The Encyclopedia of the Roman Army

[Kegluneq]

I think that the difficulty has always been that peer-review and editing are volunteer work, and sometimes people take on more than they can handle. All it takes is one late editor, or one serious disagreement about changes, to block a whole volume.

My difficulty lies in seeing how academic publishers think this is in any way ethical.

Having spent the past three years editing a volume of conference proceedings I'm inclined to agree, but at the same time our book (Jan 2014, preorder now) is hardly high-profile! Unfortunately, I think any kind of required monetary compensation would (greatly?) reduce the amount of academic work published, especially by first-time editors (as we are). It would also make finding proof-readers a lot harder, if they could prioritise work by higher-paying publishers.