From: Alex Holzman <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Fri, 16 Dec 2011 14:13:45 -0500

Well, since Sandy asked, no, I haven't really noticed any change.
Always amazing how I can place some manuscripts with minimal effort
while others require up to a dozen contacts before it's placed with
the necessary two or three reviewers.  But I attribute that more to
random chance than the subject matter of individual mss. and overall,
nope, no real change in overall percentage of yes'es.

BTW, it's customary--at least for university presses--to pay an
honorarium for reading a book-length mss.  Reviewer decides whether to
be paid in cash or in books (the latter often twice as much in dollar
equivalents).  I wouldn't argue we pay a lot, but we don't ask our
readers to provide entirely free labor.

Alex Holzman
Director
Temple University Press
Email: [log in to unmask]
http://www.temple.edu/tempress





On Thu, Dec 15, 2011 at 10:13 PM, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> From: Sandy Thatcher <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2011 11:09:31 -0600
>
> If this is a problem for journal editors, wouldn't you suppose it
> would be even more of a problem for editors at scholarly book
> publishers trying to get reviews on much longer manuscripts? Yet, in
> my experience of more than 40 years as an acquiring editor (which is
> current today as i continue to acquire part-time in political science
> for two academic presses), I have not noticed any significant increase
> in the difficulty of obtaining reviewers for books.  I wonder if that
> is the experience of other university press editors who may be tuned
> into this listserv (such as Alex Holzman)?
>