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Those are the upsides of producing an edited volume but as you will no doubt have already guessed, for every positive there is a negative. Many publishers have a knee-jerk reaction to edited volumes for the very good reason that they have too often had their fingers burnt by hastily thrown together conference papers and poorly edited collections, the latter seen by some cynical and unscrupulous academics as a quick and easy way of getting into print without having to go through the rigors of the journal review process.

The number of journals in all subject areas has increased dramatically over the last 20 years. Though there are concerns in the humanities and social sciences as to whether the market can actually sustain so many, in the sciences they are big business and the crucial point as far as you are concerned is that they all need content. Preferably top quality, peerreviewed content, but they all need content. So in theory and indeed in practice, it should be relatively easy to get your article published.

With the end in sight, finally relieved, I called him. ‘Grant,’ I said, ‘I’ve got good news and bad news. The good news is the book’s done. ’ he asked. ‘Well,’ I said, ‘it’s now about 3,000 pages’. ‘I bet it’s great,’ Grant said. ‘I don’t know’, I admitted. ’ I did. Two weeks later he called back. ’ ‘Pretty great’, I replied. That conversation was in 1980. The books came out in 1982–3. My life was changed forever. I might say that when your work is good, publishing is not a problem. But there aren’t many Grant Barnes around any more, are there?