Anthology editor guide

We have prepared this guide to provide you with the information you will need to best prepare your manuscript for submission to Nordicom, as well as preparing yourself for your role and responsibilities in the process of taking the manuscript from proposal to publication.

Please read through this guide in its entirety before you begin work on your project and keep it nearby as you proceed through the course of development. We are happy you have chosen to publish with us and look forward to working together.

Nordicom offers a complete in-house editorial team devoted to providing personalised and professional service and minimising the length of the publication process. One of our dedicated editors will be your direct contact during the writing and evaluation processes. Our manuscript editor will be your contact throughout the editorial stages, including technical editing, to ensure your manuscript complies with Nordicom’s guidelines, language editing, and final proofreading. Typesetting is also provided in-house, ensuring efficient treatment of corrections between proof stages. Our communications officer will assist with promotional activities and marketing and work to increase your readership. Finally, our managing editor will ensure smooth hand-offs throughout the publication process and will be available to answer any questions.

From proposal to publication and promotion

Below outlines what you can expect the publication process at Nordicom to look like, from when you propose your idea to the final publication and our efforts to promote it.

Nordicom retains the right to withdraw from the process at any point until the letter of agreement is signed. The agreement then allows withdrawal with two months’ notice from either party if the agreed upon schedule or commitments are not being followed.

Nordicom’s academic books are published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence.

Visit Creative Commons to learn more about the CC licence

Step one: Proposal

When you contact the editors at Nordicom about a book proposal, you will be sent a questionnaire to fill out, asking you to provide details about the proposed title, the objectives and topicality, your previous experience, and the approximate schedule you have in mind. It also raises the possibility of having the book peer reviewed.

Step two: Full synopsis

If Nordicom wishes to proceed with your proposal, you will be invited to submit a full synopsis. After a satisfying synopsis has been delivered, the editorial team will invite you for a discussion about both parties’ expectations and responsibilities. Among the topics discussed are the timeline, reviewing process, and whether there will be an open Call for contributions. Based on this and the information provided in the questionnaire, the editorial team decides whether Nordicom will proceed with the proposed project.

If a Call is to be issued, you will be provided with a Call for contributions template to fill out, which will then be published on Nordicom’s website and promoted.

Step three: Letter of agreement

If there is no open Call

If Nordicom decides to proceed with the proposed project, the managing editor will send you a letter of agreement to sign, which lays out your rights and responsibilities as editor, as well as Nordicom’s.

If there is an open Call

After abstracts or drafts have been received, you and your assigned editor at Nordicom will review them and discuss whether there is the potential for a high-quality publication. If so, and Nordicom decides to proceed with the proposed project, the managing editor will send you a letter of agreement to sign, which lays out your rights and responsibilities as editor, as well as Nordicom’s. You can then proceed to issue invitations for full manuscripts.

Step four: Development

After the agreement is signed follows the stage where the full manuscript is prepared. Although this is a period of less contact between you and Nordicom, we expect you to keep your editor at Nordicom informed about any substantial changes that may occur.

Distributing instructions to authors

All contributions accepted for publication must meet our final manuscript delivery requirements and adhere to our editorial policies, and we find it helpful to provide these at the beginning of the process, thus you should include the following links in the invitation for full manuscripts. These instructions include a checklist, which should be followed for the final (post-review) manuscript delivery to Nordicom. We also provide a manuscript template to assist in correctly formatting manuscripts. It is your responsibility as editor to provide these links to all authors and co-authors involved in the project:

We strongly encourage you to ensure that the provided guidelines are being followed from a very early stage of the process. Spending the last weeks before the delivery deadline correcting errors that could have easily been avoided is not recommended.

Including a preface, introduction, and conclusion

Anthologies must have a preface, introductory chapter, and concluding chapter written by the editors. The preface should include any funding information. The introduction should address the reasons behind the collection and some of the main conclusions, taking all included contributions into consideration. In other words, the introduction should sum up the collection in its entirety. Similar to the introduction, the concluding chapter is a good possibility to look ahead, more thoroughly discuss the book’s overall contribution, sum up overall conclusions, acknowledge limitations, and so forth.

The introduction and conclusion should receive the same amount of care and attention, if not more, that the other chapters. They provide not only an overview of the book (which likely makes them the most-read chapters) but they also give readers a preview of the quality of the rest of the book. Therefore, neither the introduction nor the conclusion should be quickly put together in the days before submission. The introductory and the concluding chapters are important – and should be developed in a process similar to that of other chapters.

Submitting full manuscripts for plagiarism check

All of Nordicom’s publications are submitted to Similarity Check – a Crossref service utilising iThenticate text comparison software. This is done before any review or peer-review process. We thereby ask that when you first receive full manuscripts from authors, you send them to Nordicom’s managing editor, who will submit them to the service and return them to you with the iThenticate reports.

Visit Crossref to learn more about Similarity Check

Step five: Review process

When you have addressed any potential issues raised by the similarity check, the book should be reviewed.

Nordicom requires that all peer-reviewed submissions undergo double-blind review by at least two expert scholars.

While we try our best to make the review process as quick and efficient as possible, we must allow for enough time in order to receive a thorough and professional evaluation.

Step six: Submission

After revisions have been made, the full submission should be sent to your editor at Nordicom.

The editor will review all contributions and provide comments on anything that needs to be addressed regarding the content and scientific integrity of the contributions.

