Total handling time and author ratings of journals: Evidence from an online review platform

Abstract The increasingly competitive research environment places growing time pressure on authors, making their submission experience a critical component of author evaluation and perceptions of journal reputation in scholarly publishing. This study examines the association between total handling time (THT) and author ratings of journals. Using 33,615 author‐reported records from LetPub, an online review platform, we link THT with overall evaluations to assess how processing time is reflected in satisfaction. The results show a stable negative association: longer THT is associated with lower author ratings after controlling for submission outcomes, journal characteristics, and reputation indicators. Robustness checks support this finding. Heterogeneity analyses indicate that time‐sensitive disciplines respond more strongly to long THT, while fields with slower review norms show greater tolerance. The negative association is stronger among journals with moderate reputation levels than among top‐tier journals, and is also more pronounced among lower‐frequency journals. These results suggest that public platforms capture authors' dissatisfaction with slow processing. The study provides new large‐scale evidence on the association between individual submission experiences and authors' evaluations of journals on public platforms.