Free guides
The parts of publishing nobody teaches you
You learned to do the research. The rest, which journal, what editors screen for, how to answer a reviewer, you were expected to pick up on your own. These are that missing part, drawn from the pre-submission reviews we run across every field. Every one is free, and every one is yours to download.
Before you submit
The 42-point pre-submission checklist
The last pass before you submit: journal fit, reporting, authorship, ethics, data, references, figures and the files themselves. Every one of them a reason papers get desk-rejected before a human reads them.
Read or download →Choose the Right Journal
How to find where your paper actually belongs, before a scope rejection costs you a season.
Read or download →Vet the Journal
How to spot a predatory journal before it takes your paper, with a red-flag scorecard and a three-minute check.
Read or download →Use AI Without Getting Rejected
What journals actually require you to disclose about AI, where each one wants it written, and the one use that is prohibited outright.
Read or download →Beat Desk Rejection
The seven things an editor checks before a reviewer ever sees your paper, and how to fix each one first.
Read or download →Write a Cover Letter That Helps
What the editor reads in the first minute, and a one-page cover-letter skeleton you can fill in.
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After you submit
Answer Reviewer 2
How to write a response-to-reviewers letter that gets the paper accepted, with a point-by-point skeleton.
Read or download →When the Process Goes Wrong
An appeal and a complaint are different instruments with different addresses. What each may argue, how to raise a delay, and how to answer a citation request that is not about your science.
Read or download →Who Owns Your Paper
What the agreement actually takes, the rights you keep without asking, and the clause where your publisher and your funder tell you opposite things.
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Tools
Career and money
Where PhDs Actually Land
Fifteen paths, what each pays in year one, and what actually gates it. Two are closed by citizenship, one by your degree field, and the academic route costs a median of 13 publications first.
Read or download →Get Paid for Your Expertise
The outside work your institution already allows, the disclosure rule that makes it safe, and what it actually pays.
Read or download →What Publishing Actually Costs
Every price read off the publisher page that sets it, the four routes to paying less or nothing, and the waiver deadline two major publishers enforce without telling you.
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New ones land in the weekly email
One email a week on what changed in academic publishing and whether it matters for your paper, plus whichever of these I have rewritten. Every number links its source.