Q: Please suggest an effective submission strategy for my manuscript

Detailed Question -

I submitted a paper to the Journal of Chemistry of American Chemical Society. One of the three reviewers rejected the manuscript, while other two reviewers had favourable response. I resubmitted after revising the manuscript based on the review comments. But the two reviewers whose response was ‘favourable’ were replaced with two new reviewers, and the final decision was “Reject” with almost the same comments received initially from the first reviewer. It took 9 months for the whole process.

In the meantime, as per the recommendation of the editor I transferred the manuscript to ACS Omega, an open access journal. Since then 2.5 months have passed with the status “expedited editorial decision-making”. The specialty of ACS Omega’s associate editors is pure organic chemistry instead of medicinal chemistry, which is the subject area of my paper.

I have been informed that the decision making has been delayed due to unavailability of appropriate reviewers. The first paper (currently under review) is about basic research. I have a second manuscript about the application and outcome. I am not sure if I opted for the correct submission strategy. Please advise a good submission strategy for my next paper.”

1 Answer to this question
Answer:

I am sorry to know that you are facing difficulties in getting your manuscript published. Changing reviewer during the peer review process happens due to factors like unavailability of the previous reviewers. Although, dealing with rejection can be difficult, such incidents are not uncommon in the academic publication. But, on a positive note, the quality of the manuscript has been improved after the revision as per the comments of the reviewers, so also the chance of positive outcome after next submission.

Regarding the current status of your manuscript, contacting the journal’s editor is the best way to approach the situation which you have already done.

For your upcoming submission, I would suggest reviewing the scope and focus of your target journal, which in this case is ACS Omega, in the light of the content of your study. The website of the journal mentions that the journal has a wide readership and it focuses on new findings in chemistry and interfacing areas of science, without any perceived evaluation of immediate impact. Please evaluate the content of your next manuscript and decide if the applied aspect of your study will interest the reviewers of ACS Omega. Finding the correct journal is very crucial for successful publication strategy and it demands considerable research to discern if the manuscript fits the target journal in terms of scope and quality of the content. Since I do not have details of your study, it will not be possible for me to provide a more direct answer to your question.

There are professional service providers in the academic publishing industry, who help the authors with the best publication strategy. Editage, too, has a similar service and you may wish to check the website for more details.

You may refer to some of the relevant articles which help you decide the best publication strategy for your manuscript.

Best wishes for your submission!

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