Common Questions

Here are some frequently asked questions about Axios Review:

Q. Will you help me get my paper ready for submission to a journal?

A. Our service essentially is the first round of peer review, and your paper will have a rough time with the reviewers if it isn’t ready. We recommend that you ask your colleagues for comments before you submit to us, or send your paper to a service like Editage (Axios authors get a 10% discount on all Editage services by entering the code AXREV10 on the order page).

Q. Who do think is going to use your service?

A. Anyone who wants to minimize the risk associated with the review process, people frustrated with rejections based on scope or novelty, or anyone who wants to aim high but avoid a chain of rejections. Who specifically? Students who want thesis chapters published before they change labs and start new projects. PI’s who need to get papers into good journals before a grant deadline or departmental review, and cannot risk a long review process or multiple rejections. Postdocs juggling many projects who need to get publications without a lot of hassle

Q. I know where my work will get published, so why should I use Axios?

A. Most researchers are good judges of where their paper should go, but every submission risks being rejected. Our review service simultaneously evaluates the fit of your paper to an array of journals, allowing you to aim high with the top choice and play safe further down the list.

Q. My journals are not in your list of journals. Can I still use Axios Review?

A. We are happy to refer your paper to any journal that regularly carries research within our areas of expertise. If your target journal hasn’t received a previous referral from us, we’ll approach them while your paper is in review.

Q. What are Axios Review coupons?

A. We give our editors and reviewers an in kind payment for helping us, in the form of a discount for using our service. We give out hexadecimal coupon numbers to keep track of these. If you’ve got a coupon number, please provide it when you submit.

Q. Can I pay the fee from my grant?

A. Our fee ($250) should be an eligible expense as a ‘publication cost’, although most funding agencies leave it up to individual departments to decide. We recommend checking with your finance office.

Q. What happens if the reviewers ask for major revisions?

A. If the reviewers have identified a potentially serious problem, we ask the authors to revise their paper before we approach the target journal. If the editor is satisfied that the new version has addressed the problem, they will explicitly state this in the referral letter to the target journal. Alternatively, authors can decide to opt out of the referral stage and simply use our reviews to improve their paper before submitting directly to a journal.

Q. Will my paper go through review again at the journal?

A. Journals can choose to send the paper back out for review. They may use the same reviewers from the Axios round of review, or they may find new people. It’s also possible that they feel the paper has been successfully revised and can be accepted straight away - this happens for about half of the accepted papers. Overall, 85% of our referred papers get accepted at the first journal they go to.

Q. Why should I send my paper to you if it might go for review at the journal?

A. Some papers need two rounds of review; this could either be one round at Axios and one round at the journal, or two rounds at the journal. Top tier journals typically reject over 70% of their direct submissions. Having your first round of review with Axios means that you only submit to a journal that wants your paper, eliminating rejections on grounds of scope and cutting the chances of rejection on grounds of quality. We significantly increase the chances your paper will be accepted at one of the journals on your target list, and we achieve this in a single step.

Q. What if journals refuse the referral because I have a rival journal on my target list?

A. We only include comments related to the target journal in our referral, so they are unaware of other journals on your list.

Q. Can I submit to other places as well as Axios Review?

A. No - this would be akin to duplicate submission. However, once we’ve completed the review process, you’re free to submit the paper wherever you like.

Q. Will you be paying reviewers?

A. No. There’s a few good reasons for this. First, peer review is a quid pro quo service that academics provide each other, and the consensus is that financial incentives don’t help. Second, any money we pay reviewers will have to be added to the submission fee. If we gave each reviewer $100 for their comments, the fee would jump to at least $450. If the reviewer later decides to send their own paper to Axios, they’ll essentially return the $100 (plus $200 more) and we’d transfer it to their reviewers. This notional $100 would just go round and round the community, and the main beneficiary would be whoever collects the transaction fees.

Q. Do you pay your editors?

A. No - as with reviewers, our editors are ‘paid in kind’, in that they receive one free submission to Axios for every five papers they handle.

Q. How do I purchase the bulk coupons?

A. To purchase either a 5-pack ($1100) or a 10-pack ($2000) of Axios coupons, please email Tim to request an invoice. Each coupon covers a round of review at Axios, including assessment of any revision.

Q. Why are you charging for peer review?

A. You’re not actually paying us for peer review - as noted above, peer review is a quid pro quo service academics provide each other. Our role is peer review management, where we work full time to ensure peer review runs smoothly and everyone who wants to remains anonymous. All decent journals have editorial office staff who fill the same role, but their salary costs are wrapped into library subscriptions and open access fees. Since we don’t publish anything, we have to charge authors for our service at the ‘point of use’. In recognition of this, some journals (notably the BMC series) deduct our fee from their Open Access charges.

Q. Why are you a for-profit company?

A. We were, but no longer. In October 2016, we converted Axios into a British Columbia registered Non-Profit society. The press release we put out is here.

More questions? Call us on ++ 1 778 989 8755 between 10am and 11pm EST, or email us.
Axios Review is a registered BC non-profit, cert. no. S0065926