How to be a great journal editor: advice from eight top academic editors

My experience has been that editing is far more rewarding than many other scholarly tasks. While comments from authors in the field have been gratifying about my efforts, 'official' recognition of the work involved has not been forthcoming. But also it is worth remembering there is a battle going on for academics to reclaim journal publishing from the big 5 profit-making corporations, in order to make it cheaper and Open Access - one publisher is in dispute with Projekt Deal in German universities right now. I am firmly on the side of the reclaimers of knowledge - and I would never relinquish a whole well respected journal, like Australian Studies, because it was setting a path that we all need to follow (despite the workload). We cannot rely on large profit-driven corporations to edit and publish for us anymore, which means allocating our time for the tasks required. I do so in spite of a 'workload model' that does not recognise it adequately. We need to self-organise, to re-tool our job expectations, to actually respond well to refereeing requests, to use digital technology, and take back publishing. See initiatives like radicalopenaccess for more info.