SAGE Path

[jerseyjay]

I am in history and wrote an article that is part literature and part history and have not had very much luck placing it. (I think it is too historical for literary critics, and too literary for historians.) Most recently, after sitting on it for a year, a journal rejected it with no comments except that it was not a good fit. (I don't mind a desk rejection, but I prefer a desk rejection that does not take a year.)

The rejection included an "offer" to "transfer" the article from the journal to "SAGE Path". From what I can tell this means that I can submit the article to another journal published by SAGE. The website provides a potentially useful tool to find journals based on title and keyword, although in my case this brings up journals that are probably not good fits.

I just got another email reminding me that this "offer" will "expire" in a few days. Has anybody else used SAGE Path? Is there anything about it that makes it better than just submitting the article outright to an appropriate SAGE journal? If there were another SAGE journal that I thought was immediately appropriate I might consider it, but the whole thing seems sort of silly. But I am not sure if I am missing something.

I would also be interested, as a secondary question, if people have suggestions about journals that might be appropriate for a topic like mine: I am taking some aspect of a writer's life and examining whether something actually happened in it. In this sense it is a history paper, based on archival research and newspapers, but it is only of value for literary scholars who treated this purported event as key in the literary development of the author. I am arguing that this particular event did not actually happen, and that the best way to find that out is to look in the archives, not in the author's own texts.

I am now leaning towards avoiding publishing the piece as an article and using it as a chapter in a book I am working on a bout the author.

[sinenomine]

I'm in the same interdisciplinary area of literature and history and usually publish in journals related to the time period in which I work, so if you haven't explored that route, it's a good option.

I haven't used SAGE Path, but it looks like an interesting service. I'll be monitoring this thread for others' feedback.

[Parasaurolophus]

I get a fair few notices like these from Springer and other publishers. I have yet to see an offer to transfer to a journal I'd consider submitting to in the first place. =/

[Sun_Worshiper]

I get a fair few notices like these from Springer and other publishers. I have yet to see an offer to transfer to a journal I'd consider submitting to in the first place. =/

Same here. My experience has usually been an offer to transfer to a journal with no impact factor that I've never heard of.

In one case though, I got an offer from Elsevier to transfer from one very good journal (where I was desk rejected) to another very good journal. I approved the transfer, but my recollection is that I still had to go through all the same submission steps as usual - and the paper was rejected from the second journal after going out for review. It eventually found a home at another journal from another publisher.

So the bottom line is that I don't think these transfers are very useful to the researcher. They are perhaps useful to the publisher.

[Myword]

I get offers from Springer, not SAGE.  Got a transfer offer today. These journal selections are computer generated, not human. Machine reads the abstract or keywords. Well, it gives me possibilities only. It does not act as a recommendation to the journal's editor, who probably doesn't care if it is an internal transfer. If you are in first stages of placing the article, it will help you more, otherwise doubtful--for me at least. I've had no luck with Springer and try to avoid them, partly because of their strict style-footnote rules.
   This service helps the publisher keep the authors. Now it would help if the acceptance rates were stated.