Publication Process Overview: Ecology, Ecological Applications, & Ecological Monographs

The outline below explains the production steps for publication of an accepted manuscript in ESA’s subscription journals. These steps are immutable. At each stage papers are handled in the order in which they reach the stage.

ESA partners with John Wiley & Sons for production and publication.

• Questions for processes handled by ESA may be directed to ESA’s production staff.
• Questions for processes handled by Wiley should be directed to Wiley, but only after the files are conveyed to them for handling. Please use the following journal-specific Wiley email address: Ecology, ECY@nullwiley.com; Ecological Applications, EAP@nullwiley.com; Ecological Monographs, ECM@nullwiley.com

For an outline of the steps at Ecosphere, please visit https://www.esa.org/publications/production-overview-ecs/

• ESA emails Subject-matter Editor’s acceptance letter to contact author
• ESA emails a publicity overview to the contact author
• ESA emails contact author requesting finalized material for the production and publication process, providing a checklist of final items for author review

• Author completes any data/code archiving necessary for ESA Open Research policy
• Author prepares final submission and provides final files and data/code archiving details to ESA in ScholarOne via “Manuscripts Accepted for First Look” step

• ESA checks final submission in ScholarOne for minimum production requirements
  • When approved, files are conveyed to the publisher (John Wiley & Sons) and the contact author is notified
  • If adjustments are needed, these are requested from the contact author, and this step may be repeated until meeting the minimum production requirements

• John Wiley & Sons (the publisher) receives the final materials from ESA and assigns a DOI to the paper
• John Wiley & Sons contacts the corresponding author with license agreement options

• Author completes a license agreement in Wiley Author Services
• Authors choosing Open Access can make payment arrangements with Wiley Author Services, with discount codes available to ESA members in the role of corresponding author; current discount codes are available to ESA members when logged into the membership portal on ESA.org
• Authors whose payments are covered through an institutional or funder agreement with John Wiley & Sons can complete those arrangements at this stage

• John Wiley & Sons arranges for and oversees copyediting of the main manuscript (Supporting Information is not copy edited nor typeset)
• John Wiley & Sons arranges for and oversees typesetting of the main manuscript in HTML and PDF formats in preparation for proofing and publication and provides proofs to authors

• Author reviews proofs in both HTML and PDF format via the publisher’s online proofing platform
• Author completes a final billing agreement (provided with proofs) if the paper is not published Open Access, naming a single billing contact to receive the invoice for any final charges due
• Author may complete the ESA Page Charge Grant application for ESA members, provided with page proofs, if needing to use that service

• John Wiley & Sons finalizes the paper following receipt of the author’s proof corrections
• John Wiley & Sons posts the Early View release (the fully edited, typeset, and corrected Version of Record prior to final issue placement)
• John Wiley & Sons issues the final invoice (if any) to the named billing contact via email (timing varies)

• ESA generates issue line-ups early- to mid-month in month prior to issue release
• ESA finalizes cover photo selections early- to mid-month in month prior to issue release, notifying the author selected for the cover

• John Wiley & Sons releases the finalized, completed issue (publication is online only)
• John Wiley & Sons continues to convey final invoices to named billing contact via email, if necessary (timing of billing in relation to Early View and issue releases varies)