In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, a reader writes:
How long does it typically take to get a paper published online (counting pre-publication view) from the date that the paper is officially accepted?
I had a paper of mine accepted well over a year ago, and I still haven't even gotten proofs back from the publisher. I'm feeling extremely frustrated and anxious about this, but I also don't really know what's considered a normal turn-around time to publication.
This open-access online journal has a stellar reputation for having a transparent review process, but taking well over a year to getting the paper up online strikes me as absurd. There are already papers out on the same subject that will make my paper look out-of-date when (if?) it ever gets published.
Two readers submitted responses:
It depends on the journal. I waited about six months with HOPOS for the paper to go up … and then a few more months for the proofs to arrive. I suspect I will be in a print issue about 13 or 14 months after it is accepted. But journals really vary a lot. - Submitted by H
In the meantime, if the publisher allows it (and I think many do), you can upload a preprint to an archive such as philpapers, indicating that the paper is forthcoming at the journal. This has many of the benefits of actual publication. It will be just as visible, it will be indexed by Google Scholar as a paper in that journal, and so on. - Submitted by ehz
H is right here: it can often take over a year for a paper to be published (though many journals publish them as 'online first' articles well before they appear in a journal issue). And ehz is also right: many journals allow authors to post preprints. However, it's really important to know the journal's policy here. Some journals don't allow preprints to be posted, some only allow them to be uploaded to the author's personal website (rather than e.g. philpapers) until an embargo period has been reached post-publication, and so on.
However, the OP's description of their case concerns me. They report not even having received proofs for their article yet, which seems really strange to me. While it can often take over a year for an article to be published, my experience is that journals tend to move pretty quickly with proofs (it's never taken more than a month or two for me to receive proofs to check, and I've normally received them just a few weeks after acceptance). So I think the thing for the OP to do here is to reach out to the editors (or at least the managing editor) to find out what's going on. What do you all think?
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