another reflection on Shaviro’s point

Following up on Steven Shaviro’s justified frustration with and disdain for long publication delays (mentioned a few posts below)… I’ve probably mentioned my own least favorite story of this sort, but it’s worth telling again for those who never heard it.

In 2002, I gave a conference paper. The occasion was a special panel devoted to a person who was then alive but is now deceased. It was immediately made clear to us that the panel papers would form the nucleus of an edited volume devoted to this person’s work. The usual sort of timetable was announced.

But then there seems to have been some sort of editorial politics. The upshot is that I was asking about this volume maybe twice per year, but there was never any sign that it was likely to be published. Finally, in 2009 (7 years after submitting the paper) I pulled out.

If I were doing it over again, I would probably say something like: “if it isn’t out within 18 months, I’m pulling out and publishing elsewhere.”

The problem is that when you’re young or in early career, as I was in 2002 (Tool-Being wasn’t even out yet at the time I gave that lecture) then publications are harder to come by, and you’re pretty much at the mercy of whatever editors and/or publishers decide to do.

But once you have 5 publications, 15 is easy. And once you have 15, then 50 isn’t that hard to reach– people start inviting you to publish. And hence it becomes much easier to resist absurd conditions.