I'm handling my first manuscript as an Associate Editor. I've sent >20 invitations over the past month and not a single person has agreed to review (most just ghost me). Is this normal? Or is it because I'm a nobody with no name recognition and everyone assumes it's spam? - ThreadSky

jonmee.bsky.social • 297 days ago

I'm handling my first manuscript as an Associate Editor.

I've sent >20 invitations over the past month and not a single person has agreed to review (most just ghost me).

Is this normal? Or is it because I'm a nobody with no name recognition and everyone assumes it's spam?

Comments

judithmank.bsky.social•297 days ago

Agree that the journal rep, topic and time of year can play a huge role in this. But it also takes some time as an AE to build a rolodex of potential reviewers that you can trust to respond to requests, and more importantly, submit constructive reviews on time.

danielbolnick.bsky.social•297 days ago

From my perch as editor of Amnat, I informally kept track of reviewer requests per paper. Averaged ~3 to 4. many papers got 2 reviewers on the first try. but a few took >5 or rarely >10 requests to get 2.

jonmee.bsky.social•297 days ago

Thanks. I've seen/heard quips (on socials and in-person) that these numbers have gone up during and since COVID. Regardless, my first experience is likely an outlier, or may be typical for a low profile journal and a low profile AE (i.e. me).

danielbolnick.bsky.social•296 days ago

It certainly got harder during the pandemic, but not drastically so, at least at the American naturalist. I did see our associate editor pool gets stretched, especially thin.

danielbolnick.bsky.social•296 days ago

We had ~70 AEs. As more and more took a break from duties during peak COVID, articles kept coming & were handed to a shrinking pool of AEs who got burned out from the higher load. It was a v bad feedback loop we barely pulled out of. Asked former Editors & AEs to come out of retirement to help

danielbolnick.bsky.social•297 days ago

I think this varies greatly by journal, but may have an AE name recognition element too. Some journals seem to format their invitation emails in a manner that readily goes into spam folders

Most of all, reviewers want to read papers that sound exciting.

jonmee.bsky.social•280 days ago

Update: over the past two months, 14 autogenerated invitations (from the peer review management system) and 9 invitations from my own email account resulted in 1 positive response (although review not received yet).

Clearly, I should not be an AE.

jaredrfletcher.bsky.social•110 days ago

It’s not you. It’s just the nature of peer review. Honestly, I’ve sent more than 50 invites to get 2 accepted reviewers.

jbyoder.org•297 days ago

That’s an unusually long invite list but, more than your name, it may vary based on the journal’s rep and the topic of the paper. It may also be we’re hitting a part of the academic year when everyone is slammed

jbyoder.org•297 days ago

(It is however very usual for review invites to go with no actual response, between email address changes, spam filter losses, and everyone being perpetually too overwhelmed to respond to a mostly auto-generated message, if that’s what you’re sending)

jonmee.bsky.social•297 days ago

Thanks. I started with the auto-generated message (because it seemed to be what the instructions said I should do). But, for the last ~5 or so invitations, I've been sending my own message (from my own email account).

jannicefriedman.bsky.social•296 days ago

I always write a personalized email (above the auto-generated one) and say why I'm particularly interested in a review from the person. IME, making it personal has a huge effect on success rate, and if they can't review, more likely to give suggestions.

jonmee.bsky.social•296 days ago

Thanks. I started using my personal (i.e. work) email account because the autogenerated emails from this particular editorial manager system said they were from "Food Reviews International" (which bears no relation to the actual journal name or scope).

jbyoder.org•296 days ago

ohhhhh yeah that, that right there is probably most of your problem

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