Each stage in academic publishing comes with its own challenges and can cost quite some time and effort.
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Choosing a B2B Partner in Science Publishing
As you may have noticed, the publishing process often calls for productive communication between its participants – authors, editorial board, typesetters, and publishers:
– after the manuscript is completed, the author submits it to the peer-review system where the editorial board either accepts or rejects the paper. During this stage, the author usually receives notes from the board for necessary adjustments.
– then comes the production stage where a paper undergoes a couple or all of the following processes: typesetting, copyediting, language editing, and artwork preparation. It’s a crucial link in the chain of publishing stages as the typesetter acts as a medium between the publisher and the author. They’re responsible for making sure the paper meets the journal’s requirements as well as keeping the author in the loop about the changes in their paper.
– lastly, the paper usually is uploaded to the hosting platform for a final publication.
Apart from the communication aspect, there’s also a technical factor that plays a significant role in the publishing process, that is, complying with specific text formatting standards.
For instance, when it comes to mathematical sciences, you’ll most certainly run into the LaTeX typesetting system. It’s a predominantly used document preparation system in the fields of physics, math, and computer science as the manuscripts in these disciplines require precise, consistent formatting of complex content structures and elements. For articles that have heavy mathematical content, the majority of authors use exclusively LaTeX when writing their works. It’s essential that your publishing partners know the ins-and-outs of this system and can help you properly prepare your journal for publication.
This is where publishers face a challenge: how to choose the right tools and professional assistance to meet the academic publishing requirements? What can a publisher expect when getting into partnership with professional companies specializing in science publishing?
Which Typesetting Services to Choose?
If the publisher doesn’t have the in-house resources for editing and typesetting their journals’ material, they’re usually left with the outsourcing option. However, it may get confusing when choosing from numerous different service providers, especially when the budget is tight. Although low prices of smaller editing companies may seem tempting, it’s always worth considering the best price-quality ratio when picking typesetting services. Low typesetting prices often indicate either insufficient experience of the typesetters, lack of Quality Control and management, or both.
Meanwhile, at a certain cost, professional companies can offer much more than basic editing and typesetting services as they have a dedicated team of certified experts who will help you take your articles to perfection. They can prepare a full-text XML conforming to a specific DTD, just metadata XML, or XML containing all the necessary elements of an article and supplementary materials. On top of that, you’ll often be offered additional language editing, artwork preparation, proofing, and other pre-publishing services either as part of the package or separately – adjusting to your individual needs.
This way, you can be sure that your document will be carefully prepared down to the last technical detail. Think of such companies as one-stop-shops that handle all necessary steps in each stage of the editing and publication process.
At the end of the day, everyone chooses their own partner in science publishing. However, it’s apparent that going for the freelancers’ services can often be hit-and-miss whereas professional companies will be happy to offer you the full package from a single, reliable source.
