The Publishing Conundrums and some Surprising Fast Rewards

I have opted in the end for a more trade oriented journal as suggested by Mr. X, the editor of my previous try, and it seems that he was right. Lesson #1: do your homework before submitting!! but on the other hand, don't get me wrong the former journal was fitted like a glove, in terms of geographical and comparative scope of the work debated there. However, Lesson #2: The editor is ALWAYS right! so there is no point in being upset if your work doesn't make it..which brings me to Lesson #3: Search & you will find it. There are so many economic journals nowadays that if you indeed pursue a new endeavor, did something new or interesting, you will find THE ONE which is better suited for your work. However, keep in mind, the final lesson of this small publishing grievance article: "Small can be beautiful! (but especially a lot faster)" I have heard stuff like it takes 2-3 years to publish in second tier A journals, and from my experience even with lesser ranked journals in Economics it takes on average 12-15 months...so if you have the right stuff for the next AER or JEL issue, hold your breath and un-cross your fingers...it might take a while..
On the other hand, exceptions are always welcomed. And I have just benefited from one, which made me happy and quite optimistic that not the whole world functions in the same agnostic way.

The Never-ending game of polishing your paper

Today I stated to revise (again) my paper on R&D spillovers but as always, there is a trade off between how radical one want the revision to be and the available and desirable time to invest in it. I believe I made the right choice by moderating myself and all the "other" things can be addressed in future work rather than struggling and stressing over right now. Anyways, I manage to migrate the whole paper in TEX format after some time and it looks fairly good. Another thing that struck me was how much we change and evolve in a matter of months: you get excited about a topic, write something, get some presentations out, are close to publishing and then move on to a different topic; the distance starts to increase between your current interests and the paper; you submit it somewhere; more months pass by and you are almost finishing the other paper; pending on the name/status of the journal you've submitted your 1st piece, other months pass by, you get the second paper out and start presenting it; in the meanwhile you get the referee report and it asks you for some things; you have to dive back into the first one, although you may not want to, etc; do the required things, get back into those issues and things, etc. pretty strange duality, so more papers and different you have, the harder you're making it for yourself. The second funny thing is word/expression perishability in a matter of months I discovered that I could have formulated some things a whole lot better than I initially did.

First time - always special

I finally made today the big step of sending a paper for publication. Indeed, it is a big step, especially if one finds him/herself alone in this process, which is highly bureaucratic (at least from all the guidelines et al. - we still have to check that in practice -) and demanding. After revising your paper for a couple of good times and presenting it in various conferences, there is no way back. At least for me. I felt like I need to do it now. Especially, if one thinks about the lag between submission and actual publication. We are young...but maybe not that eager to wait. March the 7th, hopefully under a good sign. And a good journal (Research Policy) which has drawn me from the start and is exactly representative for this field.