Abstract
The constraints determining successful publishing of a small academic journal by a society or research institution are different from those controlling the output of major publishers. For three years I edited ‘Journal of the Geological Society of Jamaica’. Based on this experience, my top five recommendations to new editors of such publications are that copy is all-important for any minor journal; submit more of your own papers if other authors are unreliable; brutally, I consider committees to be an irrelevance unless their remit is well-defined and promises positive inputs, that is, papers for publication; encourage new streams of copy; and make and hit your own deadlines.
