated to do something. So we embarked on writing/research endeavor. Unbelievably, we all felt like it was a sort of raison d'etre for 2020--it had to be; we were stuck at home for so long and unless we had spouses/partners that were first responders or health care workers, many of us were for a brief period severed from healthy publics and kin that form our communities. So we became a community ourselves and researched our way back to some semblance of normalcy.

As for my one-day late friend, I shall cut this person a lot of slack then. I guess I was rather idealistic. I do appreciate the mention of not making any one chapter indispensible--which is exactly what I did do with this one chapter because it's just so awesome. However, I will contemplate the important points in your response.

profjackster

[polly_mer]

Only one day late is on time.  I'm currently co-editor on a special journal issue and the review I'm doing is two weeks late and my own article was a month late.

Now would be a good time to start drafting the polite emails to remind for reviews and have backups for your main teams when the completed reviews are unsatisfactory (ask me what I spent this morning doing!).

[profjackster]

Many thanks Polly_mer,

Yes, am getting the sense now that a "master" plan in time management is probably not a good idea and to simply meet folks halfway, and to be more decisive if things turn sour. I certainly will hope for the best! Thanks for your comments.

profjackster

[Morden]

It's good to construct your book so that no chapter is indispensable. Then if you are running up against an inflexible deadline and the author is prevaricating, you can inform them that if their chapter isn't in by such-and-such a date, you're very sorry but press deadlines will mean you have to drop the chapter.

This is very wise. And sometimes it means that the author will actually step up and get the chapter in.

[mleok]

We're in the midst of a pandemic, nobody is going to apologize to you if a submission is one day late, certainly not for a book chapter that does little for their career. If you needed two to three weeks to look over the submission, then you should have set an earlier deadline to begin with. Don't set a deadline and expect people to submit something a few weeks before the deadline.

[profjackster]

We're in the midst of a pandemic, nobody is going to apologize to you if a submission is one day late, certainly not for a book chapter that does little for their career. If you needed two to three weeks to look over the submission, then you should have set an earlier deadline to begin with. Don't set a deadline and expect people to submit something a few weeks before the deadline.

You're a toxic cynic.

[mleok]

We're in the midst of a pandemic, nobody is going to apologize to you if a submission is one day late, certainly not for a book chapter that does little for their career. If you needed two to three weeks to look over the submission, then you should have set an earlier deadline to begin with. Don't set a deadline and expect people to submit something a few weeks before the deadline.

You're a toxic cynic.

For a full professor, you are hopelessly naive. You were complaining about a person being a day late on a submission, despite you sending a reminder a week before the deadline, and you claim that it somehow held back the entire project, because you needed to spend two to three weeks reviewing the data. Again, what in your experience in academia makes you expect everyone to turn in their submissions two to three weeks before the deadline? If you needed that time to review the paper, then that buffer should have been reflected in the deadline, plain and simple. As I said, we are in the midst of a pandemic, and other pressing things happen, so to get into a hissy fit because someone was a day late and didn't apologize is simply ridiculous. At the end of the day, the bulk of the delay was because of a lack of planning on your part, not because of that one person who was a day late.

If you're fussing about contributors being one day late, good luck chasing down the referees, who are really doing you a favor, and derive essentially no professional benefit from that pro bono service.

And, to answer the question in your thread title, the answer is plain and simple, yes!