Frequently Asked Questions
No, it adds 0 days to the publication process because it happens in parallel to peer review. So while your manuscript is sitting on the desk of a peer reviewer it can also be getting feedback from other people.
No. In fact, I think that not doing Open Review is scary. Every manuscript has errors and rough edges, and Open Review helps you find them before your book is set in stone.
No. We think Open Review will result in better manuscripts, higher sales, and increased access to knowledge. Publishers care about all of these things, just like authors.
No. We think that it will helps sales, but to be honest we don’t really know yet because no books have gone through the process and then gone into the market. The reason that it will help sales is that we collect valuable information during Open Review. One way to think about it is that by focusing on the review stage, the Open Review process minimizes concerns about online content cannibalizing sales because there is no book to sell at that point. The review stage is where the benefits of openness are maximized and the risks are minimized.
No. The way that I like to think about it is that Open Review manuscripts are free like Google is free. Notice that Google makes a lot of money being “free.” When you use Google search you are not paying Google, but you are giving them two valuable things: data and attention (which they sell to advertisers). Open Review is similar. Readers can access the manuscript and in exchange authors and publishers get valuable data and attention that can be used for marketing and sales. In some sense, Open Review websites are really just e-commerce sites.
Yes. I’m doing this with my own manuscript. You can read about what I’ve been learning on my blog or Twitter.
We don’t know. It depends a lot on your input format of your manuscript. We know that it works for manuscripts written in Markdown. In theory is should work for any of the languages that work with pandoc. If you are in a rush, we can recommend some web developers that you can hire.
Of course. You can hire anyone that you’d like. Also, we can recommend some web developers that we think will do a great job with your manuscript.
No. It is better to think of Open Review as a complement to traditional peer review rather than a substitute. Rather than having a small number of experts read an entire manuscript, the Open Review process involves a large number of people with different skills and interests engaging with smaller parts of the manuscript. The two processes result in very different types of feedback.
I think all manuscripts could benefit from Open Review, but I think the gains will be biggest for manuscripts that can generate a lot of participation.