What happens to submissions to a journal which publishes close, technically sophisticated analyses of interaction? What do its editors look for? why might it fail when others succeed? Those are questions that will interest readers of this volume, and that we shall try to answer as editors of a journal that publishes conversation-analytic and ethnomethodological (CA and EM) work. Research on Language and Social Interaction (ROLSI) is, of course, not the only journal to publish (broadly) CA and EM articles; however, it is one of the few that publishes nothing else. Our closest sister journals are Social Interaction: Video-based Studies of Human Sociality, Research on Children and Social Interaction, and Interactional Linguistics – a wonderful set of outlets which have grown up to serve the increasing appetite for EM/CA work. Our thoughts about submissions, as editors of ROLSI, probably match in many respects what our colleagues on those journals would say – all editors, of any journal, have similar managerial (and to some degree, intellectual) jobs to do. Experienced authors (some of whom have editorial experience themselves, and many of whom have been our reviewers) will recognize much of what we say, but nevertheless, it’s worth setting out our practices to throw some light into the odd murky corner, and to encourage authors – especially, new authors – to take the plunge and submit a paper. We’ll start at the unhappy first base – the immediate return with an apologetic ‘not for us’ – and work up to the submission’s triumphant revision and acceptance.