Working with journals

Joe Winters,Senior Press Officer,Institute of Physics,Joseph.winters@iop.org+44 (0)20 7470 4815

14/05/12 – Science Communication Conference

IOP and IOP Publishing IOP, the charity (London) – approx. 70

staff

IOP Publishing, the commercial business (Bristol) -approx. 180 staff

Commercial relationship between the two – all profits go back to the charity

A community publisher

My mission is to promote physics (via policy, events, journals etc.) to the media

60 + journals – New Journal of Physics, Environmental Research Letters, Nanotechnology, Physics in Medicine and Biology, Journal of Neural Engineering etc.

Some partner journals (e.g. AAS’s Astrophysical Journal)

Range of titles, some not strictly physics – inter-disciplinary? All, however, for the good of physics as profit is reinvested in the charity.

Size/frequency of journal dictates no. of editorial staff

IOP Publishing

Examples of coverage

Generating content Honing publishers’ sense of what’s newsworthy

(research excellence/topicality/quirky/video content etc.)

Sometimes from author/editorial board; rarely other press offices

Approx. one in five submitted are press released

This can be up to two months before publication

Drafting press releases One full release for one journal paper. It’s not a digest.

First draft is in-house and often part of the decision process – until we know enough to write the release, we can’t tell how newsworthy a story is

First draft sent to authors and, often, press offices for approval

Await receipt of draft and agree publication date with *publishers*

Invariably within two weeks, often much quicker – depends on author response

Issuing press releases

• With publication date agreed, release is issued 2 or 3 days before publication with embargo in place until paper is published

• Direct relationships and news wires, AlphaGalileo and EurekAlert

• Invariably, most media interest comes the day before publication

• Gatekeeping, but only to a point…. If author requests help or if media demand is high, we help the author prioritise

We’re happy to share the process

We need to know that you want to be involved – know what’s being submitted to a journal and get in contact with us

Only issue we’ve had working with others is embargo breaks – we all need to stick to one set of rules (even if there’s offer of a front page splash)

We’re good at what we do so trust us and don’t worry about losing some of the glory

Thoughts on working with us

Issues I’m interested in discussing with you…….

Embargos

Additional material like videos

Pre-publication/ Arxiv and open access

Excellence vs. news worth?