Step seven: Final manuscript delivery

When all comments from the editor have been addressed, you will make the final manuscript delivery, and all contributions must meet our final manuscript delivery requirements outlined in the instructions for authors. The final manuscript delivery checklist at the end of this guide must be followed.

In order for us to efficiently and accurately process the manuscript and begin promotional planning in good time, all the requested information regarding author affiliations, contact information, promotional material, and so on, must be delivered and confirmed before the editorial process can commence.

Step eight: Editorial process

Upon acceptance of the contributions for publication, corresponding authors will be sent a publication agreement to sign.

The manuscript editor will be your main contact throughout the editorial process. Unless previously agreed otherwise, the manuscript editor will be in direct contact with the authors and will copy you on communications regarding the editorial process.

All stages of editing are tracked and saved, and before any editing commences, the original files submitted by the authors are preserved.

Language editing

The manuscript first goes through language editing. It is crucial that authors adhere to the final manuscript delivery checklist in the instructions for authors in order to gain the full benefit of the editing process. Therefore, we reserve the right to return for revision any manuscript that does not meet the requirements before language editing commences. After the language editing, authors will receive the manuscript back for a final review. This is the last opportunity for changes.

Proofs

After the final review, the chapters are typeset and proofs are sent to authors for approval. The purpose of the proof is to catch missed typos and potential errors introduced during typesetting. No other changes should be made. It is much more time consuming to make corrections at this stage, which is why it is important for authors to take the time needed during language editing while the manuscript is still in a Word document.

When chapters have been approved by the authors, the full book is compiled as a final proof and sent to you and the assigned editor at Nordicom for final approval. Again, only missed typos and potential errors introduced during typesetting should be changed at this point.

Step nine: Publication

Upon final approval, the PDF is made accessible, which means that metadata is entered in order to increase the visibility and findability, and the content is tagged in order to be accessible via screen-reader for people with visual or cognitive impairments. Alternative text descriptions are embedded for any figures, and tables are also tagged appropriately for screen-readers. Therefore, once the PDF has been submitted for publication, absolutely no further changes can be made.

The managing editor coordinates the publication on NordPub, the publication platform of the Nordic Council of Ministers. The book and each chapter will be assigned DOI numbers and will be available to read free of charge and without requirement of registration.

Final words

We are very happy that you have chosen to publish with Nordicom. While your contact with us will be most frequent after the final manuscript is delivered, we have wished to highlight that there are many different steps and we expect you to stay with us throughout the process – and we will stay with you. Should any questions or problems arise, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Sometimes, especially if a project has been delayed before it reaches us at Nordicom, authors may not respond in a timely manner. In these cases, it is your responsibility to track them down or give them a push. In some situations, you may have to approve their manuscript in their stead; they agree to this in the author’s letter of agreement, which is signed upon final manuscript delivery.

Providing a clear, consistent, and complete manuscript, author information, and supporting material to Nordicom will maximise the potential for a high-quality publication with a wide range of readership. Therefore, the following checklist must be followed upon final manuscript delivery so we can effectively and efficiently process the book.

The below checklist is also included in the Editor agreement you sign.

Final manuscript delivery checklist

General

All authors have been notified of the requirements in the instructions for authors. All contributions have been reviewed by the editors to ensure that these instructions have been followed.

Supporting material

A complete and final table of contents is provided. The order of the chapters is final and confirmed. The final and confirmed title of the book is included.

A synopsis of 200–250 words with the main research questions, methods and methodology, major findings, conclusions, and intended audience of the book is provided. Any funding information applicable to the book as a whole is included.

A minimum of five relevant and informative keywords or phrases for the whole book are provided.

All authors and co-authors have provided full affiliations (department, organisation, country), e-mail address, and ORCID iD.

Preferred initials are indicated for those with multiple names

All authors have provided answers to the three promotional questions included in the instructions for authors.

Content

Layout, length, and quality of individual chapters should be consistent (please discuss these decisions early on and notify your authors). For example:

Research questions or hypotheses are presented in a similar way for all chapters.
Discussions of methods and methodology are presented in a similar way for all chapters.
Presentation of empirical material, for example, interview quotes, are cited consistently.
If subtitles are used, they are used consistently for all chapters (i.e., either all chapters have subtitles, or none of them do)
If the headings “Introduction” and “Conclusion” are used, then all chapters should have them.
Appendices should only be used in specific situations where there are crucial for including important information that is vital to understanding the chapter. If they are used, they should be used consistently across all chapters.

Only two levels of headings are used; bold 14-point font for section headings and italic 14-point font for subsection headings. Headings are brief, clear, and descriptive.

A preface, written by the editors and including any funding information is provided.

An introductory chapter, following the author guidelines, has been written by the editors and is included with the other contributions.

A concluding chapter, following the author guidelines, has been written by the editors and is included with the other contributions.

After peer review, references involving the authors that were anonymised have been filled in.

Figures are sized appropriately and provided in editable format and in individual files clearly labelled with author name, chapter number, and figure number.

Tables are sized appropriately and follow Nordicom’s guidelines.

File submission

Each chapter is provided in a folder or e-mail clearly labelled with the chapter number and author name. This folder should contain all the relevant elements of that chapter, clearly labelled with author name and a description of what is in the file, including the following:

a file with the chapter text
an individual, separate file for each figure (in editable format)
separate files for additional material, such as supplementary material

Contact

Josefine Bové, managing editor: josefine.bove@nordicom.gu.se

Page last updated June 2023