Scholarly publishing is broken: Is it time to consider guerrilla self-publishing?
After four months of peer review at a top journal in my field, I was happy to get a revise and resubmit, with great feedback from the anonymous reviewers. Their suggestions improved the article, and I was thrilled when I was able to turn around the revisions in 6 weeks.
I have now been informed that it might take another 4 months before I have a decision on the manuscript. If it is accepted, I fear a one or two year back-log of articles which means my piece might not appear until three years after it was written.
So I’ve been thinking a lot lately about academic self-publishing. Why should my scholarship, which I hope will contribute to the greater common good, be holed up and sequestered for so long before people can read it? Am I only interested in publishing in this venue for my own academic advancement?
I found this blog post and am really intrigued by the idea of “guerrilla self-publishing.” Somehow, this way of disseminating knowledge feels more democratic and less self-serving.
Has anyone else had thoughts about academic self-publishing? Any advice?




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