From: Sandy Thatcher <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tue, 13 Aug 2013 20:08:22 -0500

Hmmm, sounds rather like what literary agents do for book authors....

Sandy Thatcher

> From: Jim O'Donnell <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Tue, 13 Aug 2013 19:18:36 +0800
>
> EDANZ:  Heard a presentation today in Singapore at the annual Fiesole
> Retreat (very strong program here!) about a company called Edanz ---
> www.edanzediting.com  (see also: http://www.casalini.it/retreat/)
>
> Their pitch is that they work with scientific journal authors who need
> help getting published.  Their focus is on China and Japan, where they
> believe there are large numbers of worthy scientists who have
> inordinate difficulty getting published.  These are scholars and
> scientists and physicians and the like who need help at several
> levels:  editing the English of their articles; identifying
> appropriate journals to which to submit; interpreting the sometimes
> curt and cavalier communications of journal editors surrounding peer
> review; and revising for resubmission.  They have a fee schedule,
> rapid turnaround time (a week for a fairly heavy intervention), and a
> stable of native-English editors standing by to help you.
>
> The presentation was thought-provoking in several ways.  The speaker
> argued that journals should emphasize an author-centric perspective
> and work hard to deliver a positive experience for authors.  He backed
> this argument with surveys and anecdotes that make clear that peer
> review is often a hard barrier to climb for the non-English speaker
> just at the level of figuring out whether this letter from the editor
> really is an acceptance, a rejection or a revise-and-resubmit letter.
>
> And almost anyone could use their find-a-journal service, which they
> animate by taking a chunk of your text and pattern-matching against
> many journals to see whose content is most like what you are writing;
> then they look at impact factor, selectivity, and turnaround time and
> make recommendations.  Several major publishers work with them
> happily.
>
> This was a description of a service that I had never imagined was
> needed; but on hearing, immediately recognized the appeal.  I could
> imagine such a service run in an exploitative way (the "Famous Writers
> School" of yore comes to mind), but I can equally imagine one -- and
> this seems to be Edanz -- genuinely interested in making a living by
> offering a *real* service.
>
> (Another presentation at this very good retreat had figures suggesting
> that Chinese and Japanese scholars have much more likelihood of having
> grant money to support publication than US and European scholars do.
> Spending some of that money fixing up your prose and finding the right
> journal makes perfect sense.)
>
> Jim O'Donnell