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I got an e-mail this morning inviting me to submit papers to a journal. I looked at the website and found that the journal has no back issues. It would appear to be a brand new journal. Naturally, a brand new journal isn't all prestigious, so I have to wonder about publishing in it. But on the other hand, the journal has to start somewhere.

Should someone even consider publishing in such a place?

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    Related (duplicate?): academia.stackexchange.com/q/8915/102
    – user102
    Commented Jul 12, 2013 at 16:14
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    Only if you know for a fact that senior, very well regarded researchers in your field are on the editorial board and are pushing this journal. (Which is very unlikely to be true, unless the e-mail came from one of them.)
    – Anonymous
    Commented Jul 12, 2013 at 16:31
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    @CharlesMorisset, it seems different to me because in this case isn't obvious (at least to me) that its just spam.
    – Winston Ewert
    Commented Jul 12, 2013 at 16:44
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    I agree with @Anonymous. If you recognize and trust the editorial board, no problem; otherwise, it's best to assume the journal is a scam.
    – JeffE
    Commented Jul 12, 2013 at 21:30
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    I published my first paper in a rather new journal. The editorial board was full of famous names, it's an open access journal published by a very respectable agency, and for the first two years, publication costs were zero (most open access journals in my field do have publication costs). Downside, it took some years before it got indexed by sites like Scopus.
    – gerrit
    Commented Jul 15, 2013 at 10:56

1 Answer 1

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I get the same emails as well.

Things to consider when looking at a brand new journal:

  • As Anonymous, Charles and JeffE commented, make sure it is not a scam and that the editorial board are well respected (well-published) academics in your field.
  • Make absolutely certain that the journal caters to your exact research field - try and find, or ask, what their focus is.
  • Find out about costs if any.

If the journal is legitimate and relevant, then consider publishing a smaller paper first, publish your main papers in well established highly ranked and highly distributed journals (especially if you are starting out in academia).

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    Yes, especially if you are "new", you need to generate "status" for your papers and yourself, and brand-new journals will not achieve this. If you have a paper that is good-but-not-great, and if the editorial board is reputable, and if there's not some weird page-cost deal that they're not telling up front, you might consider sending it.
    – paul garrett
    Commented Jul 12, 2013 at 23:08
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    Also, when checking the editorial board, make sure that the prominent people listed as editors on the journal's web site have in fact agreed to be editors.
    – Andreas Blass
    Commented Dec 16, 2014 at 2:15

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