1. Pick a publishing avenue

Publishing can be synonymous with academia and authoring studies in academic journals. While the academic publishing world is a foundation of evidence production, there are other ways you can share your work and still have an impact on health care.

It’s important to be realistic about how much time you and/or your team can devote to the publishing cycle. Contributing to professional newsletters or blog posts, for example, would require less time than a traditional journal article. Working with more relaxed formats might encourage you and your collaborators to take on something manageable first, giving you confidence and motivation to translate your project to a more formal publication in a relevant journal later.

2. Narrow down titles to publish with

When choosing a more informal route, connect with your colleagues and professional groups to see what newsletters or blogs are relevant to your project and popular amongst the audience you want to reach. Think about where you look to keep up with professional knowledge, within your field and in health care in general.

If selecting a more formal route, like an established academic journal, do some research to see what journals fit your project. JANE (Journal Author Name Estimator) is a helpful and free tool that will rank journal titles based on a search for an abstract you’ve written or keywords that describe your project. Try entering an abstract or keywords that describe a project into JANE. Journal titles will be presented and ranked based on your search criteria.

3. Review submission requirements and draft accordingly

Most publishers, from blogs to journals, have submission guidelines. Always check the publisher’s website to see how you must deliver your submission to them. You’ll find this information on the publication’s website under headings like “Information for Authors” or “Submission Guidelines”.

More informal avenues, like blogs, might not have strict guidelines. Often, these avenues will ask you to reach out by email with new content or ideas. Always ask for any guidelines or templates the publisher can provide to help you get your draft ready. Incorrectly formatted submissions often result in rejection, creating more work for you and your team. Draft your work with 2-3 titles in mind and make tweaks based on submission guidelines for each publisher you submit to.

4. Understand who will be able to read your work

Some publications, including blogs and newsletters, are only available to subscribers. When reviewing submission guidelines, look for any information about how your publication can be accessed by readers. If unclear, ask. It’s important to understand at the start how open you want your publication to be in case you need to get funding for publication fees.

Blogs and newsletters may not have fees but may require membership in a professional association. Journals may have the option to publish open access with author fees or publish behind a paywall without author fees.

If your publication with a journal is behind a paywall, consider the publisher’s openness to preprint servers. Make sure any agreements you sign with a publisher allow for a pre-publication copy of your article to be uploaded to a preprint server, especially if you don’t have funds to pay open access author fees. This will allow you to share the preprint more widely when the official, peer-reviewed version is behind a paywall.

In this example, the preprint was uploaded and made openly accessible through medRxiv with a unique DOI. After peer review, the final version was published in an official journal with another unique DOI.

5. Plan to promote your publication

Work with your collaborators to create a few relevant hashtags and short statements that describe your project. Use these hashtags and statements consistently. Search sharing platforms like Twitter for frequently used hashtags that are relevant to your publication.

Outline avenues to attract people to the final publication – organizational communication teams, professional associations, etc. Always use the same link to direct people to your work. If your article is assigned DOI link(s) use them to direct readers to both the preprint DOI and the official peer-reviewed DOI. Promoting the same access point(s) consistently will help to track readership and impact.

Ask the publisher for any supports they can provide to drive awareness to your work. Some journals will have an established Twitter hashtag, for example, that you can encourage your collaborators and colleagues to use when tweeting about your work.