Delays in accepted papers being published?

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 There are already papers out on the same subject that will make my paper look out-of-date when (if?)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?

Comments

[J]

It is ridiculous that such a journal exists. I know a few journals that are like that, I never submit my work to them and I do not review for them. These journals do not provide doi numbers for accepted papers until months or years from the acceptance, which means that if someone cites those papers, citations might not appear in Google scholar, Scopus or Web of Science. You should contact the editor and ask what is taking so long, it should not take more than a couple of weeks to receive proofs (even though some slow journals offer proofs quickly the papers do not appear online in months).

[anon]

One time for me the elapsed time between article acceptance and receipt of proofs was eight months. The contact person for proofs didn't respond to two of my inquiries, then eventually sent me the proofs and asked for them back in 3 days or so.

Unless your job or grants you apply to are really worried about your Google Scholar-logged citations, though, it doesn't really matter. Just list it on your CV as accepted and put the manuscript on PhilPapers, and a decent number of people will still know about the paper.

[Phil Osopher]

I guarantee OP is talking about [redacted]. I have exactly the same issue… The response I received from the editor suggested they weren't taking the issue very seriously. Very surprising, to say the least.

It would be nice to know what's going on. "Papers are published as they are accepted" is not an accurate description of how it is currently run, which I tactfully pointed out, but received no reply.

*Moderator's note: I have edited out the journal name here, as I don't think it's in alignment with this blog's mission to speculate openly about who may or may not be guilty of what (viz. an online rumor mill). Readers may of course make their own inferences based on general information provided--but I think that out of respect for this blog's mission, it should be left at that.

[ehz]

I have a similar issue as the commenter above with the same journal (I can tell which journal it is given the description). I was told that I will not hear about proofs before September. (My paper was accepted in March.)

By the way, one of the managing editors of that journal recently commented on DailyNous on this issue, saying: "Very sorry about this. The publication process slowed down significantly in the past year. There is a hopeful development on this front, which is that the publishers are implementing a new system that should greatly speed up the process. We are hoping our current backlog will be cleared up pretty soon as a result."

If this is the journal the OP is having problems with, then they allow uploading preprints, as far as I can tell.

[Marcus Arvan]

ehz: problem solved, then. Sounds like the journal is working on it, and if they allow preprints to be posted, that's great!

[Tim]

From what I can tell, there are two issues here. One is: how long does it take for the publisher to get proofs? The second is: will the paper appear online first before an issue?

Some publishers, like Springer, get proofs to authors very quickly. And they also publish online first. So if the journal is published by Springer, then the time line between acceptances and online might be as short as two weeks. Other publishers do the same thing but are slower (e.g. Cambridge). Other journals might not publish online first and might not have a quick proof team. In those cases, you might have a to wait a long time. In fact, if the journal is behind--so that a paper accepted in 2021 will be issued in 2022--it might even be a year.