Q: What should I do if a conference organizer announced the publication of papers but it has still not happened one year later?

You have provided quite a few details, and all the relevant ones. That’s great – and it also helps us guide better. :-)

Coming to your query, there are actually quite a few points you’ve brought up. So, let’s take them one by one.

One year is a long time for the publication not to have happened. However, if you consider the long publication process with some journals (some upwards of two years), it may not seem so bad. What may make it challenging though is if this is the first time you are writing to them since the conference got over. Ideally, you should have been checking with them regularly, once every couple of months at least. However, let’s not dwell on this and move on to what you can do now. 

You have said that the organizers of the conference are reputed. That seems to suggest that they are not a predatory publisher. All the same, you could run the following checklists to see if they qualify in some way. The first is for journals and the second is for conferences, as yours is both.

• Identify predatory publishers
• Identify predatory conferences

If it passes, that’s one problem you don’t have to worry about. If it doesn’t, there’s unfortunately not much you can do about this now. For more insights into this matter, you may refer to this case study: How predatory scientific conferences prey on researchers

It’s great that you have mentioned Palgrave – and here’s why. What you could do is to search the net for news or information around ‘Palgrave’ and the name of the association that organized the conference. You could try various combinations such as the exact name of the conference and the name of the organization along with ‘Palgrave.’ This may uncover relevant information, such as a decision to postpone the publication or not publish it, a challenge with one or both entities (such as financial, legal, or contractual), or something else. Apart from that (or if you can’t find this information), you may consider writing to Palgrave about this. They may well ask you to check with the organizing association, but this is simply another way of information-seeking.

For writing both to the conference organizers and to Palgrave, you’ll need to include the relevant details (and this is also the answer to your ‘formula for mail’ query). Apart from that, you could talk about the importance of the publication for you and how its delay is impacting you. If you need more help, you may refer to this handbook: A practical handbook of templates for communicating with the journal  [Lecture 6, How to inquire about the delay in editorial board decision, and Lecture 7, Request to expedite the decision when you need it for graduation, would be of greatest relevance to you.)

Hope that helps. All the best for a speedy and successful resolution!