Production process

Below are the production steps that follow the acceptance of a manuscript for publication in Nature Mental Health. Key contact points for authors are marked with an asterisk (*).

1 – Preparation

Your manuscript and associated files are exported to our production system and assigned a Digital Object Identifier (DOI).

Your manuscript files are quality checked to ensure they meet the basic technical requirements for publication. We may contact you if there are issues preventing us processing your manuscript. Please follow our AIP and formatting guidelines and guidance from your manuscript’s handling editor – it will help ensure your manuscript passes smoothly through production.

Your manuscript text is converted into structured XML. Your images are resized and standard journal styles are applied to text and other graphic elements.

The structured text and prepared figures are copy edited by a subject specialist for clarity, readability, consistency, accuracy and adherence to journal style.

A draft pdf layout in the journal article template is prepared.

2 – License to Publish and Open Access payment*

You will now be contacted by our Author Service team who will help create the relevant license to publish for your article. For journals that allow publication using an Open Access License, you will be able to choose this option now and either pay an Article Publication Charge (APC) or instigate an eligibility check if you believe that your institute is covered under an existing transformative agreement. Please note, we cannot send out your manuscript proof until this stage is complete.

3 – Proofing*

We will send an electronic proof of your article to the corresponding author. This allows you to review your prepared manuscript and address any copy editing queries. Please make any corrections and respond to queries within the e.proof tool rather than marking up the PDF.

4 – Finalisation

Any e-proof amendments you have suggested will be reviewed by a copy editing specialist before implementation. A set of additional proof quality checks will also be performed and we will contact you if any further clarifications are required.

All content changes and final production quality checks are completed.

5 – Scheduling*

Your article is assigned a publication date and the Nature Press Office is notified so that they can include it in their list of forthcoming publications. Research articles are typically published AOP (Advance Online Publication) ahead of the journal issue, and you will be notified six calendar days before publication. For commissioned content, and any research articles that publish on the date the journal issue goes live, you will be notified 48 hours before publication.

6 - Publication

Your article is sent to our central data repository, which coordinates the final stages of publication.

Metadata feeds to third party repositories are completed.

Your article is published in Nature Mental Health.